Wholistic Education: Integrating Values for a New World

We are in a time of fast evolution toward a new world and a new age. The next generations of children really require and are ready for truly Wholistic Education. From what I have been learning from my experience with my own children, through healing myself, and through study and research, I believe that the key to this new wholistic education is awareness and integration of the spiritual. By this I definitely do not mean the religious. I mean the basic common spiritual values of humanity, a secular spirituality.

I heard about a public school in Florida that is using Yoga in the classroom...not as an interesting "physical" addition to physical education, but as a calming and centering exercise to help kids transition between activities. There are other schools that are teaching very basic meditation and breathing techniques. And other schools talk about SEL....Social and Emotional Learning.

Our local schools still speak in the language of productivity and competition. We have to prepare our kids to go out and compete in the global market, right? They have to learn how to be productive workers. And we want them to have the skills to do that. And we want them to find a career and be successful. And the standards for that are usually money and happiness.

I would argue, and there is a wave of people and organizations expressing this view, that the basis for happiness must begin at a very early age, and it must be more than getting skills that lead to finding the right job. This view would also argue that being successful in a global community has less to do with learning sets of skills, and at least as much if not more to do with factors such as knowing oneself, appreciation of differences, knowing how to get along with others, and feeling confident happy and peaceful inside. if you have these qualities, nothing can stop you.

This is the information age. We all pretty much have access to all the information. So the focus in schools being almost solely on information is actually causing us to fall behind the evolution of modern world culture. If we focus on growing whole human beings, the success will more naturally follow.

The problems of our times are fundamentally problems of the misunderstandings of the differences of people, as well as problems like greed and ignorance. It will take people who know how to tap into their inner teacher, their inner resources, to solve these problems creatively.

Contemplative education contains the ideas that help students "access their inner knowledge." They are encouraged and supported in specific ways in integrating their inner knowing with their learning and their environment. In this view, "academic performance comes within a broader definition of what it means to be educated."

Children are human beings, they have an inner life. Some would call this the spirit. Some would call these ideas spiritual. But they are definitely not religious. We are very afraid of the spiritual in our education system, because of the fear of it coming to close to the religious. However, ignoring this aspect is at the root of some of our modern problems in education today. Children have a spiritual life, and if it is being ignored while they are in school for most of the day and most of the week, they are being deprived and even harmed. An entire aspect of their existence is being denied during a large portion of their life's work and experience. And it sets up a strange split between their experience at school where their inner life is denied, and other areas of their life where suddenly and magically their spiritual side is supposed to function and express itself properly.

What I wish for is what I think of as wholistic education. Mind-body-spirit in the classroom. The various practices people are talking about are all about awareness....body awareness, awareness of the Mind with a capital M, awareness of our feelings and reactions, awareness of others and the environment, etc. It even requires this of the teachers, asking them to "pay attention to what's going on in their body and their mind." There is current research to "examine how greater emotional competence among teachers may translate into improved teacher-student relationships, increased pro-social student behavior, a more positive atmosphere, AND IMPROVED ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE." "The teacher's social-emotional competence, presence and awareness are vital and nobody is looking at that..."

At the new Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education, the first entity the Dalai Lama has let his name be associated with, they have a very practical view. It is logical that the best possible future involves educating not only the mind, but the heart as well. The world is becoming smaller and our interdependence is very clear. We need a sense of universal responsibility. The roots of most problems are at the emotional level. But we have become very detached from this. We can teach children compassion, empathy, and how to deal with emotions. If our actions stem from ignorance, they cause more pain. The younger generation can "carry out actions for a better world, with fuller knowledge about reality and a wider perspective."

This cannot be a list of things you teach in a social studies class. It has to be done through modeling. It must be built in to the school's model. "Empathy and compassion are caught not taught. You catch them by being the recipient, or by watching and imitating." Children who are shown this respect, which touches them at a deep fundamental level, will naturally be more respectful. The Dalai Lama says that the values of compassion, forgiveness and love are the key to transforming individuals and the world, and that developing different ways of thinking, through education, is the key to developing these values. And these two qualities: developing the mind and developing compassion, together are the key to wisdom which is the ultimate success.

Contemplative techniques do not impose beliefs in people. Rather they help one to stop and get a different perspective, and then make a choice. It is being able to reflect on one's own thinking. This is a skill that can be learned. Learning that you are not your own thoughts is what leads to fluid thinking and the ability to get at a much broader perspective. The people who have learned this are more likely to be successful in business dealings as well as leadership roles and every other profession.

In order to do well in a global society, our children need to grow up being not only academically intelligent, but also emotionally, socially and spiritually intelligent. And this is precisely where our current system is failing. We keep struggling to fix it, focused on the academics. But we are not seeing a big part of the true problem.

The methods and ideas that Maria Montessori figured out a hundred years ago incorporate much of what has been said here. We just need new language for it. I recently heard a teacher talking about a "new" method in public education. I see what she was describing as the public education system's attempt to grasp some of this stuff. But like usual, they can only see and focus on the "brain" part of it. They are only willing to look at the academic ideas and benefits. So even with this new language and method they will again fall short.

"Knowledge is not primarily object-oriented. It is insight-oriented." Real education happens when a transformation takes place within you. Real education is a series of realizations. Students who sense that there is a deeper meaning and a purpose to their educational experience, and who feel that their whole being is being attended to, will be more satisfied and more successful. We expect students to be fully present in order to learn. So how can we think it's acceptable to teach to just one part of them?

Montessori was right there. She understood these basic truths. And she found ways to address many of them. Now we have even more resources from which to draw that we can add to her wisdom in order to create wholistic learning environments. It is even possible to make these ideas acceptable and accessible to all in a way that fits into a public school setting.

I understand the appeal of homeschooling to those who do it. But sometimes I can't help wondering, what is the good of giving my child the education I want for her, only to have her live in a community of people who are not very much like her? I would rather have a vision for a community where the potential for the view of education to be transformed is explored. Not that I can do that. But I can at least think about it in those broader terms, and maybe something good will come out of that.

Amy