Identifying Classroom Instability According to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
- Greg Mullen
- Dec 26, 2025
- 4 min read
Teachers are often asked how to improve instruction, raise achievement, or close learning gaps. Those questions matter—but they usually assume something quietly in the background: that students and schools have enough stability to focus on learning in the first place.
Many classrooms today tell a different story.
It is becoming increasingly common for teachers to spend their time responding to hunger, fatigue, anxiety, mobility, and emotional overwhelm. Attendance is inconsistent. Counseling caseloads are high. Instructional plans are interrupted by crises that feel less like exceptions and more like the daily rhythm of school. The result is that classrooms can begin to feel less like learning environments and more like triage centers.
Before asking how to teach better, it may be worth asking a simpler, shared question:
Which tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is most unstable in our community right now—and what higher-order goals are being delayed because of it?
This question is not about assigning blame. It's about diagnosing conditions.
Maslow as a Classroom Reality, Not a Poster
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is often introduced as a pyramid: once basic physical needs and psychological safety are met, learners can move upward toward needs of belonging, esteem, and eventually explore ideas of self-actualization.
In practice, teachers know it doesn’t work this simply, or linearly. Needs don’t arrive one at a time. They arrive all at once and compete for bandwidth. When basic needs are unstable, they automatically compete for priority.
Hunger, housing stress, safety concerns, mental health issues; none of these politely wait until after a student finishes their scheduled math or reading class. They crowd out attention, memory, emotional regulation, and persistence. This is not a matter of motivation or character flaw; it is how human brains respond to stress.
Seen this way, Maslow isn’t just about addressing the well-being of individual students. In this way, we are looking at whether the conditions surrounding the classroom make learning possible on a consistent basis.
(1) Physiological Needs: Food, Rest, Health
When this tier is unstable, possible classroom signals could include (not definitive indicators):
fatigue, irritability, or emotional shutdown
frequent nurse or bathroom visits
difficulty sustaining attention or regulating emotion
A classroom pattern teachers may recognize:
A segment of students struggles most leading up to lunch, with visible improvement after lunch.
These signals or patterns could also reflect:
sleep routines,
medication changes,
developmental regulation,
classroom environment factors.
Reflective question: When and for whom do these signals/patterns occur most consistently?
(2) Safety: Stability and Predictability
When this tier is unstable, possible classroom signals could include (not definitive indicators):
hesitation to engage in learning
repeated academic restarts
difficulty sustaining routines or long-term projects
A classroom pattern teachers may recognize:
Multiple students constantly re-start learning mid-unit, requiring constant re-teaching and affecting whole-class pacing.
These signals or patterns could also reflect:
curriculum design,
instructional transitions,
assessment alignment,
executive function development.
Reflective question: Which classroom routines, timelines, or expectations quietly assume stability that not all students currently have?
(3) Belonging: Relationships and Trust
When this tier is unstable, possible classroom signals could include (not definitive indicators):
withdrawal or boundary-testing
uneven family communication
A classroom pattern teachers may recognize:
Students participate more in structured tasks than in open discussion or collaboration.
These signals or patterns could also reflect:
introversion,
language acquisition,
prior classroom experiences,
group dynamics.
Reflective question: Where might predictability and relational safety matter more than participation style in learning activities?
(4) Esteem: Recognition and Contribution
When this tier is unstable, possible classroom signals could include (not definitive indicators):
reluctance to attempt tasks
resistance to feedback
A classroom pattern teachers may recognize:
Students complete work but avoid revision, reflection, or public sharing.
These signals or patterns could also reflect:
perfectionism,
prior grading experiences,
assessment clarity,
task design.
Reflective question: What messages do students receive about effort, progress, and worth beyond their work output or achievement?
(5) Self-Actualization: Learning, Creativity, Purpose
This is where many schools want to live: rich discussions, creativity, critical thinking, student ownership.
But this tier depends on the stability of all the others.
Question for teachers: What kinds of learning do we want more of? And what conditions would need to be more stable for that to happen?"
Why This Is Not Just a Classroom Problem
Teachers often compensate heroically for unmet needs. They adjust lessons, offer flexibility, provide emotional support, and hold their classrooms together on shoestring resources. But no amount of instructional skill can fully offset instability that originates outside the school.
When unmet needs are widespread, schools absorb the pressure and that pressure limits what teaching can reasonably accomplish.
This is not a failure of effort. It is a question of capacity.
A Reframing Worth Discussing
Instead of asking:
Why aren’t students meeting expectations?
Why isn’t this intervention working?
We might ask:
Which needs are most unstable right now?
What is that instability costing us instructionally?
What support would need to exist beyond the classroom for learning to take hold?
Seen this way, “Maslow before Bloom” is not an excuse and far more than a catchy slogan. It is a reminder that learning depends on conditions, and conditions are often shared beyond any one individual or family.
An Invitation to Conversation
This article is not a call for teachers to solve social problems. It is an invitation to name what teachers already see and to focus conversations around a common language to talk about collective solutions.
A possible starting point for discussion might be:
Which Maslow tier feels most unstable for the majority of our students this year?
How does that instability show up during classroom learning time?
What supports help? And where might we be compensating for gaps that actually extend beyond the classroom?
Naming these patterns doesn’t lower expectations. It clarifies what those expectations require. Sometimes, the most professional thing a school's staff can do is not lower the bar but to ask whether the ground beneath the existing bar is steady.
Greg Mullen
December 26, 2025
