Your Campus Runs on a Pyramid of Lies

School for School Counselors Podcast · Mar 30, 2026 · 22m

There’s a reason the same explanation keeps showing up in every staff meeting, every training, every conversation about struggling students.It feels good.Problem is- It wasn’t built on evidence.Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs became one of the most widely accepted frameworks in education without ever being meaningfully tested the way we use it. In this episode, we go back to where the pyramid actually came from, walk through what the research has (and hasn’t) found, and take a hard look at why it spread anyway.Because if the foundation isn’t solid, it doesn’t matter how good your intentions…