Ian Foo's List: Holistic education

• seek to strike a better balance between the teaching of knowledge and the development of skills and values.
• • reference back to globalization (jiahong's point)
• innovative teaching methods
• Holistic Assessment to Support Learning and Development
• engaging students in learning
• balance the use of written examinations and alternative modes of assessment in schools.
• Single-session Primary Schools
• PAL, which will provide pupils with early exposure to different activities that complement schools’ current efforts in developing character and useful life-skills, will be implemented in tandem with the move towards single-session primary schools.
• improve the Pupil-To-Teacher Ratio in primary schools by 20%, from the current 21:1 to 16:1,

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• this seems to resonate deeply amongst a considerable majority of students who view the process of education as an extended period in preparation for college and employment – primarily for economic purposes – in the future.
• rigidity of the evaluation mechanisms; particularly upon the plethora of pre-university standardised examinations, culminating with the GCE ‘A’ Level Examinations. Naturally, the versions of teaching-learning in various institutions gravitate towards elements of memorisation and “mugging”
• Holistic education in that sense is compromised in favour of pragmatic considerations.
• need to crowd the students’ minds with an assortment of information, knowledge and skills that have no direct correlation with grades.
• e current system does not recognise the need to significantly broaden one’s perspectives beyond the textbooks and rigid pedagogies.
• It is impossible to call for the eradication of the aforementioned standardised examinations, given their global importance – to some extent – in ranking students and roughly gauging the student’s mastery of content information. Institutions must be cognisant that they have the imperative to work within the limitations to expose their students to a greater diversity of facts and content; even if their application might seem limited in the short-run. There is also a need to place greater emphasis on the imparting of language skills, given the fact that the mastery of rhetorical and written abilities would be greatly beneficial even beyond the educational context

  • COUNTERARGUMENT
• Given the ever-changing, dynamic global landscape, it becomes inevitable that the proficiencies in leadership, community service and project work are not only necessary, but essential skills to help students excel. Change is desired, and it must start from our foundations: education.

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• The purpose of holistic education is to prepare students to meet  the challenges of living as well as academics.
• * About themselves.
    * About healthy relationships and pro-social behavior.
    * Social development.
    * Emotional development.
    * Resilience.
    * To see beauty, have awe, experience transcendence, and appreciate  some sense of "truths."
• how many of those things that I  needed to know did I learn in school?
• just  learning academics is not enough, and they see young people in  their communities suffering from a lack of needed learning, and  society suffering as well.
• Increased competitiveness in many aspects of a child's social  life, such as sports, out-of-school activities, and of course,  school.
    * Obsessive concern for their "look," from their body shape to  their clothes.
    * Violence in many forms, from the physical to the psychological  and emotional.
• Learning becomes a necessary chore,  driven by rewards and punishments, and too often devoid of direct  meaning in their children's lives.
• need to begin to learn about themselves
• Sociology and  child development psychology repeatedly affirms that learning about  relationships is acquired and not inherent, a
• Learning about relationships is sometimes seen as part of social  development, which includes pro-social behavior and social  "literacy" (i.e., learning to see social influence). As our  societies become increasingly pluralist, complex, and fraught,  social development becomes more difficult as well as more  necessary.
• emotional  development, or what has become known as "emotional literacy," is  of fundamental importance.
• Resilience is fundamental to overcoming  difficulties, facing challenges, and long-term success in any  field. Children must learn resilience.
• seeing beauty, having awe,  experiencing transcendence, and appreciating those timeless  "truths" which have inspired and sustained individuals and cultures  are a natural part of life.
• People of all  ages find it difficult to learn things which are not meaningful to  them, and conversely, they find that it requires much less effort  to learn things that are meaningful. T
• his means that a holistic  school will respect and work with the meaning structures that a  child comes with rather than begin from a perspective of what  "should" be meaningful to a child.
• flexible pacing.
• Learning is an  inherently creative act, and it requires a system that can move  with the individual meaning making of each child.
• What About Other Pressing Issues?
   
    Many people today feel that there are concerns which are so  pressing that these concerns must be solved before any others (like  developing alternative forms of education) are addressed. Such  people will say that one can not discuss philosophy with someone  starving - feed the person first, and then one can give time and  energy to philosophy.

  • COUNTERARGUMENT
• Let us assume that a person is  starving unnecessarily because that person has some fundamentally  mistaken notions. Perhaps one needs to feed the person initially,  but no amount of just feeding the person will help; simply giving  them food will only mean they end up starving again later. Holistic  education has long maintained that mis-education or inadequate  education lies at the roots of our modern problems, and a different  kind of education has a real chance of solving them.

  • adequate rebuttal.

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