Holistic Education

¨ A Holistic School

The goal of holistic education is not to shape people, but to awaken the innate intelligence that lies dormant in all individuals. Intelligence is not information; it does not come from teachers or books and is not measured by tests: it does not arise from cultivating the mind or from the acquisition of knowledge. Intelligence is the gift to comprehend life as it is. Intelligence is the talent to separate the essential from the traditional. Intelligence is direct knowing --- the capacity to distinguish the real from the illusory, the aptitude to discriminate what is life giving from what is toxic, what is universally true from what is just culturally accepted.

What separates “what truly is” from artificial systems of knowledge, from clever techniques, and elaborate belief systems, is intelligence. Intelligence is the process of sifting the opinions of one’s society through the sieve of inner experience to discover personal truth.

Change is a fact of life. If we are not developing and transforming, we are not truly alive; if we’re not expanding conscious, we’re losing it. Nothing stays the same. The consciousness of students, parents, and teachers is always shifting. It’s the nature of the world we live in.

For this reason our school is experimental. We periodically re-evaluate the results of our program in order to determine what shifts in emphasis are needed to restore balance in the school as a whole. Like an airplane pilot that often adjusts his course in order to arrive at his destination point, we revise our teaching plans whenever we collectively note an imbalance in our school. Although perfect balance is never achieved, the process of consciously seeking it guides our actions. For example, if we see a lot of rudeness or arrogance in student behavior, we do something that brings awareness to what feelings and thoughts lay behind the insolence and what anguish this behavior has triggered in others.

The purpose of authentic education is to help students awaken to their own innate intelligence and purpose so that they can become integrated human beings. This is only possible when both teachers and students focus on “what is now” rather than how students must gain abstract knowledge now in order to be prepared for the future. By openly dealing with what one experiences in the present moment, students penetrate their own nature and wake up to their own intelligence.

A holistic school gives priority to self-knowledge and freedom. It appeals to students have a strong need to discover for themselves the life path they wish to blaze. These pioneers have a spirit of inquiry that searches for personal truth They have an urgent sense of discontent with ways of life based on comfort, luxury, and safety; they have little interest in secure jobs, convenient marriages, or power trips. Pathfinders know that it is possible for an individual to control their own destinies if they break through their own psychological needs to conform, --- the need to always meet the expectations of others and the need to always concur with the opinions of authorities.

The premise of a holistic school is that each student finds meaning and purpose in life by making a series of connections: connecting to individuals within a community that is based on equality and love, connecting to the sanctity of nature and the natural world, and connecting to such spiritual values as truth, beauty, and compassion. An environment that honors these vital relationships exposes students to new possibilities and encourages them to try on alternative identities; such a community is likely to transform a student’s sense of self.

An expanded identity arises from underas mirrors revealing one’s own standing relationships (with others, with nature, and with oneself) as mirrors revealing the texture and composition of one’s own being. A slight switch in identity makes it possible to create new relationships with everything and everybody. The Well’s task is, therefore, to help students connect with their intelligence so that they can expand their ability to develop meaningful relationships of every kind. Our intent is the awaken students to the wonder of life.

Holistic education links living and learning. Its model of life is the entire network of nature; its model of learning is observing and tuning into the visible and invisible facets of the cycles of life.

Holism is transformative. It changes students by calling forth, developing, and making conscious aspects of their innate intelligence. It is not accomplished through an academic curriculum that divides and reduces the world into instructional packages, but by addressing and observing whole life processes and the many mutual relationships involved in the ecology of nature.

Awakening to the conscious and unconscious dynamics of the individual psyche provides a parallel, microcosmic experience of one’s inner life, revealing the ecology of the soul. Transmutation moves us into another landscape in which freedom, the significance of life, and inner authority are visible landmarks.

The nature of holistic education may be further clarified by contrasting it with mainstream education. While traditional education depends on the transmission of fixed, cultural knowledge from teacher to student, holistic education is based on a student’s direct observation and reflection about life, on personal experience and inquiry.

While standardized education values the compliant student, authentic education prizes the unique talents and idiosyncrasies that all children exhibit. For it is through our unique compulsions that we are driven to find our right place in the world; necessity both drives us into the wilderness and leads us to know ourselves.

New Earth Institute is holistic in that it recognizes and addresses all four ways people naturally interface with life. All humans are capable of experiencing life through these four conduits: through our feelings, through our minds, through our intuition, and through our body. Because The Well honors intelligence, it brings all these portals into consciousness. The Well educational program honors and provides for the development of each of these pathways. Since we see body, mind, feelings, and intuitions as every person’s natural and sacred inheritance, we celebrate the expression of all four faculties in and out of the classroom. By helping students to become aware of the treasures they possess, we foster the acceptance and conscious integration of the four ways of learning and knowing.