I have referred to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for as long as I can remember. I learned about it as a way of looking at the complete physical, emotional, social, and intellectual qualities of an individual. It seemed obvious that this could be applied to education so I shared it during speeches, online, and in coaching. I never thought of where and how it came to be. I look back now and wish I had the curiosity and skepticism I have now and had done my research.
When I shared his hierarchy during a Twitter chat, my friend Ken Shelton @k_shelton sent me a direct message asking me if I had done any research on Maslow’s Hierarchy. I asked him back “why?” He sent me this link http://bit.ly/maslow-blackfoot-connection that I shortened for you. I added other research I found at the bottom of this post.
The article Maslow’s Hierarchy Connected to Blackfoot’s Beliefs by Karen Lincoln Michel in 2014 opened my eyes and reinforced some of my own thinking about what motivates people. So a little history of Abraham Maslow as one of the founders of humanistic psychology is that “he generously borrowed from the Blackfoot people to refine his motivational theory on the hierarchy of needs.”
Maslow’s Motivation Theory
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” in Psychological Review. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans’ innate curiosity. Let me review with you what Maslow’s theory suggests. He illustrates that people are motivated by fulfilling basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothing first which is at the bottom of the triangle. As you move up the triangle, the next need is safety and security, then love and intimacy, then self-esteem, and then at the top: self-actualization. This highest level is where people are self-aware and achieve their fullest potential.
“It is quite true that man lives by bread alone — when there is no bread. But what happens to man’s desires when there is plenty of bread and when his belly is chronically filled?
At once other (and “higher”) needs emerge and these, rather than physiological hungers, dominate the organism. And when these in turn are satisfied, again new (and still “higher”) needs emerge and so on. This is what we mean by saying that the basic human needs are organized into a hierarchy of relative prepotency.” (Maslow, 1943, p. 375).
In reading several reviews of the theory, there were critical evaluations of his findings. Maslow used limited samplings of self-actualized people including biographies and writings of 18 people he identified as being self-actualized. He used personal opinion which is prone to bias and reduces the validity of the data obtained. But that didn’t seem to matter to educators. If you do a search on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you will see this 5 level version. There is a seven-stage and then an eight-stage model later developed during the 1960s and 1970s. [Source: Simply Psychology 2018]
Blackfoot Nation’s tipi
Abraham Maslow visited the Blackfoot nation in Alberta, Canada in 1938. There is evidence of his work there with a link to an archival photo that places Maslow on the Blackfoot reserve at that time, and a link to more information on the Blackfoot people’s influence on Maslow. Karen Michel interviewed Dr. Cindy Blackstock who is executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada about Maslow’s connection to the Blackfoot Nation.
The Blackfoot belief is not a triangle. It is a tipi where they believe tipis reach to the sky.
Self-actualization is at the base of the tipi, not at the top and is the foundation on which community actualization is built. The highest form that a Blackfoot can attain is called “cultural perpetuity.”
Blackstock shared in her research, the breath of life theory that was interpreted by Native American child welfare expert Terry Cross in the relational worldview model (Cross, 1997; Cross, 2007). The principles are categorized into four domains (cognitive, physical, spiritual, and emotional) of personal and collective well-being:
Blackstock explained cultural perpetuity as something her Gitksan people call “the breath of life.” It’s an understanding that you will be forgotten, but you have a part in ensuring that your people’s important teachings live on.
Blackstock referred to research by Ryan Heavy Head and Red Crow Community College on the Blackfoot approach to science was funded in 2005 through a SSHRC Aboriginal Research Grant that he shared in a post in 2007, How First Nations Helped Develop a Keystone of Modern Psychology.
“Blackfoot people have their own systems for developing new knowledge in traditional ways,” says Ryan Heavy Head, one of the researchers at Red Crow. “It’s less focused on categories and more interested in how things come together.”
As illustrated in Blackstock’s diagram below, self-actualization was on the bottom, as the starting point. The self was only the beginning for the Blackfoot, who placed community actualization and cultural continuity above the individual. Maslow’s western lens flipped it around to prioritize the individual. [Source: Johnson, S. 2018]
The image used in the graphic above shows basic differences between Western and First Nations perspectives, as presented by University of Alberta professor Dr. Cindy Blackstock at the 2014 conference of the National Indian Child Welfare Association.
References
Blackstock, C. (2011) The Emergence of the Breath of Life Theory. Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics, Volume 8, Number 1 (2011) Copyright 2011, White Hat Communications
Heavy Head, R. (2007) How First Nations Helped Develop a Keystone of Modern Psychology. Social Science and Humanities Research Council. Online 3-10-18.
Johnson, S. A. (2018) The Blackfoot-Maslow Connection. Online. 3-9-19
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-96.
McLeod, S. (2018). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Online. 3-10-19. Simply Psychology.
Michel, K.L. (2014) Maslow’s Hierarchy Connected to Blackfoot Beliefs. Online 3-10-19
I did my undergrad, and I still didn’t know what I was going to do. I decided I wanted to be an FBI Agent so I went back to follow that process. They told me it would take a couple of years and that I should do something in the meantime just in case I didn’t make it. So I went to grad school and decided to volunteer at an elementary school starting at 4 hours a week, then 4 hours a day to eventually working full-time. They needed help and I wanted to help. I had the time to do it plus the more I did there, the more I liked it.
My first teaching job was as a bilingual teacher in the Milwaukee Public Schools. I was blessed because there were people who saw potential in me and encouraged me to go back to grad school in an Education Leadership program. Then I spent four years in the classroom and then at the age of 26, I became a principal after being in 3 districts, Milwaukee PS (3 years), Iowa City School District (5 years), and then, in 2002, took the job as principal of Bettendorf High School in Iowa for 14 years, 22 years all together.
Jimmy Casas served twenty-two years as a school leader, including fourteen years as Principal at Bettendorf High School. 
Julia E. Torres is a Language Arts teacher at a public high school in Denver, Colorado. She finds humor in everyday moments with her family, friends, and students she teaches. Julia’s favorite genres to read are biographies, historical fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. Julia has had the great privilege of traveling to Mexico, Canada, Iceland, Bermuda, Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, and Costa Rica. She lived in Brazil as a teenager and continues to be close to her adopted family and friends who live there.
We found in our research 
Hans Appel has been a Counselor in the Richland School District, for the past 17+ years and at Enterprise Middle School since it opened in 2005. He’s passionate about school culture, servant leadership, and kindness. In 2018, EMS was awarded the ASCD Whole Child Award for the State of Washington, for creating a culture of excellence through kindness, service, and empathy. 
Bethany Hill serves as Lead Learner, Chief Energy Officer, and Chief Storyteller of Central Elementary (@CentralCabotpK4) in Cabot, Arkansas. She has been in education for 19 years in the roles of kindergarten, first, second, and third-grade classroom teacher, curriculum coach, assistant principal, and principal.
Don Wettrick is the Innovation Coordinator at Noblesville High School, and is the author of “Pure Genius: Building a Culture of Innovation and Taking 20% Time to the Next Level.” Wettrick has worked as a middle school and high school teacher; educational and innovation consultant; CEO, and podcast host. He is also the founder of StartEdUp, an organization dedicated to helping transform the school culture toward innovation and enable student-led entrepreneurship.
Dean wrote “Embracing a Culture of Joy” and a new book with Scott McLeod, “Different Schools for a Different World.” I’ve been lucky to attend several of his keynotes and am honored to have a conversation about culture, joy, and so much more. Dean mentions no selfies but I’ve had a few with him so I had to include one. We didn’t talk about why he loves to take pictures of people jumping but I had to add a picture of Dean jumping. Below are a few excerpts from the podcast, some of his presentations, and about his books.
I always share my family in my presentations. It is controversial about how much to share about your personal life. I’ve always focused on the idea that you learn from people you like and there has to be some kind of connection so you can relate to them. So I hope that sharing my story helps connect to some of their own experiences. We live in the middle of Canada. My wife is an educator also and we have four wonderful children, three of whom are married. My youngest is in her first year of post-secondary school. Most exciting of all is that we are grandparents for the first time last October. Everything I talk about now is about my granddaughter who is just a real joy and delight.
That was a nice opportunity for me in 2011 and was asked if I would like to do this. Discovery had been developing a community for many years in the US and had a presence in Canada, but it was more of a third party presence. They were just reselling their products to the school districts. In fact, in my role as Digital Learning Consultant, I helped bring Discovery to our school district. But they really wanted to get the community idea rolling so people are feeling connected. I first took a leave of absence from my district, but after two years I continued as Community Manager. It is a fabulous role. The work we do is so rewarding, interesting, challenging, and I work with such good people. It’s a move I never regret doing really important work.
Dean Shareski is the Community Manager for Discovery Education Canada since 2012. From 2002-2012, he worked as a Digital Learning Consultant with the 
