Wyprawa na Górę Maslowa : rozważania o procesie wychowania

Abstract

The present book entitled The Expedition to Maslow’s Mountain is a proposal for a reflection on upbringing theory. In the intention of the author, the foundation of the vision of upbringing presented in the monograph is personalism, i.e. the understanding of human being as a person who develops by acting through truth, goodness and beauty. Nevertheless, the axis of the narrative is the self-actualization as introduced by Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs, allegorically imagined as a mountain – “Maslow’s Mountain”. The metaphor of the “Maslow’s Mountain” allowed the author to outline the differences in anthropocentric and axiocentric perception of the phenomenon of upbringing. Both of these ways of thinking, present in the educators involved, are mistakenly considered to be equally attractive and often the same, which affects the practice of upbringing. In order to outline the differences, an analysis of texts presenting both perceptions has been used. We will find here references to the works of Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers or Charlotte Buchler, as well as Karol Wojtyła, Victor Frankl, Alan Bloom or William Killpatrick. Humanists, thanks to their different view of man (the opposite of the one exposed in e.g. psychoanalysis and behaviouralism), evoked such categories as identity, crossing the “ego”, autonomy, love, creativity, responsibility, spiritual values. Personalism and existentialism also indicate the uniqueness of the human individual, the need to explore his or her worldview and further develop his or her personality, referring to humanistic categories: autonomy, identity and self-fulfilment. However, these concepts are not always understood as identical. And a different interpretation of the mentioned notions has at the same time different pedagogical implications, thus creating a different foundation for the pedagogy created on its basis. In turn, all the exemplifications of differences resulting from the adopted perspective and relevant to the course of the upbringing process – presented in the publication – come from a study of biographies of well-known people whose lives have been verified in some way through multilateral insight. These characters include Charlotte Bronte, Edith Stein, Alan Alexander Milne, Jean Vanier and Stacey Bess. The study of life in its nature reveals certain conditions or regularities, which at the same time are an example of educational and self-educational necessities. The book consists of an introduction, nine chapters and a conclusion, with the following titles: Reflection for a start, about the genesis of the Maslow’s Mountain metaphor; Reasons for reluctance to reach peaks; Self-actualization in the prism of biography; Between being and duty, reflection on self-actualization; Meaning of upbringing to effort for the process of self-actualization; Love and self-realization; Teacher and upbringing in the perspective of pedagogical culture; Working on oneself as a way to self-realization; Place of upbringing and journey to the Mountain. In the course of the narrative, the author constructs the thesis that it is difficult for a person to make exorbitant demands on himself and considers their causes in the context of selected literature. The concept of self-actualization in the prism of selected biographies is then analysed. Particularly important in the course of the analysis is the definition of differences in the understanding of the category of “being more” in two approaches: Abraham Maslow’s and Karol Wojtyła’s. The distinction of understandings is important to indicate differentia specifica of the anthropocentric and axiocentric perspective. In the following chapters, from the point of view of the previously mentioned differences, the author attempts to outline the significance in the process of upbringing of such phenomena as educational awareness, love in the relationship between the educator and the pupil, will and work on oneself as a way to self-realization, place as a space for upbringing. In conclusion, the author shows that a person undertaking climbing the Mountain exceeds his or her abilities by opening up to the perspective of values, which at the same time opens up the person to meaning. Going beyond oneself makes man more and more what she/he can become. The book is an example of value-oriented pedagogy – pedagogy based on the support and empowerment of young people. The considerations in the following chapters can be a source of reflection on the contemporary upbringing process. The attempt to engage in dialogue with the reader in the course of the narrative makes it necessary for the reader to formulate the final answers himself.