Digging a hole for ourselves?
I doubt if any educational term has been more misunderstood than ‘holistic’. It even gets misspelled and a colleague was once obliged to sit through a presentation in an IB candidate school on the importance of “wholism”. Although many people believe that the IB programmes are ‘holistic’ in nature most would be hard pressed to explain why, beyond the fact that they seem to contain something of everything.
It has therefore been a particularly interesting experience to help in the supervision of a piece of research at the University of Bath in which the student is examining the concept of holism in the context of the Middle Years Programme (MYP) and, in particular, its science component. After all, we do say in the Schools Guide to the MYP:
While insisting on a thorough study of the disciplines, the MYP accentuates the interrelatedness of them and so advances a holistic view of learning.
But first, let me go back to a rash comment I made when I was director general of the International School of Geneva (a version was published under the title The Art & Craft of Teaching in the International Schools Journal of November 1997). I wrote,
And what of the special teaching skills needed by the teachers in an international school? I suspect there are none…
Two years later I revised this sweeping conclusion and decided instead that international schools need holistic educators. I presented a hexagonal model of holism which illustrated its six component modes of learning: intellectual, spiritual, artistic, moral, emotional and physical and I made reference to the research on multiple intelligences of Howard Gardner.
I felt rather pleased at my refinement of the ‘something of everything’ definition, but I now realise that I was still quite wide of the mark. To quote my research student, the basic principles of holism are:
- There is an interconnectedness of reality and a fundamental unity in the universe
- There is an intimate connection between the individual’s inner or higher self and this unity
- In order to see this unity we need to cultivate intuition through contemplation and meditation
- …
At this point, I have written (in red, naturally) in the margin of an early draft, ‘This is in danger of going over the top’. What I really meant was, ‘I don’t understand it any more’ or perhaps more honestly, ‘I do understand it and I’m not very comfortable with it.’ Hexagons, forms of learning and Howard Gardner fall well within my intellectual comfort zone. Fundamental unity, higher self and meditation do not.
But that is more a reflection on me and my narrow, single-track intellectual upbringing than a serious comment on the concept of holism. After all, my favourite book on education What is and what might be by Edmond Holmes, published in 1911, (I’m afraid you will have to search hard to find a copy and I am not lending you mine) has some entirely convincing passages on the education of the soul. And the whole point of education, surely, is precisely to take you outside your comfort zone in order to examine previously unimagined relationships
I think John Miller (confusingly, there are two Millers who have written extensively on holism, the other being Ron) offers a description that I can both relate to and find challenging (The Holistic Curriculum by J.P. Miller. Revised 2nd edition (2001) Toronto: OISE Press.):
The focus of holistic education is on relationships – the relationship between linear thinking and intuition, the relationship between mind and body, the relationship between various domains of knowledge, the relationship between the individual and community, the relationship with the earth and the relationship between self and Self. In the holistic curriculum the student examines these relationships so that he/she gains both an awareness of them and the skills necessary to transform the relationship where appropriate.
This is not a million miles away from a statement the IBO makes in its publication A Basis for Practice:
The focus of holistic learning is the discovery of relationships between areas of knowledge, between the individual, communities and the world.
So how does the MYP measure up as a holistic curriculum? The final draft of the thesis is in my briefcase.
George Walker
Michael James
May 7, 2008 at 4:06 am
“I doubt if any educational term has been more misunderstood than ‘holistic’.”
Now I do not claim to know when the IB was subject to that seismic shift which I see in Prof. George Walkers declared educational position but I do claim to be able to see that the search for the principles of holism had been abandoned during his time in office, and I think we can even see why . Prof Walker refers interestingly in this Blogg to some work a research student was doing at the University of Bath:
” To quote my research student, the basic principles of holism are:
* There is an interconnectedness of reality and a fundamental unity in the universe
* There is an intimate connection between the individual’s inner or higher self and this unity
* In order to see this unity we need to cultivate intuition through contemplation and meditation
* …”
Prof walker then admits to suggesting that this seemed to him to be “over the top”, and the grounds he gives are that he does not understand these ideas(anymore?) and he goes on to say:
“Hexagons, forms of learning and Howard Gardner fall well within my intellectual comfort zone.”
Now one thing is clear to me and that is that the above students attempt to present the principles of holism is essentially a philosophical attempt and I agree with Walker, even if this is not exactly what he means, that it is not an attempt that shows awareness of the Philosophy of Education tradition which our first Director Alec Peterson was a part of in Oxford.
Further,this is not an attempt to criticize the views of Prof Walker for falling back into a comfort zone but the language of this piece is a fascinating confession of a thinker who , as a consequence of these mysterious underground seismic shifts of policy, is beginning to relate the hexagon to learning and not knowledge. Of a thinker who is embracing not the Psychology of Piaget or of some philosophical variation thereof, but the popular Psychology of Gardner.
The first philosophical point to be made here comes of course from linguistic philosophy and amounts to the observation that the philosophical criteria for the concept of learning are “process” criteria whereas the philosophical criteria for concepts relating to knowledge are “achievement” criteria. So, painfully aware that this post is frustratingly programmatic I nevertheless end with this remark.
There was once philosophical commitment to holism and Theory of Knowledge which is now in the whimpering stage after the big seismic bang. Can you hold together a program for over 60,000 students with popular psychology? A Psychology which requires a category mistake in ones thinking before it can be applied?
I also would be interested in knowing to what extent the IB learner profile originates in the subjective atomistic thinking of the Psychology of Gardener, rather than the objective holistic thinking of The Philosophy of Education Movement of the 60’s and 70’s in Oxford, and London
Michael James
P.S. partial revised copy of posting on the OOCC TOK site