Abstract
The modern materialistic worldview has influenced educational institutions to emphasize more on inculcating students with skills and knowledge to the neglect of the students’ values and virtues. Consequently, education is a commodity, shaped according to the market. Education, influenced by the market, neglects a comprehensive approach and students’ intellectual, physical and cultural needs. Market’s preference for the technical and natural sciences contributed towards the creation of the mechanical conception of education. The market also influenced the institutions of higher learning to neglect the role of humanities and social sciences. The humanity is also at the break of the ecological, nuclear, chemical and biological crisis, terrorism, moral degeneration, and there is increasing disregard for culture, tradition, and values. These challenges raised questions about outcomes of modern education. Since such education could not balance and fulfill students’ material, intellectual and cultural needs; therefore, this paper examines how the holistic learning and teaching can pave the way towards the 21st-century education model.
Highlights
The modern materialistic worldview has influenced educational institutions to emphasize more on inculcating students with skills and knowledge to the neglect of the students’ values and virtues
Itself, was coined in the 1970s, holistic education, as an idea, emerged as a reaction to and, as an alternative to post-modern challenges partly created by the conventional education
Holistic educators seriously focus their scope on ecological literacy, physical design and structure of the educational institutions, historical, social, cultural and spiritual context of education, multiple learning and teaching styles and integrated curriculum
Summary
The East is often regarded as the cradle of civilization, philosophy and thought. many educators, who had experimented with the conventional forms of education, began turning to the Eastern philosophies for the inspiration. By seriously taking into consideration an idea of interconnectedness, Miller (1996) defines holistic education in form of relationships by articulating “the relationship between linear thinking and intuition, the relationship between mind and body, the relationship between various domains of knowledge, the relationship between the individual and community, the relationship with earth and the relationship between self and Self” Unlike the conventional education, holistic education, as Forbes (2003) in his Holistic Education argues, puts equal emphasis on moral, intellectual, physical, social, aesthetic, cognitive, emotional, cultural and spiritual aspects of education
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