Holistic Education

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).