Holistic education aims to call forth from people an intrinsic reverence for life and a passionate love of learning. Holistic education is 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. Every child is more than a future employee every person’s intelligence and abilities are far more complex than his or her scores on standardized tests. A holistic way of thinking seeks to encompass and integrate multiple layers of meaning and experience rather than defining human possibilities narrowly. During the 1970s, an emerging body of literature in science, philosophy and cultural history provided an overarching concept to describe this way of understanding education - a perspective known as holism. The Swiss humanitarian Johann Pestalozzi, the American Transcendentalists, Thoreau, Emersonand Alcott, the founders of “progressive” education– Francis Parker and John Dewey- and pioneers such as Maria Montessoriand Rudolf Steiner, among others, all insisted that education should be understood as the art of cultivating the moral, emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual dimensions of the developing child. Throughout the 200-year history of public schooling, a widely scattered group of critics have pointed out that the education of young human beings should involve much more than simply molding them into future workers or citizens. how to cite this article Holistic education.links to holistic organizations and schools.

What is holistic education? What are the primary philosophies that distinguish it from traditional education? Who were the pioneers in holistic education? Ron Miller provides an introduction. A brief introduction to holistic education.

The Art of Space by Ron Miller