Education / Schools

Holistic curriculum as a growing-young-person-in-relationship-with-the-world
by Ron Miller

Over the years I have studied many forms of alternative education, from Montessori and Waldorf pedagogy to free schools and home-schooling, from progressive education to critical theory.

There are significant philosophical differences between them, but the most critical difference, I believe, is in how they define the relationship between freedom and structure.

Some radical educators, such as A. S. Neill and John Holt, have told us that learning ought to take place in an entirely free manner. No one should tell another person what or how or when he or she should learn.

Every child should be free to play, to explore, to experiment, to ask questions. Education springs organically from a child's interests and natural curiosity; there is no need for artificial structure. On the other hand, other educational pioneers, such as Montessori and Steiner, insisted that the growing child needs a particular environment, carefully planned and aesthetically designed, in order to activate and support the potentials latent at each stage of development.

On the surface, these views seem to cancel each other out: Either we give children maximum freedom or we don't. Either we let them explore the world freely, or we tell them what they need to learn. In my view, however, holistic education transcends this dilemma, by finding value in both points of view.

The two fundamental principles of holistic education work together in dynamic balance: We start with the child, not abstractly but in reality--with the living child. But then we respond to the child, guided by a sensitive awareness of the world. The issue is no longer freedom against structure, but freedom in a dialectic relationship to structure, or the individual person in meaningful dialogue with the school, or with society.

The student is not constrained by alien forces, but gladly participates in a structured world to which he or she feels connected.

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