In July, ASCD's Commission on the Whole Child convened in Washington, D.C., to mull over the intent of the Association's whole child agenda and discuss strategies for implementing it. Comprising educators and students from around the world, the commission recognized the need to put conversations about the whole child into everyone's hands—"going beyond national borders and creating whole nations," as commission member and South African professor Jonathan Jansen put it.
Early next year the commission will publish a culminating report, based on meeting proceedings, and formally release it at ASCD's 2007 Annual Conference and Exhibit Show, March 17–19, in Anaheim, Calif. Commission members Hugh Price and Stephanie Pace Marshall will cochair a conference panel on the whole child agenda. ASCD will also sponsor a series of public forums on whole child topics.
As a frame for ensuing formal and informal conversations on the whole child, the commission emerged from its July meetings with a portrait of schools that support the whole child principle, as well as policy recommendations to sustain whole child initiatives.
Whole Child Schools
The commission agreed that schools supporting the whole child share some common characteristics:
- Students drive and own their education and get to make choices about it. Student–teacher relationships are nurtured.
- Schools are safe, student-centered, and community-based; convey a sense of belonging; are continuously evaluated; and are unencumbered by bureaucracy.
- Curriculum is engaging, is developmentally appropriate, incorporates the real world, and provides opportunities for cooperative and distance learning.
- Assessment is formative and rigorous, acknowledges the whole child, and is not designed to make students feel unsuccessful.
- Educators are holistic and committed to social justice. They get the resources and support they need for successful professional development and are collegially connected to other educators.
Policy Implications
According to panelist and New Hampshire State Board of Education member Fred Bramante, recommendations like those rely on policy decisions made by those who are close to the students. "States should give power to the local decision makers—state-level policy should provide local authority and flexibility," he said.
Commission members voiced support for education policy that
- Creates a school report card that considers a range of whole child indicators, not just academics (for example, school safety).
- Widens opportunities for recertification and teacher credentialing.
- Identifies alternative programs of study, including those that happen outside of school.
- Allows flexibility to change the structure of the school day and school year.
- Inventories and broadens access to school resources.
- Supports personalizing learning for each child.
Commission member and Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) President Betty Hale said, "Within states, we need to be talking about and asking, ‘What is the current condition of children in your state?’"
Karabelle Pizzigati, also of IEL, agreed: "We don't have enough conversations on maximizing resources within the states. We need an inventory of what programs, initiatives, and resources are already at work in the states, and we need to centralize and publicize this information throughout the state."
Spreading the Whole Child Word
Commission members expressed confidence that educators worldwide are eager to embrace the whole child concept—and become advocates for it. Price, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said that educators are poised to "use technology and communications strategies to spread the whole child agenda like a brush fire."
The upcoming release of the Commission on the Whole Child's strategy report will mark just the beginning of a long process. Panelist and Indiana University professor Lloyd Kolbe concluded, "We charted the journey, and now we have the journey to take."