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HOLISTIC EDUCATION:
A STRATEGY OF THE LEARNING PLANET?
N. N. Peretyagina
The article is intended to present holistic education as a strategy of the learning planet. To this end, we will discuss the main trends in continuing education, immanent open education as a form of continuing (holistic) education, the components of holistic education, and reasons for defining holistic education as a strategy of the learning planet.
There is no doubt that the establishment of an information society promotes the development of humanity. Knowledgeable and skillful man is the main need and value of the emerging “knowledge society”. Therefore a priority task of education is to create conditions for self-development of every learning individual throughout his or her life: from perinatal pedagogy to andragogy. The modern educational space designed to solve this task is global and multicultural. On the other hand, education becomes increasingly conditioned by socio-cultural factors. Today, it is important to have self-identification, both in the local and global sociocultural environment. Therefore, the self-development of a learning individual should involve, among other things, the development of self-consciousness. Moreover, what is relevant in modern society is not only the need for knowledge, but also the methods for acquiring it. The teacher is replaced by a variety of information sources, as a new social phenomenon. This is in conflict with the existing social being, and the being of the emerging information society permeated by information and generating different methods for acquiring it. In this connection, it is relevant to shift from knowledge consumption to information exchange.
In this socio-cultural context, education becomes supranational in nature (I.A. Tagunova), turning into education without frontiers. On the other hand, it is defined as a form of social practice, a special sphere with an increasingly subjectivized status which develops its own interests, goals, values and policies (V.I. Slobodchikov). Today, the main educator is “not an individual teacher, but society and life as a whole”, the content of education is the “matters of life”, and the general trend is ‘to outline the territory of mass education for conscious living” (B.M. Bim-Bad). All this shows that a society of continuing education can become a reality.
At the same time, there are a few trends that, in our opinion, hamper the implementation of continuing education. For example, psychologists note that in some cases children, teenagers and young people are programmed by computer games and software, which has effects on their psycho-emotional, social and spiritual health. They become more unsociable, less communicative, more aggressive and less emotional. Their short video clip thinking has difficulties at perceiving larger artistic or musical forms. Children and teenagers exhibit higher anxiety levels and reduced levels of perception of the surrounding world. Their thinking abilities, self-expression and self-presentation skills decline.
Attempts to introduce health-saving technology in activities of educational organizations of various kinds and types show that the Russian education system is turning to the health of individuals and the nation as a whole. However, the
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introduction of health-saving technology in the educational process rather relates to hygiene than to the health of students, because it only concerns their physical and psycho-physiological conditions. The psycho-emotional, social and spiritual health of learners is usually overlooked by education workers. Therefore, the approach cannot be regarded as holistic.
Man learns all throughout his life: from the time he enters this world to the moment he leaves it, provided he draws experience from situations occurring to him. Correspondingly, he not only learns in educational institutions of all levels (from kindergarten to an adult self-development school), but also in his life. Children, teenagers, young people and adults not only learn in educational institutions, they also live there. Therefore learning is a form of living. Hence, we can conclude that education is immanent to being. Since everything teaches man, education is open. Education is open to phenomena of life which teach us and help us improve our skills and develop our competencies. Therefore, immanent open education is education in and by life.
Immanent open education is a process whereby an individual transforms his or her competencies and personal qualities by mastering a system of knowledge, skills, cognitive experiences, value orientations and relations in the context of an educational institution, and by self-education. It has a number of characteristics: 1) it meets educational needs of a learning individual and those of society; 2) it is geared to the capabilities and abilities of a learning individual; 3) it is embodied in the person’s individual educational path; 4) it is expanded through an individual educational space; and 5) it exists in the socio-cultural environment of education. If there is a need, then there is a shortage. Immanent open education is aimed at compensating the shortage of educational needs of a particular individual. It is a mechanism for restoring personal integrity and a manifestation of the holistic nature of education. Hence, immanent open education is always holistic.
Components of immanent open education are as follows: (1) the objective and goals of education are to develop a holistic (self-conscious) personality through socialization, facilitate the development of personal self-consciousness on the basis of holistic and humanistic ideas, create conditions for self-cognition, selfidentification and self-determination of a learner, and to harmonize an individual’s relationships with him or her self and the world; (2) the strategy is an individual educational path of a learning individual which is pursued on the basis of the individual’s conscious choice of main directions of education, consists of acts of self-movement in the educational space, and is embodied in universal activities in the individual educational space; (3) the implementation mechanism is the selfdesign consisting of acts of self-movement of a learning individual, including realization, accumulation, simulation and execution; (4) the content of education is the existing social being of a learning individual including different spheres (I, You, We, Nature, Time, Place and Space of humanity in the form of everyday life in and outside social institutions); (5) the main method of implementation of education is a universal activity understood as an activity of a learning individual that is implemented directly in an educational situation, based on the principles of necessity and sufficiency and consisting of humanistic, aesthetic, ethical, philosophical and psychological components; and (6) the result of education is a
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product of education comprising an increase in competencies, transformed personal qualities and products of creativity - a person of different quality.
Holistic education is immanent and open in nature. It is a system of means of regulation and self-regulation of personal transformation by which the holistic personality is socialized in a new social environment. The “value” category is the dominant of holistic education. Holistic education may be a strategy of the learning planet for the following reasons: (a) it is global (it has no frontiers and can be pursued by any person of any age living on the globe); it is socio-cultural (education occurs in a particular cultural educational and global multi-cultural environment); (c) it is value-based (returning man to Human Being, because the dominant of education is the priority of human values); and (d) it is functional and fundamental (every social situation is educational).
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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