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Summer 2007
| Volume 64 | Number 9
Engaging the Whole Child (online only)
About This Issue
Marge Scherer
Two Takes on Whole
Amy M. Azzam
The co-chairs of ASCD's Commission on the Whole Child—Hugh B. Price and Stephanie Pace Marshall—spoke with Educational Leadership about what it means to educate the whole child. Preparing a student for success in a career, notes Marshall, shouldn't be the sole aim of education. According to Price, a whole child approach means starting the conversation in a different place. “This is about children,” he explains, “how to foster healthy, balanced, well-educated children.” The co-chairs respond to critics who call the whole child concept “fuzzy,” “squishy,” and “subjective.” They point out that fostering the academic and social development of children and developing the full range of children's capacities promote truly rigorous learning. They comment on ASCD's new “learning compact” on the whole child and discuss how such an approach meaningfully addresses equity. According to Marshall, a whole child education nurtures the skills that students will need to be successful in work and life. The co-chairs discuss the evidence base for the whole child approach and offer insights on whether it can coexist with a high-stakes testing culture.
The Neuroscience of Joyful Education
Judy Willis
Judy Willis, a neurologist turned classroom teacher, reviews research showing that the most effective learning takes place when students are engaged in the material and when they aren't under stress. Recent studies of the brain reveal that information is more likely to travel into long-term memory when it is relevant to the learner. Stress impedes the storage process, researchers say. The pressure some teachers feel to sacrifice discovery learning in favor of drills and test preparation can actually hinder learning by lowering student interest while increasing their stress level. Willis offers several strategies for bringing the joy back into the classroom and thereby increasing student learning.
A Monumental Curriculum
P. Bruce Uhrmacher and Barri Tinkler
A unit on monuments provides high school teachers in Colorado with valuable curricular opportunities. Students analyze and interpret meaningful subject matter as teachers address multiple learning styles, integrate subject matter, and include the arts. The unit also focuses on connecting with the community because students study local monuments. The curriculum unit, titled An Exploration of Humanity through Monuments, includes seven lesson plans that span three weeks. Students study referent (the story the monument tells); design (how it tells its story); and reception (its impact on viewers). Students visit and analyze three monuments in Denver, Colorado: the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the Christopher Columbus Memorial statue, and the Civil War Memorial.
Coaching Students to New Heights in Writing
William Powell and Ochan Kusuma-Powell
The authors describe a project at the International School of Kuala Lumpur in which 8th grade students used Cognitive Coaching to improve their essay writing. The coaching sessions focused on the prewriting stage. Students were taught the specific coaching techniques of pausing, paraphrasing, and probing. They also used a coaching map to guide them though their sessions and help the students being coached to develop plans for their essays. The 14 students who participated showed improvement in their writing and increased self-confidence.
Students as Citizens
David A. Scott
Schools in a democracy have a responsibility to teach students the skills and knowledge they need to be part of the democratic process. The Northport–East Northport Union Free School District in Long Island, New York, established Project PATCH (Participatory Awareness Through Community Help) to help students think through civic issues. The program includes courses in law and the constitution, sponsoring moot courts and law forms, a peer leadership program, and an ombudsman who guides students through conflicts and helps them understand school policy and laws related to administrative actions. The district participates in ASCD's First Amendment Schools program.
Making the Most of Field Trips
Linda Mayger
These days, field trips without obvious academic content can be hard to sell to administrators focused on test scores. Field trips, however, can bring balance to the curriculum, especially to those areas—for example, science, history, and the arts—that have been marginalized by our current focus on basic skills. Musical and theatrical performances provide opportunities that many students would not otherwise have to watch talented people demonstrate their arts. At the same time, they can develop students' background knowledge and oral vocabulary. Successful field trips depend on several factors: scheduling the trip at an appropriate time, adequately preparing students for the trip, engaging them in meaningful activities during the trip, and conducting relevant follow-up activities.
A Daily Engagement with the Arts
Sarah Zadny
Zadny describes the enrichment program at Propel Schools, a consortium of three charter schools in Pittsburgh. Propel schools partner with local arts groups and recreation centers. Visiting artists are in the schools throughout the year to teach six-week modules that center on study of the arts, arts-based activities, and physical movement. All students take an enrichment arts class every day. Propel schools build extended time into their calendars to give teachers and visiting artists the hours needed for structured collaboration. Through this collaboration, visiting artists and teachers connect the content and activities of the enrichment modules with content that students are learning in academic classes.
Whole Teaching, Whole Schools, Whole Teachers
John P. Miller
As an alternative to the piecemeal approach to education policy in vogue today, the author advocates a return to a more holistic vision of teaching and learning—one that can be found in the world views of indigenous peoples, in the American transcendentalists, and in most spiritual traditions. He describes three elements of this holistic vision: whole teaching, whole teachers, and whole schools. Whole teaching links individual subjects, instructional units, and lessons to their larger meaning; helps students see connections; and incorporates a variety of instructional approaches. Whole schools act as sanctuaries in which students and teachers feel a deep sense of community and acceptance. Whole teachers cultivate mindfulness that enables them to be fully present for their students.
Twenty-First-Century Skills for the Whole Child
Amy M. Azzam
Copyright © 2004 by Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
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