WHAT IS LEARNING THROUGH UNFOLDMENT OR SELF-ACTUALIZATION?

 (from Bigge and Shermis, 1999 p.32-32) 

1.We come now to the second major position to be treated in this chapter, often called "learning through unfoldment." This outlook on the nature of learning stems logically from 

• the theory that people are naturally good and at the same time active in relation to their environments.

• All people are assumed to be free, autonomous, and forwardly active persons who are reaching out from themselves to make their worlds.

• Unless and until they are corrupted by some outside influences, every act that comes from them will be good.

• Each student is subjectively free, and each student's own choice and responsibility account for his or her life. That person, and that person alone, is the architect and builder of that life.

2. Early development of this point of view usually is associated with Jean J. Rousseau (1712-1778). Later, the Swiss educational reformer Heinrich Pestalozzi (174~1827) and the German philosopher, educator, and founder of the kindergarten movement Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852), to a large degree used this outlook as a basis for their pedagogical thinking. The overall philosophical framework of the natural unfoldment position often has been labeled romantic naturalism. 

(A current position that implies that human beings are basically good and active is existentialist humanism. This position contrasts with both classical humanism, within which people are considered neutral and active, and scientific humanism, within which they are considered neutral and interactive. Recent exponents of existentialist humanism include Abraham Maslow, Paul Goodman, and John Holt.)

3. Rousseau's position was that everything in nature is basically good.

• Since human hereditary nature is good, it need only be permitted to develop in a natural environment free from corruption.

4. Rousseau qualified his interpretation of human nature as an active, self-directing agent by conceding that a bad social environment could make bad human beings; for him social institutions were not natural. Thus, his rejection of environmentalism was not complete. However, his emphasis was on natural, active self-determination. 

5. Rousseau urged teachers to permit students to live close to nature so that they might indulge freely in their natural impulses, instincts, and feelings. 

• He emphasized that in rural areas children need practically no schooling or tutoring. An example that he gave related to the learning of speech.

•   A country boy, he said, ordinarily did not need instruction in speech. He called to his parents and playmates from considerable distances and thus practiced making himself heard; consequently, without tutoring, he developed an adequate power of speech.

•   It was only the city boy, growing up in close quarters with no opportunity to exercise his voice in a natural way, who had need for speech instruction.

Thus, Rousseau recommended that in teaching city boys, teachers should, insofar as possible, adopt the method through which country boys learn.           

6. Within current existentialist humanism, 

• the essence of a human being lies within that person's conscious self;

•   each person alone is deemed sufficient for every situation.

•   One's free-flowing emotional feelings, not one's intellectual thoughts, are taken to be the final authority for truth.

•   Hence, a person arrives at decisions on all issues in accordance with the way that person feels and is completely confident of being right.

 7. Since, according to the good-active interpretation of human nature, children grow up unfolding what nature has enfolded within them, devotees of this position tend to place great emphasis on the study of child growth and development and to minimize the study of learning. When they allude to learning, they seem to assume or imply that it, too, is little more than a process of growth and development in accordance with the genetic patterns of individuals. 

8. Learning, in the traditional sense, generally is conceived to be some form of imposition of ideas or standards upon a person or organism. However, within existentialist humanism there is little need for this kind of learning. Instead, a student is expected 

• to learn through the promptings of one's own interests. Hence, there should be no coercion or prescription.

•   A mind, in its growth process, may be considered analogous to an egg in the process of hatching. Its growth is a natural operation, which, without imposition from any outside source, carries its own momentum.

9. As existentialist humanists view matters, the learning process runs counter to conventional orthodoxies and dogmas. Accordingly, their approach to learning contradicts most of the elements of conventional schools. Since existentialist humanists want learning to center on feelings, they express their feelings freely, thereby living their way into learning. Since existentialist humanists depreciate the value of learning as such they give a prominent place to the concept of needs, which they consider to be person-centered, as contrasted with needs being either environment- or situation-centered. As an organism or mind naturally unfolds through a series of stages, each stage is assumed to have its unique needs.

From The Perspective of The Art Teacher

The instructor begins by allowing the student to explore, experiment, and discover the potentials of a given media through his own interests. In doing this, he is allowing the student to use his own interests, natural impulses, feelings, and experiences, to develop his understanding of the media as a whole. This theory of learning is known as the theory of "natural unfoldment". It has been in use since before the turn of the century and still holds great influence in our schools today. The main idea of the theory is to allow the students to get as close to nature as possible so that he could develop natural impulses, instincts, etc. The student learns from the motivation of his own interests, and his needs are met through natural unfoldment.2
In the art curriculum, the teacher should let the students work at their own pace and level of interest. "The needs of children and the natural modes of their art suggest a technique for the construction of an educationally valid art curriculum."3
During the stage of natural unfoldment, the student develops an awareness of his environment and himself as an individual. For example, in the process of exploring and experimenting in watercolor, the student expresses himself freely through the development of his techniques. At first, the child works naturally by mixing watercolors with water and applying the pigments on paper with a brush. He then discovers techniques and begins associating them with subject matter. The subject matter is then developed further into visual form. The experiencing of this natural impulse develops not only sensitivities but an awareness of the art form as a whole. 4 This is known as the "Gestalt theory" of learning which is concerned with the insight of structuring forms as a whole. The student organizes his experiences and integrates what he sees to form some type of meaning or configuration.

From http://www.glassboro.k12.nj.us/Intermediate/ARTDEPT.html

An Educational Philosophy Based on Natural Unfoldment