Who can be called a “Holistic Teacher”?
By Ignasia Yuyun
Education for the
responsibility of freedom is education for development of the person as a whole
or 'holistic education'. (www.holisticeducator.com)
The movement towards holistic education has been popular in midst of
various educational reforms around the world including in Indonesia. Indonesia
has always talked about holistic education, even embedded it in its national
vision for education, but – like so many good ideas in Indonesia –
implementation and execution have lagged. Through national education,
Indonesia aims to produce individuals/citizens who are “faithful to God
Almighty, noble in character, strong, learned, skillful, creative, independent,
democratic, and responsible”. Nice words, but unfortunately not well translated
into the national education policy and strategy.
Pelita Harapan University
is one of Indonesian universities which has implemented holistic education
paradigm. According to DR. (Hon) Jonathan L. Parapak,
M.Eng.Sc (the Rector of Pelita
Harapan University), holistic education must pay
attention to the spiritual, intellectual, emotional, social, cultural,
artistic, creative, and physical aspect as a whole (Forbes, 2003; R. Miller, 2000; J. P. Miller, 1993; J.
P. Miller, B. Cassie, & Drake, 1990, cited in Chiu, 2008).
Thus, the output should be “a truly educated person”, where an individual is
truly liberated and empowered for self-actualization, to do the best he can for
the glory of God.
With everyone talking of 'Holistic
Education' there is need for 'Holistic Teachers' and we need to list the
traits, attributes and qualities of such a teacher. In the paradigm of holistic education the teacher’s role is defined as
‘facilitator of learning. In other words, "holistic teacher" is a
"facilitator of learning."
In line with the characteristics of ‘Holistic
Teachers’, Rogers (1967: 57) advocates some characteristics of a teacher in the paradigm of holistic education. First, the role of the teacher is to concentrate on creating a classroom climate
to facilitate self-initiated learning. In this case, the teacher must give a freedom
to learn and learning to be free. The teacher must allow allow the students to be free and
responsible then so they confront real life problems. Second, the teacher must be genuine and sincere, with a confident view of humanity and a
profound trust in the human organism. Here, the teacher functions effectively in a student-centered setting for education. Third,
the teacher must be able to accept their feelings as their own; he/she has no need to impose them on others. He/she can be angry, sensitive, sympathetic and a real person in his
relationship with people. Fourth, the teacher values the feelings and opinions of students who
are regarded as imperfect humans with many potentialities. Fifth, the teacher never denies a child's
feelings and has empathic awareness of the learning process and education from
the student's point of view.
Moreover, equally important
to those attitudes is the teacher's function as a provider of resources and raw
materials which the student can use, as well as a guide to channels, human or
otherwise, by which students can help themselves of resources relevant to their
own needs. In other words, the teacher offers himself as the main resource and
the degree to which he is used is up to the student. In this case, a student-centered
occurs in teaching and learning activities. In this educational setting,
students discover what it means to be autonomous, spontaneous, creative, and
self-disciplined in their efforts to reach their own goals.
To sum up, being a holistic teacher must be involved
relevant practical pedagogies by different teaching learning approaches,
including co-operative learning, critical thinking, multiple intelligence
theory, small class size, mixed-ability, mixed-aged, and especially a less
authoritative, facilitator role of the teacher (Forbes, 1996). So, are we all
ready to be holistic teachers then?
REFERENCES:
Chiu, Y. J. (2008). Exploring Taiwanese Students’ Perception of New Zealand Holistic
Education in ESL. Retrieved from
http://ir.lib.wtuc.edu.tw:8080/dspace/handle/987654321/192
Forbes, S. H. (1996). Values in holistic education. Paper presented at the Third Annual Conference
on 'Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child', Roehampton Institute London.
Rogers, C. (1967). Person
to Person: The Problem of Being Human. California:
Real People Press.
The Holistic Educator
website is an ongoing project and provides a starting point for further
research. All
material is in the public domain and may be freely copied. (http://www.holisticeducator.com/).
The Holistic Education website belongs to Holistic Education, Inc which is non-profit
organization based in Portland, Oregon. It
invites the participation of all people regardless of race, gender, cultural
background, or other differences
(http://www.holistic-education.net/index.html).
