Students in Year 9 have been exploring the unit - Human’s Basic Needs.

This unit serves as a precursor to the subsequent unit around Transactional Analysis (TA) - a theory developed by Eric Berne about how we communicate and interact with each other, forming one of the central underpinnings of the 5+1 Model at ICHK.

By understanding what drives our behaviours that derive from needs, students are better equipped to draw on the appropriate technologies to steer them towards the good life, or in HT terms, drawing closer to Self 2.

This unit prompted students to consider the fundamental requirements for survival amongst living organisms. They identified that biophysical needs e.g. water, energy, oxygen, and reproduction etc. are essential for existence. Yet, as students delved deeper, they recognized that humans, as complex creatures with their sophisticated prefrontal cortex, demand more than just survival. Meeting only these basic needs, we concluded, would make life rather perfunctory, if not profoundly unfulfilling. This understanding gave rise to the exploration of the escalating complexity of human needs as cognitive and social capacities increase.

The students categorised human needs into three types: biological (like food and sleep), emotional (love and belonging), and psychological (feeling confident and purposeful). They also learned that when these needs aren’t met, we sometimes develop neurotic needs, like feeling dysregulated or acting out in order to fill the gaps. To provide a framework for understanding these needs, students explored Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, illustrating how humans attempt to meet their needs authentically, from basic survival to higher level aspirations like self-actualisation, helping students understand the potential to prosper when their needs are fully realised.

Before students went further, they sensitized themselves to the "Four Pillars of Health: nutrition, sleep, exercise, and mental equilibrium to promote the strength of their own personal four pillars of wellbeing. The project provided them with the opportunity to examine how these essential factors contribute to overall health and to emphasise the need to check in on these pillars in order to live a more balanced and fulfilling life before tackling the additional needs that beset us as complex humans.