Holistic Education: What Is It?

1) Holistic education is not just the development of symbolic, cognitive

capabilities or of evaluative or valuing competencies, or, indeed, of sensitivity
or sensibility. It is all these and more. It enters in where traditionalists have
feared to go, or at least have avoided going. White utilizing some of the
humanities, its total domain is different. What binds contemporary holistic
studies to the traditional humanities is concern not just with man’s highest
values, but also with those values as uniquely the product of passion as well
as intellect, of emotion as well as reason. The enduring object of both the
humanities and of holistic education is the enlargement of the human spirit,
not merely the development of the capacity to think or to judge aesthetically
or morally.

2) In holistic education the teacher attempts to work with the whole child – eg
the physical, emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, moral, and spiritual
dimensions. In particular, the teacher attempts to integrate analytic and
intuitive thinking or the right and left sides of the brain. This is often
accomplished through an integrated approach to the arts – drawing, painting,
music, dance, and drama. Other aspects of the curriculum such as reading
and math are also integrated with artistic activity. The teacher may also use
techniques such as movement and imagery so that the child becomes aware
of his or her inner life.

3) In holistic education:

The needs of the individual are the central data source for decision
making.

Holistic education increases the options of the learners.

Personal knowledge gets at least as much priority as public

knowledge.

Each individual’s development is not fostered at the expense of

anyone else’s development.

All elements of the program contribute to a sense of significance,

value, and worth of each person involved.

4) The focus of holistic education is on relationships: relationships between

various domains of knowledge, the relationship between self and the other,
the relationship of head and heart, and the relationship between the individual
and the social structure. In the holistic curriculum the student examines these
relationships so that he/she gains both an awareness of them and the skills
necessary to transform the relationships were it is appropriate.

5) By education, then, the divine essence of man should be unfolded, brought

out, lifted into consciousness, and man himself raised into free, conscious
obedience to the divine principle that lives in him, and to a free representation
of this principle in his life.
 Education in instruction should lead man to see and know the divine, spiritual,
and eternal principle which animates surrounding nature, constitutes the
essence of nature, and is permanently manifested in nature.

6) When we talk about a total human being, we mean not only a human being
with inward understanding, with a capacity to explore, to examine his inward
being, his inward state and the capacity of going beyond it, but also someone
who is good in what he does outwardly. The two must go together. That is
the real issue in education: to see that when the child leaves the school, he is
well established in goodness, both outwardly and inwardly.

Miller J P (1996) The Holistic Curriculum. Toronto: OISE Press