18.2 Wholistic Education

We use the term “education” as a concept separated from the modern practices of “schooling.” Schooling in this world is about “experts” using violence to seize control of children and thus control over the course of society. A perusal of the “Eight Principles of Wholistic Schooling,” from The International Journal of Whole Schooling, would show that the eight “different” “principles” are just different ways to say one principle only – we “experts” are in control of all children and of the course of society. The “school,” in today’s world, is the warehouse and assembly line where all this control takes place. Schooling is about control; education is something different. The actual outcomes of learning coming from “schooling” are not what the “experts” consider.

Whole Individuals. For us, education takes in all of life and is entirely the purview of the individual. Individuals live in society, but a healthy society cannot exist apart from healthy and whole individuals. Education, inside the purview of the individual, then includes learning to belong, an essential quality of being human. It also includes learning to do to fulfill both personal giftings and the outer needs of daily living.

An infant begins life learning, and that learning is entirely out from the child’s own needs and curiosities. Every child teaches him or herself all the fundamentals of conversing in a language. The parents play a role in the child amassing the words and grammar of their language, but only as the objects of learning; the child remains in charge. This fact is fundamental.

Parental Involvement. Then, parents become involved in teaching a child the basics of relating with others and with the accepted conventions of human living. Nonetheless, children retain the drive to learn to do what they see their parents doing.

At the same time, children initiate their own exploration of their world. This drive often leaves destruction in its wake, and thus a parent must guide the self-learning drive of the child into learning without making a mess. Sometimes making a mess is the very thing that good learning calls for, but to learn not to make a mess includes learning obedience and thoughtfulness. A wise parent knows the difference and never gets in the way of that innate desire to learn found in every child, but carefully directs that desire into constructive and useful paths.

Personal Responsibility. Nonetheless, the child learns most of the basic fundamentals of life from its parents. This fact includes the negative equally with the positive. A child who grows up with an absent father, learns deeply from that father the reality of father abandonment. This learned quality then becomes fundamental to that person’s entire life.

Since every human gives an account of their own lives in the presence of God, without reference to anyone else, and without props or subterfuges of any kind, we assert that each individual person is responsible entirely for his or her own learning. No account given will say, “But they.” Jesus is responsible for us inside of God; out from Him, we are responsible for ourselves in the presence of all other people.

Giving One’s Account. Godly parents understand that each one of their children gives their own account. Godly parents also understand that the child gives his or her honest account regarding the parent’s own just or unjust actions towards their child. Controlling others is never an option inside of giving one’s account in the presence of God. Your child is also including your impact on their life in their own account. That will often be a difficult thing to hear, for accounts in the presence of God are always in light, that is, in full honesty.

Parents, then, invite capable individuals, called teachers, to assist their children in learning those things needful to their success in life and to their wholeness as individuals. Parents NEVER surrender their place to “the school.”

A Place for Schooling. Schooling should play some role in a wholistic education. This role should be limited, however, and it should come under the purposes of the individual and of their relationship with their parents and with the other people in their actual community. Schooling, then, inside these constraints, is that gathering together of students in a classroom with a teacher and with a topic to be studied and learned. Schooling cannot be healthy, however, unless it is one part of a larger whole inside of what is best called “the village,” with village being defined as that community of people with whom a child’s family actually relates. We assume, then, that this village is the Church, a local community of believers in Jesus sharing life together.

Defining Wholistic. Then, the word “wholistic” means, first, the whole person, that every part of the human frame is engaged together in every field of study. Second, wholistic means that all the relevant fields of study come together in the application of each new learning project. And third, wholistic means that the learner applies the things learned into the complete weave of their ongoing lives and into all the things they do.

We want, now, to create our own list of “The Ten Principles of Wholistic Education.” Our list will bear no relationship with the aforementioned list, for it will put restraints upon the educator even as it releases the learner into belonging.

1. Responsibility. This child whom you propose to teach has been formed as the likeness of God, with the capacity to reveal unique qualities of God not given to anyone else. At the same time, this child is coming out from God’s thoughts concerning him or her through the good-speaking of Jesus, sustained and carried every moment by Him. But most important to the process of learning, this child is right now giving an account of his or her life in the presence of God.

If God asks permission first, how much more should we? This does not make the classroom without discipline or remove the great need for correction. Rather, recognizing this account being given before God is the foundation of your respect.

2. Respect. There is one way only to teach respect and that is to give it. – We respect God because He first respects us (1 John 3 – paraphrased). More than that, because we treat with each individual person as they are the Lord Jesus, so we give honor to each.

Self-respect is the inner quality of glory, that is, considering the value of one’s own place in God and knowing the meaning of a job well done. A child learns self-respect through valuing and through doing. At the same time, a child learns self-respect through being respected by the adults in his or her life. Self-respect comes out from being wanted and needed by others.

3. Honesty. Pretending is all-pervasive among present humans, in church, in society, and especially in schooling.

Honesty is essential towards receiving one another. Adults practice honesty by being real about their true motives AND by bearing with the human fumbling of others. Children learn honesty by observing the honesty practiced by the adults in their life, especially the honesty directed towards themselves.

“Light” is a metaphor of learning; “light” is also a metaphor of truth. You can’t have learning without truth. Honesty comes out from self-respect and self-respect comes out from responsibility in the face of others that comes out from Christ as our all-connection with God.

4. Personal Gifting. Each individual person is given a particular gift by God in their design. They discover what that gift is by JOY. Apart from finding that JOY, no child can become whole. Yet gifting by itself is not enough, for the child must be trained in that which makes him or her sing.

More than that, we all go through seasons in our lives. A thing that is joy in one season can take second place in the next. God is never static; God is always new every morning; God is always unfolding more. A wholistic education provides for these qualities of the human design, with the goal of enabling each student to excel in that for which God made them.

5. Necessity. There are many tasks essential to human life that are not fun, yet the doing of these things must be learned. In a balanced world, each individual learns both that which brings them joy and that which meets the needs of others. In a community of Christ, the one who designs the construction jobs can also take pleasure in keeping the bathrooms clean, and the one who oversees the gardens can excel at keeping the trash cans emptied. Both kinds of tasks include both parts of glory.

Education includes learning many things that don’t seem to be glorious right now. This is the importance of project-led learning during the middle-school years, for adolescence is the best time to learn how everything works together.

6. Belonging. Humans are made to fit together, to belong, to be part of one another’s lives, to provide for others a unique gift. Yet only whole individuals can make a community, and wholeness requires solitude as well. Human learning, then, takes place inside healthy solitude mixed with healthy togetherness.

To belong means to be valued by others, to be needed. In equal measure, it means valuing others and enjoying what they do. Belonging, however, requires “getting along.” This includes all the conventions of human society, things worked out over time that prove to contribute to “getting along.” Healthy conventions benefit the child; unhealthy conventions control the child. A wise teacher shows the difference.

7. Wholeness of Form. Learning should include the entire person, that is, it should include mental exercise along with physical and spiritual application. Learning should enhance the story of self inside of Christ.

If you are a human, then, by definition, the Father WANTS to be part of your life, for you are coming out from Him. Including the Father through the good-speaking of Jesus is essential to all courses of study. Well-trained minds, well-trained physics, well-trained spirits, healthy emotions and desires, all of these together do not make a “controlled” person, but rather, a person in control of their own form. Such a person is valued by many and can do well anything they set their focus upon, that is, glory.

8. Wholeness of Study. There is a time and place to take things apart inside of study, in order to better understand the parts. But if those parts are not put back together again, then the study is broken. Separating learning literature from learning biology from learning history can have its place, but only if there is also a bringing of all these fields of study together on a regular basis. This is why project and business-based learning is essential to a wholistic education. The personal or business project draws in every field of study and weaves them together into a whole, with strong motivation to build or to gain as the drive.

Not knowing how everything fits together leaves a person vulnerable to deceit; thus wholeness of study is an essential part of individual freedom.

9. Wholeness of Life. To be wholistic, learning must be fitted into non-school parts of life. A goal of student work should be to produce things, from their learning, that other members of the community value and purchase for themselves. At the upper levels, students should be given complex tasks related to community business to solve or to build.

The interests and needs of the local community should then foster places and directions of learning inside what is taught. For instance, if there is a cattle business, then learning everything from marketing to veterinary skills should be available to students to learn. Learning should be part of what we are all doing together.

10. Learning Procession. Effective learning is always focused on student outcomes, as Jesus said, “It’s what comes out that counts, not what goes in.”

In my writing course, one writing assignment, a personal narrative, filled half the semester. I created a series of learning tasks related directly to the student’s own narrative. Each of these tasks was unique and contributed a specific skill to the process. Then, as the students applied each of those things learned to their narrative, they saw the improvement. In the end, they were amazed at what they themselves had written. My course was designed to enable each student to produce from their own doing an A-level piece of writing and to understand clearly how they made it to be so.

Excellent student work, fully understood by each, is the only outcome wholistic learning will consider.

Glory. The immediate and the long-term result of all learning is glory. Glory is the deepest value, and it is a job well done. That is why learning is from glory to glory, and all of it is taking place inside the Spirit of God. Now that I think about it, this was the underlying principle I had applied to my writing course. The end products were indeed glorious and gave great confidence to the students.

The end result of glory, then, is always Father known and made known, for the Father is always the glory inside of and out from every particle of creation. For all things come out from Him, all things are carried through Him, and all things return back to Him (Romans 11).