WILLIAM GLASSER - Choice Theory and Reality Therapy
William Glasser described in his theory that humans are drived by five basic needs, which influence their behaviour.
1. Survival, safety and security
This need includes health, shelter, warmth, food, water as well as a sense of personal security and safety. If students are fearful in the classroom and a sense of emotional security is at risk, their ability to learn effectively is impeded.
2. Love and belonging
This need recognises the the importance to love and be love. We need to belong and be accepted by others as significant and important.
3. Power or recognition
Power and recognition is the need to know that in some way we are important, accepted, capable and able to achieve. We all need sufficient power to regulate our lives.
4. Freedom
This is the ability to do what we want, to have free choice. It is connected with procedural justice where we seek fair play.
5. Fun
Children are driven by the need for fun, and a relationship exists between learning and our genetic need for fun.
CHOICE THEORY
Choice Theory posits the existence of a "Quality World" in which, starting at birth and continuing throughout our lives, we place those things that we highly value: primarily the people who are important to us, things we prize, and systems of belief, i.e. religion, cultural values and icons, etc. Glasser also posits a "Comparing Place" in which we compare the world we experience with our Quality World. We behave to achieve as best we can a real world experience consonant with our Quality World.
It states that all we do is behave, that almost all behavior is chosen, and that we are driven by our genes to satisfy five basic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun.
The Ten Axioms of Choice Theory
1. The only person whose behavior we can control is our own.
2. All we can give another person is information.
3. All long-lasting psychological problems are relationship problems.
4. The problem relationship is always part of our present life.
5. What happened in the past has everything to do with what we are today, but we can only satisfy our basic needs right now and plan to continue satisfying them in the future.
6. We can only satisfy our needs by satisfying the pictures in our Quality World.
7. All we do is behave.
8. All behavior is Total Behavior and is made up of four components: acting, thinking, feeling and physiology.
9. All Total Behavior is chosen, but we only have direct control over the acting and thinking components. We can only control our feeling and physiology indirectly through how we choose to act and think.
10. All Total Behavior is designated by verbs and named by the part that is the most recognizable.
http://www.choicetheory.com/
REALITY THERAPY
The Reality Therapy approach to counselling and problem-solving focuses on the here-and-now of the client and how to create a better future, instead of concentrating at length on the past. It emphasizes making decisions, and taking action and control of one's own life. Typically, clients seek to discover what they really want and whether what they are currently doing (how they are choosing to behave) is actually bringing them nearer to, or further away from, that goal.
Since unsatisfactory or non-existent connections with people we need are the source of almost all human problems, the goal of Reality Therapy is to help people reconnect. This reconnection almost always starts with the counselor/teacher first connecting with the individual and then using this connection as a model for how the disconnected person can begin to connect with the people he or she needs.
CRITICAL REFLECTION
The most important concept identified by Glasser is the idea that the only behaviour we can control is our own. Essentially what drives our behavior are internally developed notions of what is most important and satisfying to us. In the classroom environment, the teacher must work towards satisfying the five basic needs of the students as identified by Glasser, in order to manage student behaviour. The idea that all behaviour is purposeful, and that a student is behaving in a way to satisfy a fundamental need, I've realised how important it is as the teacher to be able to interpret such behaviour. Because the only behaviour you can control is your own, as the teacher I need to focus on myself and the relationship I have with my students, as well as the support being offered to enable quality outcome. Central to Glasser's philosophy is the establihsment of relationships with students as a first step towards satisifying fundamental needs, and I agree with this wholeheartedly. If you have a positive relationship with a student, not only will their behaviour be easier to manage, but ultimate performance from the student will be much easier to achieve.
No comments:
Post a Comment