Maslow before Bloom

One  of my favorite things to say when I'm teaching is "You have to do the Maslow stuff before you do the Bloom's stuff."

In case you didn't study psychology or ed psych, Maslow was a researcher who created a pyramid called the hierarchy of needs. Essentially, you have to meet your needs for survival, safety, and belonging before you can meet your needs for growth and self actualization. 

Bloom was an educational theorist, who developed a taxonomy of educational objectives. Knowledge came before understanding  came before synthesis and evaluation.

So when I say you have to do the Maslow stuff before you do the Bloom's stuff, I'm saying that you have to make sure kids' basic needs - physical, emotional, and psychological - are being met before you  can expect them to meet higher order learning objectives. 

I kind of forgot that the same thing applies to me. 

I have been trying to figure out what to do with my life. I have been DESPAIRING of the fact that I can't find higher meaning and purpose in my life. And every day I've been writing the worst crap in the world in my journal about how I feel afraid and angry and alone, repeat, repeat, repeat.

I'm never going to reach self actualization without dealing with that stuff first

I don't know what that means yet, but I know that keeping it in mind and allowing and accepting it is the only place to begin.

I have to meet my Maslow needs first. And that's okay.