I've recently added an excellent paper on holistic education philosophy to the Resources section of this website, under Writing by Other Authors. See "Systemic, Integral Education" by Anne Adams. Anne recently completed her Ph.D. at the California Institute of Integral Studies and her research involved an extensive study of various schools based on integral (holistic) approaches.
We've had some interesting discussions about whether "integral" means about the same thing as "holistic" (I think it does) or goes beyond it (as Anne maintains). Maybe it's an east coast/west coast thing, and I should start a "Vermont Institute of Holistic Studies" to complement CIIS.
In any case, be sure to take a look at her paper.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
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Dear Education Bloggers,
The Supreme Court is hearing the NY vs. Tom F. case regarding special education and choice
Missouri released a poll that reports teachers and citizens support school choice expansion.
What do you think about the case before the Supreme Court? How about school choice getting high marks from Missouri’s teachers?
Voice your thoughts at www.edspresso.com
Our current world view, and therefore our life experience, is dominated by three basic core beliefs or definitions of who we are. They are: “we’re only human, we’re separate”, and “there’s not enough to go around.” When we stand back and look at these three core beliefs, we can see how limiting and divisive they are. They put us in competition with each other, as opposed to partnership, and promote associated ideas like “survival of the fittest, dog-eat-dog, and devil-take-the-hindmost”, predatory concepts we see dramatized in life, work, and art every day.
Even our dominant definition of success, which is measured by how much money, power, and prestige we acquire, is an outgrowth of these three basic beliefs about who we are and what reality is. When we insist on believing we’re only human, that we’re separate, and there’s not enough to go around, we create a foundation for the fear, suffering, and violence we see in the world. Complicating matters even further are two additional negative self-concepts: “we’re basically bad, or sinful,” and “we can’t trust ourselves.”
To change the world for the better, we need to redefine how we see ourselves and the world around us. By paying attention to our outer and inner experiences, which means developing our inner senses and intuitive abilities, we’ll see that we’re basically good and that there’s much more to who we are than meets the eye. We’ll discover we’re both one and separate, and there is enough to go around if we share the world’s abundant resources and take responsibility for co-creating our shared reality.
Many of us see how good we are, how much we do, and how well we do it. We understand intuitively, if not intellectually, that success is not defined by how much money, power and prestige we acquire but by how much we love ourselves and one another. When guided by the desire to be who we love to be and do what we love to do, we give ourselves the permission and motivation to fulfill our own greatest potential.
In a Value Fulfillment World, as opposed to a Value Judgment World, we live by value fulfillment and practice idealism. In other words, each one of us determines the qualities of life and being we value most, our ideals, and actualize them to the best of our ability. In this world, business, government, schools and teachers don't dictate what we learn, they facilitate what WE choose to learn. Instead of "In God we trust." it's "In Good we trust.
"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
For evidence of this, visit: http://www.diaryofaghost.net
How are we as parents supposed to trust the educational system? When teachers are fixing tests to make their students pass exams due to the “No Child Left Behind” mandate. This is ridiculous. Maybe they should reevaluate NCLB?? Check out dailycents.com http://blogs.dailycents.com/?p=819
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