Blog Week 6
Maria Montessori a
constructionist, said in educating the whole child one must consider the child
and follow the natural inclinations of the child to work and discover. She prepared an environment for this to
happen called the “prepared environment”; we call it a classroom. However Montessori’s classroom looked very
different than what we have today. Due
to some state and educational mandates the freedom of the child to roam out of
doors at will is prevented. Some schools provide education due to state funding
and state licensing the restriction of things as real knives to cut with is not
allowed thus preventing a real world experience that Montessori was able to
provide. Other factors such as family structure
and social economic circumstances are also preventing many teachers from
following the child in the classroom. This
is not to decry the effort of Montessorians to provide a good education for the
children they serve. In the school where
I teach the emphasis is on meeting state requirements and NAYCE requirements to
obtain that funding ergo many things from Montessori are put aside. Many public schools are in the same boat, it
is all about funding. The approach in the public sector is to test, test, and test
some more. I see more and more early child educations programs caving into the
state regulations instead of what is best for the child as an individual.
Natalia Mahlman Petrzela notes
that while schools have narrowed their focus to achievement. society had
broadened the focus to addressing many holistic thoughts in the area of health and
wellness and serving the whole person. Petrzela notes that the scope of focus
has not included the education system in the cultural shift.
The scholarly work What does
it mean to educate the whole child ( na. nd.) is opened with the quote. “To
the doctor, the child is a typhoid patient; to the playground supervisor, a
first
baseman;
to the teacher, a learner of arithmetic. At times, he may be different things
to
each
of these specialists, but too rarely is he a whole child to any of them.
—From the 1930
report of the White House Conference on Children and Youth
In the paper Miller (2008) spells
out the core qualities of an holistic education.
1)
Encourages
experiential learning.
2)
Personal
relationships are considered to be as important as subject matter.
3)
A
concern for the interior life of children
4)
Ecological
consciousness
The PDF Whole Child –
Making the case for educating the whole child states that to serve the whole
child children must be safe, healthy, engaged, challenged and positively supported. (www.ascd.org)
Here in the US we are working toward that goal however slowly. What is it like in a part of the world where
there education is still a privilege not a right protected by law?
According to a report by Schaffer And Combs (2013)
School to School International brings an interdisciplinary approach to the
problem of the high rate of drop out from primary school in Africa. In the past the problems have been dealt with
piece meal but School to School International wants to bring the whole person
and the whole problem into the mix to develop a solution to the problem. Here is a list of the comprehensive components
they bring to the table. Programs in early childhood education, health and
wellness, water, local language instruction and parental engagement, active
teaching and learning, effective school management, girl’s education and global
citizenship. That is an ambitious
undertaking but a hopeful one.
·
Whole child education
has been around for some time in various forms now the world of neuro science
is using science to demonstrate how neurology affects
learning. In the article The
Neuroscience of Joyful Education by Judy Willis addresses the idea
of pairing good teaching with neuro science. She wants teachers to use the RAD
approach.
·
Novelty promotes
information transmission through the Reticular activating system.
·
Stress-free classrooms
propel data through the Amygdala's affective filter.
·
Pleasurable associations
linked with learning are more likely to release more Dopamine.
·
As a
teacher of preschool children I can see how keeping this in mind would be a
good thing in my classroom. Brain based
education is becoming more and more researched and accepted. Going forward in my teaching experience I
intend to use the information from the research I have done for this blog to be
better informed in my teaching practice.
Effective Collaboration For
Educating The Whole Child (na.nd.) retrieved
February 13 from www.corwin.com/.../34869_Kochhar_Bryant__Effective_Collaboration
PDF
Petrzela, Natalia Mahlman (2013) Educating the whole child. Retrieved February
13 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/natalia-mehlman-petrzela/educating-the-whole-child_b_1321422.html
Transforming
Education in Africa A Whole Child Approach. (na. nd.) retrieved Feburary 13 from http://www.schaffercombs.com/scmain/2013/04/20/transforming-education-in-africa-through-a-whole-child-approach
What does
it mean to educate the whole child (na.nd.) Retrieved February 13 2014 from http://www.ascd.org
Willis, Joy (2007) The Neuroscience of Joyful Education.
Retrieved Febuary 13, 2014 from
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/summer07/vol64/num09/The-Neuroscience-of-Joyful-Education.aspx
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