Holistic Education - A Personal Revolution

• Main Author: Steven TAYLOR
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Nipissing University 2007-12-01
• Series: Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning
• Online Access: https://jual.nipissingu.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2014/06/v1222.pdf

This paper analyses the holistic approach inherent in unschooling, which takes learning outside of the restraints of mainstream education in order for each child to become the author of his or her own curriculum. Although educators now advocate student-centered modifications to the school system, we still view people in schools as agents, factors or products of an indispensable institutional agenda. The latest research and revisions developed in the name of reform are still generated in the context of a system that is unable perceive its own inadequacies and so projects them onto others-students, teachers and parents. Inspired by the work of Paulo Freire (1972), I contend that students must realize the pervasive oppression of schooling and gain power over themselves and their circumstances in order to become socially literate. These values of awareness, resistance and freedom involve going beyond reform to a genuine remaking of the learning environment in the spirit of holism.