An introduction to Holistic Education

When? As Whitehall's politicians were shunting the Canadian model into our state schools. Why? After all,  it was not working with sufficient merit to the advantage of Canadian education. Even what was the Soviet Union has reformed its National Curriculum, daring not to confuse standards with standardisation. Paradoxically, Canada is now at the forefront of Holistic Education as, say, in parts of Toronto University where I have had the pleasure of presenting my fun philosophy 'playshops'.

So, let's now demand no more death by a thousand work sheets ill- designed. Let's insist that we stop the pecking-order of paranoiac parrot-learning. How many more school windows to get smashed (their numbers and the cost of repairs, of course, not disclosed by heads of schools)? How many more teachers, to avoid nervous breakdowns or long term illness through stress, leak from the profession for good? How many more thousand children refusing to attend classes? How long since the phrase 'vocation for teaching' was happily subscribed to any twenty-first century Mr., Mrs. or Ms Chips?

DOVETALES offers in each of the 10 guidebooks 360 mini-sagas (only 50 words each). These invite original input and creative responses to be shared between teacher and taught (these roles of course become interchangeable). Being short but potent with potential, each saga is open-ended enough to link at least two other subject areas without needing expertise, letting the excited spirit of enquiry become inspired. All this in addition to providing enriching stimuli to fit various Attainment Targets at all levels above, for most students, Middle School age. Awareness being more profound than intelligence, I wish to remain non-ageist in this endeavour. Indeed, consciousness itself is ageless.

DOVETALES MATHEMATICS (More Fun, Less Fear!) was illustrated by the 15-year-old Lee Chapman. He hated maths but loved my approach. He knew that at school I myself had failed maths! I also failed science. My imagination, which is very intuitive, had not been stirred sufficiently to awaken latent fascination with either subject. Thus DOVETALES INTEGRATED SCIENCE (Love Before Learning?) became the second in the series to be written. This book was so enjoyed by a ten-year-old that he placed an order on the next in the series, DOVETALES TECHNOLOGY FOR ALL (Fewer Boxes, Further Bridges?). Not only did he pay up before it was published but he saved up his own pocket money to do so!

Some of these DOVETALES were directly requested by teachers. Even before current educational dictums restricted creative enjoyment in classrooms, loving teachers were desperately looking for more imaginative ways of refreshing their learning strategies. DOVETALES proved successful and popular across the storyboards used in classes teaching French...as also with school videos made for Special Needs in English lessons - all home-grown teaching aids! Most student and staff responses, once released from stress and pressures, became ...well...CREATIVE!

As intended.

Even Government guidelines for Science teaching mention Drama as being useful to deepen awareness of lifelong principles in our youngsters. As for music and science, there is a growing shortage of specialist teachers. Another reason for forging more inter-subject co-operation, especially to counter the Government induced climate of staff-room competition.  Witness now the return of the Protestant Work Ethic - if it doesn't hurt it can't be doing you any good! Young adult students often don't know who they are...or why. Where is there wisdom is this?

Chemistry, Biology and Physics were grouped under one label - INTEGRATED SCIENCE. The same could be happening in the Arts, especially now that Specialist schools are being formed. I was a member of the Berkshire Arts' Initiative, helping to pioneer newer ways to help inter-arts collaborative teaching. Meanwhile, a combined History and Geography examination at GCSE level was proposed in order to fit both subjects into the annual timetable, it getting ever more dense, not richer. The legal requirements of the National Curriculum need not throttle all personal initiatives too! Education is most fruitful when students can love their guidance at all levels, when it is not so much an imperative but more a benign invitation for further investigations, all life-long learning being the hidden curriculum.

Indeed, as I ask in my book SOUL-CENTRED EDUCATION, how can we truly say what education is for until we say what life itself is for?

Even reading and writing becomes most enjoyable when students can explore and expand their own nature. Based on personal preference, that can be through anything from fishing to football, knitting to nano-culture. Astro-physics could include astrology as geometry might usefully include numerology. If state legislators dare to allow more autonomy in both teachers and taught (with minimal differentiation to help maximise co-operation!) who knows, the crime figures might dramatically drop!

Give us more not less choices - for is not life full of choices, even within our private attitudes all the way down to class boredom itself? Think of Pilgrim's Progress. And as I say to the little ones in our philosophy classes, "If we ourselves don't make the choices, will we wish to blame those who make them for us?" (The pecking-order of paranoia within politicians is also found in many in staff-rooms.) But given a wider range of choices, kids are often wiser and more truthful than controlling adults care to admit. What's more, their untutored curiosity is eclectic, optimistic and easily excited!.

For every one way there is to be bored, there's a thousand better ways not to be so. The NATIONAL CURRICULUM need not be an over- prescriptive chronological model. So-called ignorance is not an illness which can be cured by imposing one smothering blanket of bromide. Using any of the ten books called DOVETALES  is to be learner-centred rather than system-centred. One 9-year-old called this approach his "MAGIC MEDICINE!" Indeed, such pick-an'-mix strategies offer, as in Complementary Medicine, an antidote against 'allopathic' academia. (I nearly typed anemia!) When unhappiness becomes a habit - beware, necessary change is being blocked.

Meanwhile, try DOVETALES HOLISTIC HISTORY (Less Disaster, More Déjà Vu?). It offers a unique matrix for cross-curricula lattice-work lessons encouraging the wonders of webbing and weaving, no interest area isolated or ostracised. And should this sound too idealistic to be practical, let us ask what SUBJECT should FOSSILS be filed under...or ceramics...health, economic awareness, industrial links, or citizenship...let alone computer sciences, all of which are facilitated in each book in this series of ten DOVETALES.

Yes, why shouldn't ENGLISH ATTAINMENT TARGETS be in MATHEMATICS, or vice versa? After all, their own Target I and 3 Levels state: "Talk about own work and ask questions." And "Explain work being done." Deeper questions lie hidden within the pages of, say, DOVETALES GODLY GEOGRAPHY, Less Green Gloom, More Mother Love?. But in the non-statutory guidelines we read that "Talking will include describing, explaining, clarifying ideas, giving examples, making predictions..." I predict that the next learning- model will reject all up-down willfulness and thus produce an ANGEL EDUCATION encouraging not a pass-fail but a win-win scenario. Since this prediction, I have compiled a book of this title for THE GREGORY FOUNDATION. Interested parties, please contact by Email: wilmotjosife@aol.com  

Meanwhile, the format for DOVETALES is flexible enough to stimulate fruitful cross-fertilisation of multiple responses, thus encouraging a more holistic view of life. One which can even inform subjects not crammed into the National Curriculum, allowing all classes to feel more  like 'Playshops'!

To sum up, keen learners at all levels can be helped by these stimulating books in ways that best suit their own need for 

 EDUTAINMENT, EDUTAINMENT, EDUTAINMENT!

For further details, contact the author,

email:- christopher.gilmore@virgin.net