Holistic education

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Holistic Education

Vision 2030

ICC

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Why Holistic Education

….’it is easy enough to see that all through our lives we are faced with the task of reconciling opposites which, in logical thought, cannot be reconciled. ….How can one reconcile the demands of freedom and discipline in education? Countless mothers and teachers, in fact, do it, but no-one can write down a solution. They do it by bringing into the situation a force that belongs to a higher level where opposites are transcended – the power of love….

G.N.M Tyrell has put forward the terms ‘divergent’ and ‘convergent’ to distinguish problems which cannot be solved by logical reasoning from those which can………….Convergent problems are man’s most useful invention; they do not, as such, exist in reality, but are created by a process of abstraction. When they have been solved, the solution can be written down and passed onto others, who can apply it without needing to reproduce the mental effort necessary to find it………..Divergent problems, as it were, force man to strain himself to a level above himself; they demand, and thus provide the supply of, forces from a higher level, thus bringing love, beauty, goodness and truth into our lives. It is only with the help of these higher forces that the opposites can be reconciled in the living situation.

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Why Holistic Education (continued)

…The physical sciences and mathematics (as practiced today) are concerned exclusively with convergent problems. That is why they can progress cumulatively, and each generation can begin just where their forbears left off. The price, however, is a heavy one. Dealing exclusively with convergent problems does not lead into life but away from it. …

…. All divergent problems can be turned into convergent problems by a process of ‘reduction’. The result, however, is the loss of all higher forces to ennoble human life, and the degradation not only of the emotional part of our nature, but also, …of our intellect and moral character. The signs are everywhere visible today….

The true problem of living – in politics, economics, education, marriage etc. – are always problems of overcoming or reconciling opposites. They are divergent problems and have no solution in the ordinary sense of the word. They demand of man not merely the employment of reasoning powers but the commitment of his WHOLE personality. …- Quoted from ‘Small is Beautiful’ by E.F.Schumacher

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Holistic Education – The Mandate

The Holistic Education Program seeks to provide an induction into a balanced, inclusive and compassionate worldview to its recipients, that will serve a cause including but beyond the personal self

The Curriculum will distil the best of eastern and western heritage, wisdom and experiential learning, contextualized for and updated with the 21st century events and state of the world

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What is Holistic Education

Education, in the larger sense of the term is about building human character and capabilities that enable the realization of the full potential of our ourselves and our civilization. Holistic Education is that which serves the ‘Whole Personality’ of the recipient, which includes: The Body or Physical Faculty The Mind or Intellectual Faculty The Heart-Soul or Spiritual Faculty

While education in the sense above applies to people of all ages and walks of life, this presentation focuses on the ‘primary education’ as applies to ‘first time’ recipients

http://www.pathsoflearning.net/articles_Holistic_Ed_Philosophy.pdf

http://www.pathsoflearning.net/articles_Holistic_Ed_Philosophy.pdf

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Holistic Education – Structural Components

Aspects of Human Personality

Body Mind HeartNature of inputs

NutritionPhysical activityEnergetic activation

ComprehensionKnowledge Informational input

ValuesAestheticsWisdom input

Skill/ Quality achieved

Optimum HealthPhysical Fitness Balance and Poise/ Kinesthetic Intelligence

Mental AgilityDeep curiosityInfo Processing quality and Learnability

Moral intelligence Appreciation of beauty and TruthEmotional Mastery

Impact on society

Better health, vitality. Lesser healthcare costs

Greater creativity and innovation. Lesser cost of rework

Higher mutual respect, compassion and harmony. Lesser costs of conflict and corruption

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An examination of the ‘As Is’: Body Inputs

Aspects of Human Personality Body Mind HeartNature of inputs

NutritionPhysical activityEnergetic Activation


ValuesAestheticsWisdom

The Body Inputs offered today are mainly in the Sports and physical exercise arena. There is virtually no care and attention on quality of food inputs. Parents and teachers , afflicted by the consumerist culture as they are , unfortunately know no better. The practices of ‘Subtle’ Body practices such as Yoga, Pranayama, Tai-chi which restore inner energy balance, are virtually unknown to most children, mainly because their elders do not practice themselves. The Body Mind connection is at best weakly felt, and at worst unknown

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An examination of the ‘As Is’: Mind Inputs

The Mind Inputs in contemporary education are reasonably sophisticated and effective, though mostly for the Left Brain. Technology has helped improve both content and dissemination processes on a continuous basis. The only constraints in the Mind Input domain will be the quality of parental involvement in the children’s formative phase, the quality of available teachers, and a moral compass that determines what is the ‘Right Thing’ to do.

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An examination of the ‘As Is’: Heart Inputs

The Heart / Soul inputs are virtually non-existent in our educational system. Except a few curricular items such as Art, Crafts and Literature, the overwhelming focus is on the Left Brain, more so because of future career option correlations. As far as values and wisdom inputs go, it is not difficult to see that the child’s chances of receiving anything meaningful here is directly linked to the ‘value’ index of the society he grows up in. In the absence of emotional maturity and awareness, analytical intelligence is highly prone to be misguided

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‘As Is’ Conclusions

Inordinate focus on the ‘Left Brain’ aspect of Mind Standalone educational inputs can only go so far, unless

complemented by a shift in the nature of parents, teachers and fellow students. In other words, the overall culture evolves through the dynamic interplay of the individual and the collective.

While body, mind and heart inputs have a lot of individual merit, it is only as a combination of ‘Whole Personality’ that they multiply in effectiveness

Individual Intent

Collective ‘Cultural’ Climate

Whole Personality

Heart

Mind Body

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The ‘To Be’ Holistic Education System (HES) – A formulation

Conceive of the HES both as a noun and a verb, each with three aspects or dimensions

As a noun, the three dimensions are: the impersonal or ‘It’, the inter-personal or ‘We’ and the personal or ‘I’. The impersonal ‘It’ comprises technical aspects such as effectiveness and efficiency of the HES – the objective reality out there. The interpersonal ‘We’ realm comprises relational aspects such as trust and solidarity– the culture of the HES which is an inter-subjective thing. The personal ‘I’ realm comprises psychological aspects such as happiness and fulfillment of each stakeholder – the subjective domain within the student, the parent and the teacher

As a verb, the three dimensions are: the ‘having’ or results dimension, the ‘doing’ or process dimension, and the ‘being’ or infrastructure dimension. Achieving or having specific results such as marks or performance requires behaving or doing things in a certain way that produces such results, and behaving in such ways requires being the type of person capable of such behavior or action. Thus, the highest leverage comes from becoming the person or organization capable of behaving in the way that produces results.

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HES Architecture – a 3x3 superposition of the Noun and Verb

Holistic Education System Map(I)IndividualPersonal

(We)RelationshipInterpersonal

(It)TaskImpersonal

(Have)ResultProduct

Whole personality formation and growth

Connectedness, Belonging and solidarity amongst stakeholders

Optimal cost of education, sustainability of HES

(Do)BehaviourProcess

Full engagement with, commitment to, and participation with the HES

Healthy interactions of learning, evaluation and cooperation

Holistic Education Process catering to body, mind and heart aspects of all stakeholders

(Be)InfraPlatform

Personal Values of openness, curiosity and wonder

Culture/ Shared values of collaboration, mutuality and integrity

An organizational infrastructure that caters to both quality (depth) and quantity (width)

Noun

Verb

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The ‘It’ Platform (Entity)

Two options of structuring the entity to build and run HES A Government owned enterprise which draws upon the

world’s best talent to run the show (Singapore Model) A PPP venture that is jointly owned and managed, and

draws upon • The Government for Hard Infrastructure Provisioning, umbrella

sponsorship and influence resources for socio-economic facilitation

• The Private enterprise for ‘Business Management’ of the entity with qualified goals of ‘Return’ and Output accountability

The HES Board will draw upon the world’s wisdom and expertise in an open, non-proprietary manner .

The HES will cater to three key stakeholder bases of the educational system, each of which are incomplete without the other two: students, parents and teachers.

The HES will have both a physical and virtual presence in its earmarked domain of influence, which will eventually be borderless

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The ‘It’ Platform (HES Org Structure)

HES BOARD

FACULTY STAKEHOLDER RELATIONSHIP

SINFRA MGMT

See next slide for detailed structure and mandate

• Outcome metrics for the ‘I’ and ‘We’ columns

• Admissions• Ongoing contact

management• Evangelization &

media • Academic

relationships

• Facilties• IT Platform• HR• Finance• Legal• Compliance

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The ‘It’ Platform (Delivery Organization)

BO

DY

F

AC

ULT

Y

MIN

D

F

AC

ULT

Y

HEA

RT F

AC

ULT

Y

PARENT FOCUSED

CHILD FOCUSED

TEACHER FOCUSED

Each Faculty Unit will be responsible for:1. Curriculum Design

fora. Childb. Teacherc. Parent

2. Teaching 3. Learning

Outcomes4. Global benchmark

management5. Continuous

evolution of both curricular product and process (1&2)

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The ‘It’ Process

Learning materials (Content) will be prepared and designed leveraging sources of similarly inspired initiatives, though not necessarily limited to them• Rudolf Steiner’s Waldorf Education System• A.S. Neill’s Summerhill Model • Dee Dickinson’s Whole System Learning / New Horizons • The David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness based

education The following processes will be defined for each recipient

segment (child, teacher, student) with room for mass customization• Instruction and Evaluation• Ongoing connection and mentorship

These processes will leverage both the physical and digital medium to optimize cost, reach, time and effectiveness

The processes will embrace both theory, practice and application components to make for holistic learning and assimilation

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The ‘It’ Product

The HES offering will be positioned as a ‘social upliftment service’ and will solicit the active participation and contribution from various segments of society

A multi-tiered pricing policy will be adopted, so that recipients pay as per their capacity to pay, subject to some overall guidelines

A separate offering will be designed for the socially marginalized sections who have missed out on primary education. This offering will be made available to ‘first time recipient’ adults in a compressed form

It is envisaged that the HES offering can be offered both as • A standalone version owned by HES• Affiliate versions where HES works with existing schools to

complement and enrich their current curricular structures• Parents and teachers will have the opportunity of receiving

‘part time’ weekend based curricular packages Once the content and curricular structures and processes

become mature, a ‘Franchise’ model can be adopted for reach and scalability

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Evolving Education

The Product, Process and Platform will all be dynamically evolutionary, rather than statically bound in rule-set and prescriptive structure

The entire ‘It’ constitution will evolve with the new patterns of human thinking in the 21st century• The transition from mechanical predictability to inter-relational

flux of living systems• The philosophical transition from modernism to post-

modernism and beyond• The transition from disciplinary to multi-, inter-, post- and

trans-disciplinary• The emergence of new rational discourses on spirituality not

limited by religious doctrine• The transition from studying the past to an awareness of the

value of foresight and futures thinking, in parallel, paradoxically with the deconstruction of the modernist, linear narrative of time

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The ‘I’ and ‘We’ Outcome measures

‘I’ Column : Multi-intelligence quotient of all recipients • Linguistic• Logical-mathematical• Musical• Bodily- Kinesthetic• Spatial• Interpersonal• Intra-personal

‘We’ Column: Social GNH (Gross National Happiness) metrics• Domestic violence• Divorces• Crime• Public Health (Mental and Physical)• Delinquency and Addictions

Think SAT – Classic IQ

Emotional Intelligence

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Next Steps

Determine a ‘Bounded Space’ for piloting the HES initiative. This could be a state in the country, with its autonomous Education Ministry

Find an ‘executive sponsor’ for the HES initiative in that Bounded Space

Constitute a management task force for the HES initiative, including academicians, education scientists, political sponsors, mind-body practitioners, systems theorists, nutritionists, behavioural scientists, child developmental psychologists, business management professionals, that changes most aspects of the diagram below!

Create a Strategic ‘Plan’ with a 20 year horizon, where ‘return’ is measured both in financial and non-financial terms

Kick-off the HES Initiative

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Thank You

Holistic education

Education

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