1. EFTRE Conference 2004 RE: Educating the whole person
Introduction Peter Schreiner Comenius Institute
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

2. The attractiveness of the binary logic
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

3. EFTRE European Conference
“Either - or“ thinking
Inside v Outside
Interior v Exterior
Subject v Objective
Mind v Brain
Idealism v Materialism
Introspection v Positivism
Hermeneutics v Empiricism
Etc…
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

4. Letter to participants
.. school systems ... questioning of the mechanistic and materialist approach to the planning of the curriculum
... developed an awareness of the need to educate the whole person in a more integrated way
RE can make a major contribution to this process, stimulating not just the children’s brains, but also their emotions, their spirits and their sense of community.
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

5. EFTRE European Conference
Broken Paradoxes
We separate head from heart. Result: minds that do not know how to feel and hearts that do not know how to think.
We separate facts from feelings. Result: bloodless facts that make the world distant and remote and ignorant emotions that reduce truth to how one feels today.
We separate theory from practice. Result: theories that have little to do with life and practice that is uniformed by understanding.
We separate teaching from learning. Result: teachers who talk but do not listen and students who listen but do not talk.’
(Parker Palmer)
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

6. Holistic perspectives in education
Educate the whole child (all parts of the child)
Educate the student as a whole (not an assemblage of parts)
See the child as part of a whole (society, humanity, the environment, some spiritual whole, etc).
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

7. Founding Intellectual Precedents
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778)
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi ( )
Friedrich W. A. Fröbel ( )
Carl Gustav Jung (1875 – 1961)
Abraham Harold Maslow (1908 – 1970)
Carl Ransom Rogers (1902 – 1987)
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

8. EFTRE European Conference
Contrasting pairs
Mechanistic – holistic
Transmission – transformation
Performance - competence
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

9. Basic principles of holistic education
Human being: complex existential entity
Human development: personal, universal, spiritual dimension
Spirituality not utterly mystical or other-world
Holistic education cannot be reduced to any technique
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

10. Social system and environment EFTRE European Conference
Interconnectedness of ... I
self / consciousness
(subjective) It
brain and organism
(objective)
Its
Social system and environment
(objective) We
culture & world view
(inter-subjective)
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

11. Support from other areas
Quantum physics
Deep Ecology
Biology, evolution theory
New Ethics
Feminist movement
Teaching and learning theories
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

12. EFTRE European Conference
A critical view
Wholeness must be experienced as a living reality, as the Tao beyond words. Only in this way can we remain open to the complexity and paradox of the world as it essentially is (Ron Miller)
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

13. Different parts of a journey
RE for the spirit …
RE for the emotions …
RE for the community …
RE for the mind …
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

14. EFTRE European Conference
To teach is to create a space in which the community of truth is practised Parker Palmer
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

15. EFTRE European Conference
The community of truth is an image of knowing that embraces both the great web of being on which all things depend and the fact that our knowing of those things is helped not hindered by our being enmeshed in that web. Parker Palmer
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

16. Why even attempt the impossible?
“Because, I believe, a little bit of wholeness is better than none at all, and an integral vision offers considerably more wholeness than the slice-and-dice alternatives. We can be more whole, or less whole; more fragmented, or less fragmented; more alienated, or less alienated – and an integral vision invites us to be a little more whole, a little less fragmented, in our work, our lives, our destiny.”
(Ken Wilber)
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004

17. EFTRE Conference 2004 RE: Educating the whole person
Introduction
Thursday
EFTRE European Conference
Järvenpää 2004