Can Holistic Education Exist? (Part 1)
I don't believe in holistic education. It's a sham. Nobody can be educated as a whole while the model of education is still divided into individual processes and disciplines. And I'm not sure you can be said to be educated if the model of education were to be made so transdisciplinary that no individual processes and disciplines existed (except of course the one process called holistic education).
This is probably an unpopular stance. But it is probably a necessary one, given the odd climate of this age. Go to Google. Type define: holistic in the search box. You will quickly begin to grasp why I say an holistic education is not possible.
How can it be that we tout such a thing? To do so would require that our education take into account the whole system that is a human being; we would have to consider the academic, spiritual, social, mental, and emotional aspects of the hologram entity – as one being. And since we cannot even fully understand ONE of these aspects, how can we do this?
The answer: we cannot. We can only pretend to it.
That said, can we aspire to it? We can certainly try. Now that I have brought us all down to earth in this endeavour, let us try to think about what an holistic education could possibly be like.
Firstly, it isn't about mens sana in corpore sano, that old Latin mantra of the dualistic mind/body idea. If it is genuinely holistic, we have to treat the mind and body and spirit as one. Each student should have a special diet of food and drink and exercise that caters to the needs of intellectual and spiritual activity. Prayer and fasting, alternating and interwoven spiritual and mental exercises, these should be the framework of activity. Example: you eat chocolate, you should taste it and consider the spiritual consequences of the act, and how it raises your game and your understanding of economics – and then you dance, you sing, you exude the act which is chocolate-eating. And it is both worship and study, at once.
Secondly, it cannot be a school in which the disciplines are ring-fenced from each other. The subjects must be allowed to percolate, to merge, submerge, and re-emerge. And through it all, for each student, fluctuat nec mergitur – the changing tides do not drown the consciousness, but enhance it. Perception sharpens and zooms out to dimness; the universe is one, and yet the eye sees a particular detail. Learning meanders through the broad lands of the dominion of mind, and as the starter's gun fires, the athlete's spirit burns. This sprint could be metaphor, could be act, could be valour of mind and body and spirit all in one. And as the tape is breasted at the 100m mark, the physics tutorial is over.
Thirdly, the process must constantly seek to offer physical, social, spiritual, mental, and emotional growth to the student. This five-fold model was one the religious taught me fifteen years ago, when I was learning from them how to use my gifts. You cannot develop the mental without considering its impact on the spiritual, the light is casts on emotion and society and the habits of the body; and that is but one interpretation of how all five might work together.
And lastly, the teacher must constantly work at all five aspects too. The teacher mirrors the student, offers an ideal; the student shows the teacher that the teacher has more to learn. Two mirrors opposing each other into infinity, leading to greater and deeper reflections. At the end and at the beginning is God, who knows how much we do not see.
Can we try to make this happen? I fear it. I fear that the wisdom of man is not sufficient and that it leads to despair. And yet, I do not fear at all. We will never achieve holistic education in the world of men. But the Spirit enfolds us in bright wings, leading us to take on more of the image of Christ, to the glory of God the Father. And then, we shall be whole.
This is probably an unpopular stance. But it is probably a necessary one, given the odd climate of this age. Go to Google. Type define: holistic in the search box. You will quickly begin to grasp why I say an holistic education is not possible.
How can it be that we tout such a thing? To do so would require that our education take into account the whole system that is a human being; we would have to consider the academic, spiritual, social, mental, and emotional aspects of the hologram entity – as one being. And since we cannot even fully understand ONE of these aspects, how can we do this?
The answer: we cannot. We can only pretend to it.
That said, can we aspire to it? We can certainly try. Now that I have brought us all down to earth in this endeavour, let us try to think about what an holistic education could possibly be like.
Firstly, it isn't about mens sana in corpore sano, that old Latin mantra of the dualistic mind/body idea. If it is genuinely holistic, we have to treat the mind and body and spirit as one. Each student should have a special diet of food and drink and exercise that caters to the needs of intellectual and spiritual activity. Prayer and fasting, alternating and interwoven spiritual and mental exercises, these should be the framework of activity. Example: you eat chocolate, you should taste it and consider the spiritual consequences of the act, and how it raises your game and your understanding of economics – and then you dance, you sing, you exude the act which is chocolate-eating. And it is both worship and study, at once.
Secondly, it cannot be a school in which the disciplines are ring-fenced from each other. The subjects must be allowed to percolate, to merge, submerge, and re-emerge. And through it all, for each student, fluctuat nec mergitur – the changing tides do not drown the consciousness, but enhance it. Perception sharpens and zooms out to dimness; the universe is one, and yet the eye sees a particular detail. Learning meanders through the broad lands of the dominion of mind, and as the starter's gun fires, the athlete's spirit burns. This sprint could be metaphor, could be act, could be valour of mind and body and spirit all in one. And as the tape is breasted at the 100m mark, the physics tutorial is over.
Thirdly, the process must constantly seek to offer physical, social, spiritual, mental, and emotional growth to the student. This five-fold model was one the religious taught me fifteen years ago, when I was learning from them how to use my gifts. You cannot develop the mental without considering its impact on the spiritual, the light is casts on emotion and society and the habits of the body; and that is but one interpretation of how all five might work together.
And lastly, the teacher must constantly work at all five aspects too. The teacher mirrors the student, offers an ideal; the student shows the teacher that the teacher has more to learn. Two mirrors opposing each other into infinity, leading to greater and deeper reflections. At the end and at the beginning is God, who knows how much we do not see.
Can we try to make this happen? I fear it. I fear that the wisdom of man is not sufficient and that it leads to despair. And yet, I do not fear at all. We will never achieve holistic education in the world of men. But the Spirit enfolds us in bright wings, leading us to take on more of the image of Christ, to the glory of God the Father. And then, we shall be whole.
etched with acid at 10:44:00 pm
6 Comments:
Hmm. Very interesting, but I actually find it quite difficult to take Holism as a merely regulative idea.
Holism believes that the whole has a greater significance than just the sum of its parts, a significance which can therefore only come about when the whole is completed. Hence, since completion cannot be attained, to simply aspire to it might not bring about any additional benefits, above and beyond that of a specialised education in each individual area.
That is, unless our different parts operate on some kind of law of diminishing returns, where each part is a limiting reagent for the complete human reaction. Perhaps this is true.
Which is why you could probably argue that holistic education is useful, since by treating humans holistically, it simply makes smaller wholes to fulfill - and is therefore constitutive. Hmm.
Beautiful post (:
aristoitle: the point really is that since we can't know what the whole is, you can't tell how much more significance it has – and worse, if you don't know what the whole might be (or don't want to think about it) then how is your process holistic?
phil: thank you!
Well, I think I'm actually looking at it from the other side.
Your post talks about holistic education having to treat the person as a whole, and thus having to take its additional significance into account, in order to develop him/her as a whole. This is ideal, but as you said, impossibly difficult. I'm talking about it from the ground up instead; developing each of his "parts", with the added significance of the whole coming as a result of the interaction between these parts.
Of course, you could contend that one cannot split a person, or knowledge, into distinct parts. Neither would you have very much control over the development of the whole if you only developed its parts, without being able to consider its added significance. Still, it can probably be said to be "holistic" (as opposed to specialised) because it recognises the existence of the other parts, and therefore imparts knowledge with a focus on one aspect but without divorcing it from knowledge in general.
Multidisciplinary rather than transdisciplinary, perhaps.
toitle:
The opposite of 'specialised' is 'generalised', I suppose, but certainly not 'holistic'; the opposite of 'holistic' must be 'monistic' - that is, the idea that everything is one essence and not more than the some of parts.
Thinking that multidisciplinary approaches lead to 'holistic education' is like saying polytheism leads to Christianity. Heh. Tsk tsk.
Both attitude and aptitude in children has to go hand in hand, in order to contribute towards their success as they go on to become great personalities. Additionally, they will also need to develop a lot of resiliency and will power to face difficult situations in their lives.
Ilchi Lee
Post a Comment
<< Home