| Holistic Education Network ... |
What's the difference between holistic education and
new-age mumbo jumbo?
New-age ’mumbo
jumbo’ is an emotive term that refers to incoherent, superficial and often
commercialised ideas and thinking based on the new-age movement of the Sixties
and Seventies. New-age thinking can also refer to a rapidly growing grassroots
spirituality practised by people who may be outside traditional religious or
academic schools of thought.
Holistic
education is both an academic discipline and a practical application of ideas
based on postmodernism, holism, transpersonal and perennial philosophy, critical
theory, etc. Some principles and
practice of holistic education are also used by a growing number of individual
teachers who are dissatisfied with traditional education but may not be aware of
a critical theory of holistic education.
What's the difference between holistic and wholistic?
‘Wholistic’ is about the
whole person -- body, mind and spirit -- and the notion that the whole is more
than the sum of its parts.
‘Holistic’ is inclusive
of wholistic and also the notion that reality is an interconnected whole --
holism.
What's the difference between spirituality and religion?
Spirituality is about the
individual and often spontaneous experience and expression of spirit or soul.
Religion is communal and
formalized and may or may not foster individual spiritual expression.
Why include spirituality in holistic education?
Holistic education is
inclusive of the deeper aspects of self and its relationship to Cosmos.
Spirituality, spirit and soul -- although loaded terms -- best describe
the sense of connectedness, depth, wonder, awe and wholeness of this realm of
experience.
Aren't most teachers too old to learn new practices?
What is most required are not so much new teaching and learning practices but a holistic perspective or worldview. This worldview often re-enchants life, re-invigorates teaching and re-ignites passion.
How can a busy teacher be expected to include even
more in an already full curriculum?
The busy teacher cannot teach a full curriculum and remain sane and
human -- we need less content and more thinking, feeling and being.
Holistic education is more about process, relationships, connectedness
and responsibility than facts, authority, separation and control.
The curriculum should be about the quality more than the quantity of
learning.