Introduction
Quality of education is a school’s life line. Yet, the definition of quality education is elusive as different stakeholders of the school may have very different expectations of education processes and outcomes. When we believe we are already providing a quality education, parents could ask more individualized attention and services, the owner of the school could ask more marketable products and results, and the government certainly has its set of standards that does not necessarily fit every school. So, what should be our own ECNUAS definition of a quality education? I am often troubled by this question. Today’s talk is one part of my research in a hope of pinning down my answer to this question.
In this talk, I would like to focus on the concept of holistic education, its relationship with quality education, the approaches to holistic education of the Chinese government, and several emerging curricular practices in ECNUAS in the light of holistic education.
The concept of holistic education is not new to us. However, if you delve into it you would find there are varied understandings and interpretations of it and different approaches to it. Many schools claim they offer holistic education, yet if you walk into their campuses or in their classes and exam their curricula, you could see they are just doing the version of holistic education that they believe is the case. Although the ECNUAS has not put a holistic label on what we do explicitly, our practices over the past six years were undeniably resonate with the idea of holistic education.
Perhaps, our basic and common understanding of holistic education is that it is an approach to curriculum and teaching that address academic, personal, and social needs of each individual student. Fundamentally speaking, holistic education should aim for the development of the whole person and enable the person to become the very best of himself or herself through fully developing needed capacities of a human being. (Singh, 1996; Forbes, 2003) This ultimate goal of holistic education is exactly what our school strives to realize through our curriculum and through the interactions between our teachers and students. One overt manifestation of the ECNUAS holistic education is the school motto, which is Learn for Better, Think for Life (人为日省，学为日进). To make it a little bit more explicit, we could say we educate our students to Learn for Better Self, Think for Better Life. That is to say, we want our students to develop fully, to become better human beings who live better lives. This is vision of education of ECNUAS remarkably sets apart from the more academically-focused and test-driven education.
Given the above observation, therefore, I think it is beneficial for us, including the school administrators and teachers, to study the concept of holistic education, learn its best practices, define the ECNUAS approach to it, and more importantly create our vision of quality holistic education in the current social, cultural, economic, as well as policy environment. Notably, it is not just us ECNUS doing holistic education, many other governmental and non-governmental schools believe they are doing it to. Actually, as you shall see in a few minutes, the whole national and international education systems are shifting towards the practices in line with the paradigm of holistic education. Therefore, to make our ECNUAS outstanding in the large education landscape, we need to diligently and continuously think, plan, and create a better system of holistic education that produces high quality education outcomes.
Defining holistic education
The literary meaning of the term holistic education seems simple. Being holistic means tending the whole child instead of just focusing on parts of child’s learning and development, such as his maths or his sports. The difference between the two approaches is similar to the difference between the Chinese traditional medicine and the western medicine. While the western approach only treats your head if you feel an headache and only treats your feet if you feel a pain on your feet (头痛医头，脚痛医脚), the Chinese approach tends to deal with your whole body as an integrated system. The pain on your left foot could be caused by some problem in your head or any other connected parts! Integrated wholes cannot be reduced in parts. The concept of holism in Chinese philosophy goes beyond the human body. Probably you are familiar with the saying the universe and the human is one unity (天人合一) and both follows the same principles that is Dao (道). The concept of holism does not only exist in the Chinese philosophy, it also exists in the western culture. Actually, the word holism itself comes from the Greek concept of holon, which means the universe is an integrated whole that cannot be reduced in parts.
Now we begin to realize that underlying the idea of holistic education must be a very different view on education, human development, and probably the world. Opposite to this alternative worldview must be the worldviews and thoughts, such as reductionist views, underpinning the still prevalent approach to education in which learners mainly receive transmitted knowledge and taught skills. It appears that a range of world views and thoughts influence the evolution of the idea and concepts of holistic education, including perennial philosophy, indigenous worldviews, life philosophy, ecological worldview, systems theory, and feminist thoughts (Nacagawa, 2000). Let us take a snapshot of each of these views and thoughts so we can understand how they our views on education have been shaped by them in one way or another.
Perennial philosophy: all religions and thoughts share a single origin or truth, that is so called Oneness or Wholeness
Indigenous worldviews: reverence for nature, the earth, the universe, and the spirit; interconnectedness of all beings
Life philosophy: there exists a fundamental and driving life force that generates and organizes all beings; education is just a manifestation and vehicle of the life processes
Ecological world view: interdependence of the reality, for example, education is integrated in the environment or ecology
Systems theory: the world or the universe is a comprehensive system in which all things are interconnected, there are systemic explanations of the dynamic structure of the world
Feminist thoughts: caring relations with others and the world, partnerships, democratic and egalitarian structure
Knowing these underlying worldviews and thoughts is helpful when we try to understand various definitions of holistic education. Miller (1991) provides a very comprehensive description for holistic education. He thinks that a holistic education should be broad and focuses on intellectual, emotional, social, physical, creative, aesthetic and spiritual potentials of learners, promotes open and collaborative relationships at all levels within a learning community, emphasizes on learning and life experiences beyond the classroom and the formal educational environment, empowers learners to examine critically the cultural, moral and political contexts of their lives. After they consulted relevant literature, Mahmoudi et al (2012) summarize five characteristics of holistic education including nurturing whole person development, revolving around relationships, being concerned with life experiences, recognizing that cultures are created and changed by people, and understanding the reverence for the life and the unknow.
Holistic education can also be defined in more practical ways. For example, one American university website defines it as a “comprehensive approach to teaching where educators seek to address the emotional, social, ethical, and academic needs of students in an integrated learning format. Emphasis is placed on positive school environments and providing whole-child supports to students”. (https://soeonline.american.edu/blog/what-is-holistic-education ) Another institution outlines what children should learn provided with holistic education (https://www.holistic-education.net/visitors3.htm). For them, children need to develop academic capacities, learn about themselves, learn about a variety of relationships, develop emotionally, learn to see beauty and appreciate timeless truth and meaning.
In sum, a holistic education does not just focus on one aspect of a learner’s development, such as intellectual or physical development. It emphasizes on all personal, social, emotional, physical, as well as spiritual aspects. Although there can be many different understandings and definitions of holistic education, all of them seem to emphasize that holistic education should include every aspect of development of a child. In other words, it is an education that supports “fullest possible development” of a person (Hare, 2010). But what means by “fullest possible development”. To school administrators and teachers, this sounds elusive because the school education cannot cover everything as the child lives and grows in an environment much larger than the school. It seems that the school can always think bigger and do more as the development of a child can always be fuller and be on the way towards being fullest. Therefore, holistic education should also be regarded by our administrators and teachers as an aspiration for a better and high quality education.
Holistic curriculum and its outcomes
Curriculum is the interface where teachers teach and students learn. How should the school curriculum be influenced by the concept of holistic education? Being aware of these underpinning world views and definitions of holistic education could set our deliberation and discussion apart of the narrower vision of school curriculum and education. Now we understand that the holistic education movement is not just a collection of interesting ideas and practices. Rather, it reflects our human beings’ evolving understandings of ourselves, our world, the universe, as well as education. The world has clearly changed in many ways and undoubtedly is still changing. So does education. In response to all the observed and anticipated changes, the need of reflecting on and reviewing our approaches to curriculum, teaching and learning arises. UNESCO used to promote four pillars of learning (Zhou, 1996), which to me can be used as a more useful framework closer to our educational and curricular efforts than those abstract worldviews and definitions related to holistic education.
Learning to be: learning to be complete human with rich personality, complexity of expression, and various commitments through acquisition of knowledge, skills, and values
Learning to know: not only acquiring knowledge but also the development of the disposition and abilities of life-long learning, as well as the enjoyment in discovering and knowing
Learning to do: application of what learners have learned into practices, calling for a shift from basic skills to competencies that include higher-order skills such as collaboration, communication, creativity, and adaptability etc.
Learning to live together: understand self and discovery and appreciation of others, experience shared purposes throughout life
If the four pillars of learning encompass all the components of a holistic curriculum and if the curriculum is effectively delivered by the teachers of the school, what education outcomes should we expect as a result of it? Hare (2010) argues that a good holistic education can be guided by a list of anticipated education outcomes. As an example of holistic education, the IB makes efforts in this area. In the IB education there is a list of ten learner attributes that is promoted as the Learner Profile. “IB programmes promote the education of the whole person, by emphasizing intellectual, personal, emotional and social growth through all domains of knowledge…The learner profile is a profile of the whole person as a lifelong learner…It is not intended to be a profile of the perfect student; rather, it can be considered as a map of a lifelong journey in pursuit of international-mindedness.” (IB, 2008)
In particular, one of the ten attributes, Balanced says, “We understand the importance of balancing different aspects of our lives—intellectual, physical, and emotional—to achieve well-being for ourselves and others. We recognize our interdependence with other people and with the world in which we live.” (IB, 2019) Indeed, these aspects of growth cannot and should not be separated. Recent research suggests that personality traits and socio-emotional skills development in educational settings have positive effect on overall well-being of students (Durlak et al. 2011). The most recent OECD study on social and emotional skills also reveals that social and emotional skills are significantly related to learners’ academic performance as well as educational and occupational expectations. Not surprisingly, better social and emotional skills imply better psychological wellbeing of learners. Better social interactions in school also indicate stronger motivation for learning. (OECD, 2021) Therefore, the list of leaner attributes and interconnections among these attributes together depict the desired image of a successful and fully-developed learner.
Holistic and quality education
It is obvious to me that the concept of holistic education is largely consistent with the requirements of quality education. In ancient China, the outcomes of quality education mean that a person masters Six Arts （六艺）including rites, music, archery, riding, writing, arithmetic (礼，乐，射，御，书，数, 出自《周礼·地官司徒·保氏》). Confucius takes a step further and asks his students to “set heart on the truth, hold to virtue, lean upon human-heartedness, seek relaxation and enjoyment in the Six Arts”(志于道，据于德，依于仁，游于艺, 出自《论语》). Obviously, in Confucius’ eyes a fully developed person goes beyond the learning of knowledge, skills, and values. He should also be morally strong and spiritually solid.
In the modern China, the term quality education has evolved to have multiple meanings. Among them is the approach to education that is opposite to the examination-driven education. The term of “quality education” was specifically put forward during the National Education Congress in 1994 in the purpose of shifting the test-driven teaching and learning in Chinese schools to a more student-centered and well-rounded education. It is hard to say this policy intention was fulfilled over the 30 years, yet the concept of quality education has been popularized among practitioners and the public through this movement.
The United Nations ratified 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 and among them the 4th Goal is about quality education. It sets a goal to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning”. In support of the call for quality education for all, international organizations try to pin down a definition of quality education so that the practices of education systems and schools can be more coordinated. ASCD and Education International (EI) define that “A quality education is one that focuses on the whole child--the social, emotional, mental, physical, and cognitive development of each student regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or geographic location. It prepares the child for life, not just for testing.” (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-do-we-mean-by-a-qual_b_9284130) Obviously, the quality education defined here is a version of holistic education.
In 2019, OECD published a position paper titled The Future of Education and Skills 2030. The year of 2030 is not too far away from us. Let us see how far our education is from the vision that OECD sets up three years ago. The paper states that, on the top of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that we all familiar with, students in this new age should also develop “transformative competencies” that can enable them to deal with lots of uncertainties individually and collectively in the future. The transformative competencies include creating new values, taking responsibilities, and reconciling tensions and dilemmas.
Perhaps this OECD vision of quality education is the most progressive version that I have seen as of today. It resonates my observation that the development of learners can always be fuller and the curriculum and education in a school can always be more holistic. At the same time, however, the school only has so many limited resources and teachers and students only have so much limited time and energy. Therefore, how we could reconcile the tension between the limitations in the school education and ever-growing demand for a more holistic education with even higher quality becomes a perennial question and quest for all the people in the room. Good news is that quality education and holistic education seem to converge towards each other and when we endeavor to build a refined holistic education we are also closer to a quality education.
The current Chinese approach to holistic education
If you follow the evolution of Chinese education over the past 20 years, clearly you will see it is striving to be more modern and more holistic. First of all, let us review the General Principle of the ruling party, Chinese Communist Party, in China. As a school that offers compulsory education, I think it is crucial to understand the General Principle.
"Education must serve the socialist modernization drive and the people, and must be combined with productive labor and social practice to cultivate socialist builders and successors who develop morally, intellectually, physically, aesthetically, and labor in an all-round way."
(“教育必须为社会主义现代化建设服务、为人民服务，必须与生产劳动和社会实践相结合，培养德智体美劳全面发展的社会主义建设者和接班人”)
I will not comment on the ideological and political purposes of the Party and its approach to education, rather I will just focus on the curricular and pedagogical implications of this principle. The Principle demands the education system to develop talents in a holistic way and to connect the learning with vocational and experiential experiences. President Xi articulated and highlighted the need of creating an education system characterized by Five Simultaneous Cultivations ( 五育并举；“努力构建德智体美劳全面发展的教育体系”) during the National Education Congress in September 2018 first time. Since then, this concept and associated practices have been rolled out in all levels of education systems and schools across the country. This movement shows the strong will of the Party to revamp the whole education system towards holistic education. This goal of building a holistic education in China is reiterated and formalized by the policy document Modernize Chinese Education 2035 (《中国教育现代化2035》). It states that the Chinese education should attach more importance to learners well-rounded development, greatly promote quality education, enhance the integration of ethical, intellectual, physical, aesthetical, and labor education. (“更加注重学生全面发展，大力发展素质教育，促进德育、智育人、体育、美育和劳动教育有机融合http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2019-02/23/content_5367987.htm”)
More recently, a few policy directives also reveal the strong intention of building a holistic education in China. For example, the central government popularized the concept of Three All-Rounded Education (三全教育) firstly in the higher education and then to the school education. The Three All-Rounded Education means all staff members should be involved in educating students, education is a comprehensive process that includes all dimensions of the school, and all aspects of student development should be considered and planned (全员育人、全程育人、全方位育人). Obviously, this policy directive not only ratifies the goal of holistic education but also suggests strategies and methods to achieve the goal of it. Last semester, I believe no school and no teacher could have avoided the impact of the so-called Double Deduction policy (双减政策). Clearly the initial intention of this policy was also to direct school education and the education outside schools away from the test-driven conundrum to a high quality and holistic approach to education. From the next semester, probably you will be hearing another new term that concerns all Chinese teachers in the compulsory primary and middle schools. The initiative Every Teacher Is An Advisor (全员导师) will be rolled out in more and more schools including ECNUAS. The purpose of this new initiative is to involve all human resources in the school to help students better develop emotionally, ethically, aesthetically, and socially, in other words, holistically.
The ECNUS pursuit of holistic education
Provided with the aforementioned philosophical, theoretical, and practical understanding as to holistic understanding, we are at a better position to examine the ECNUAS’ pursuit of holistic education. Obviously, many good practices in the school are in line with the idea and best practices of holistic education. We have already built or begin to build a range of curricular components and programs that all aim for students’ fullest development. Among these components and programs the newest are the K-12 STEAM Curriculum, which helps students learn higher order skills and apply what they learn in the real world, and the Student Career Planning Programs, which helps students, parents, and teachers really put the learner’s development at the center of our work.
Our school curricula are also built in line with holistic education. Take the compulsory primary and middle school curriculum as an example. It contains basic compulsory subjects, school based compulsory courses, and more electives that cultivate special interests and talents. On the top of the main stream program is the specialized program, Class of Rose, which caters for those students who opt for a more internationalized education. Overall, our education is characterized by four main features including quality, diversity, integration, and caring. For quality, it includes students’ academic performances, achievements at arts and physical education, learning attainments from extra-curriculum, and outcomes in out-of-school competitions. For diversity, we try to create a number of strategies including One Child One Timetable, One Child One Sports Skill, One Child One Musical Instrument, and One Child One Evaluation. For integration, we try to bring different curricula, pedagogical approaches, community resources, and diverse cultures together so as to create a more enabling learning environment that is conducive the whole person development. Finally, we create a number of strategies to care for and to enlarge the potential of each child. The strategies include Student Career Development Plan, Homeroom system, House system, and All-in Advisor system. Obviously, all these strategies and practices are supposed to raise every child in the school to the fullest possible development.
In the high school, we continuously build the school curriculum that enables each student to grow holistically. At the center of this school curriculum model is the learners. The outer ring of the model shows the 12 learner attributes that include the ten attributes from the IB Learner Profile and two locally created ones. The two additional attributes are respectful and resilient. The 12 learner attributes are further categorized into three pillars, namely ways of being, ways of learning, and ways of doing. Under Ways of being (为人), there are Caring, Respectful, Communicators, Balanced; under Ways of learning (为学), there are Inquirers, Thinkers, Knowledgeable, Reflective. and under Ways of doing (为事), there are Open-minded, Risker-takers, Principled, Resilient. The interface between the teachers and learners is the three domains of the curriculum, which are academic, pastoral, and hidden curriculum. In each domain of the curriculum, there are stills a range of programs and practices that support student development in all possible aspects and ways. Although this curriculum model is by no means close to perfection, it embodies the philosophy of holistic education for sure.
Perhaps you now realize how interesting it is to work in an internationalized K-12 school like ECNUAS. There are different four sections in the school. Governed by some overarching structures, policies and strategies, each of them appears to have its unique make of curriculum and approaches to teaching and learning. The kindergarten obviously embraces the philosophy of holistic education and progressive ideas of transdisciplinary learning; the primary school, the middle school, and the high school seem to be doing so many different things. Regardless of distinct curricula and approaches to teaching and learning, interestingly we all provide a holistic education and we all strive to produce high quality outcomes. If we say the primary school and middle school mainly offer a more local or national version of holistic education, then the high school and the kindergarten offer an international version of holistic education. They give us opportunities to test, compare, revise, and upgrade holistic education just within the large school!
ECNUAS is still quite young, and perhaps there will be a long way to go before we eventually build a holistic education with higher quality recognized by the society and by the larger international education community. Yet we believe we have already laid a solid foundation in the past a few years and we are also on the right track towards a holistic quality education. Excitingly, you are part of this journey and anything that you contribute will bring us an inch closer to our ultimate goal that is the “fullest possible development” of every student. We know there is still long way to go before we can confidently claim a high-quality education, and there are many visible problems in the processes of our work. I would like to call for your contributions as your contribution is crucial to our shared success. You are part of the solution, you are not just an observer of the problems and the journey towards a holistic and quality education of the school. So, roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty, do some research, and contribute your ideas and strengths.
References:
Singh, K. (1996). ‘Education for the Global Society’, in Learning: The Treasure Within, The Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty First Century, Paris: UNESCO.
Forbes, S. (2003). Holistic education: An analysis of its ideas in nature. Brandon, VT: Foundation for Educational Renewal.
Mahmoudi, S., Jafari, E., Nasrabadi, H., Liaghatdar, M. (2012). Holistic education: An approach for 21 century. International educational studies, Vol. 5, No. 2.
Nacagawa, Y. (2000). Education for Awakening: an Estern Approach to Holistic education. Brandon, holistic education press.
Zhou, N. Z, (1996). ‘The four pillars of education’, in Learning: The Treasure Within: Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty First Century. Paris: UNESCO.
Hare, J. (2010). Holistic education: An interpretation for teachers in the IB programmes. IB.
OECD (2021), Beyond Academic Learning: First Results from the Survey of Social and Emotional Skills, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/92a11084-en.
Durlak, JA, Weissberg, RP, Dymnicki, AB, Taylor, RD and Schellinger, KB. 2011. “The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta- analysis of school-based universal interventions”. Child development. Vol 82, number 1. Pp 405–432.
IB. (2008). Learner Profile Booklet.
IB. (2019). What is an IB education.
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