Community Based Holistic Education
How Its Developers See It Evolving
The Kalikalos project claims to be about bringing something called holistic education to a summer holiday setting. So what *IS* holistic education? Here is what some of those who are actively developing it answer.
Wikipedia: Holistic education is a philosophy of education based on the premise that each person finds identity, meaning, and purpose in life through connections to the community, to the natural world, and to spiritual values such as compassion and peace. Holistic education aims to call forth from people an intrinsic reverence for life and a passionate love of learning. This is the definition given by Ron Miller, founder of the journal Holistic Education Review (now entitled Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice). The term holistic education is often used to refer to the more democratic and humanistic types of alternative education. Robin Ann Martin (2003) describes this further by stating, “At its most general level, what distinguishes holistic education from other forms of education are its goals, its attention to experiential learning, and the significance that it places on relationships and primary human values within the learning environment.” (Paths of Learning)
Education in the Findhorn community is experimental and transformative, a journey of self-discovery that changes people's lives and is helping to create a sustainable peaceful world. Living education is an integral part of the community's work. Recognising the interdependence of all life is at the heart of education here. Taking time for inner reflection, building relationships with others, and co-creating with nature are essential to the fabric of community life. This kind of experiential living, and transformative education becomes increasingly important as humanity comes to terms with global conflict, depletion of the world's resources, changes in our climate, and asks questions about the purpose of our lives and the values we live by. (From the www.findhorn.org website, 2007).
In and through [authentic] community lies the salvation of the world — M. Scott Peck, A Different Drum, 1987.
One of the first changes in the new age...is that education will cease to be related to a specific time of life or to a specific kind of experience, such as sitting in a classroom for five hours a day and being the receptor of information or skills. We will see instead that everything we partake in is education in some form or another. Education has come to mean something entirely different from its original meaning. The word stems from a root which means “to lead out”...but education has [unfortunately] come to mean “putting in” — David Spangler, Explorations, 1980, p.14.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has — Margaret Mead
Education is a natural community function and occurs inevitably — Paul Goodman, Community of Scholars, 1962.
There are a lot of organisations that operate by what they think is consensus, but it really is not consensus at all...to meet the definition’s requirements, you essentially have to have what we call true community. Many institutions that try to get to consensus fail because they are not yet true communities. They aren’t ready yet to get to consensus, because they need to work on themselves before they start to make decisions. — M. Scott Peck
Much of the energy of the eco-village movement is focused on the development and use of “green” technologies such as renewable energy and energy efficient housing. These are very important for creating a sustainable society, but, in our view, the dominant issues are human ones. After all, the best technologies in the world are ultimately useless if we cannot learn to live and work together in harmony. The most important thing for the future of humanity and the planet is personal transformation. Aggressive, angry, competitive and alienated people cannot build a society that is peaceful, cooperative, sustainable and just. — Sustainable Communities, Malcolm Hollick, 1998,