Circle of Knowledge: Exploring Holistic Education, Self-Study, and Indigenous Traditions of Teaching and Learning

• In Event: 14.045 - Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: 14.045-14 - Holistic Education: Diversity and Justice

Abstract

Through a self-study of teacher and teacher education practices (S-STEP), this paper examines a teacher educator’s exploration and integration of Holistic education and aboriginal pedagogy into praxis and research. In particular, parallels are drawn between Holistic education and the Medicine Wheel of Learning. Like the Wheel of Learning, a holistic approach to education is embedded in a philosophy and pedagogy that seeks to nurture the four facets of the whole person – mind, body, heart and soul. In keeping with wisdom traditions, the underlying principle of holism is that since the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the interdependence between the heart, mind, body and soul is an integral, necessary experience (Miller, 1994).

Author

• Karen Ragoonaden, The University of British Columbia