What are The Human Givens?
Click here to watch a video by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell explaining the human givens approach.
Good teachers enter each pupil's world to discover what they already know, then find ways to connect up new knowledge and/or skills to what already exists in the pupil's mind, thus expanding the learners model of reality. In other words, what is already in them has to be drawn out and extended.
It is through this subtle attention exchange process, which is different from training and conditioning, that a child's mind is best prepared for the world.
If real teaching is to take place the method cannot be bypassed. All children have an innate need to be stretched and connected up to more of reality. It is a psychological law of nature. Consequently we can say that, whenever teachers are having difficulties in schools, it invariably comes down to the fact that they are not working with, or being allowed to work with, that fundamental truth.
Tteacher/child, counsellor/patient — find it harder to function if their spare capacity is absorbed because their needs are not being met outside the school or therapy situation. That always has to be addressed when people show problem behaviour.
That's why, when factors in children's home environment are preventing them developing well (perhaps by not being mentally and physically healthily stretched, or by having their attention mechanism damaged by watching too much TV*, endlessly playing computer games, or experiencing emotional or physical violence in the home etc.) they will need additional psychological help.
Human Givens for Autistic Children:
Angela Austin describes how the human givens approach has informed her work to create an emotionally safe environment where children with autism can learn.
ANGELA AUSTIN is the first headteacher of HIllingdon Manor School, a school for children with autism and Asperger's syndrome. Angela has worked in special education needs for over 20 years. She was deputy head of a school for children with dyslexia, head of a language unit, and curriculum manager in a residential school for children with autism and Asperger's syndrome.