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In: Nasima Sharafutdinova (Hg.) (2012): Modern Technologies of Teaching Foreign Languages.

Selected
papers from the International Scientific Conference. Ulyanovsk. Ulyanovsk: UlSTU, S. 2731.

Argyros, Ioannis
Technical University of Berlin, Germany

Aspects of the holistic approach in teaching


1. Preface
The aim of a modern school must not only be the imparting of knowledge within the
framework of a curriculum, but also the training of students with skills that will allow
them to live their lives as well as possible and in harmony with their social milieu,
properly preparing the future for the next generation. Clearly the role of the teacher in
such an approach becomes particularly important, not only because he is seen as a
body of knowledge and information, but also as an educator, who must widely
develop his students personalities, or even try to provide them all with those supplies
and conditions, in which students can alone develop their own personalities. Under
the influence of contemporary trends in teaching, the role of the teacher becomes
even more important, since he is required to incorporate all modern trends and
developments in teaching methods within the educational process, but also to fight
against outdated practices.
Meanwhile, the society itself is under constant reconstruction. Social institutions are
set into question within the economic turmoil and demand for the redefinition of the
social values by promoting and setting more humanitarian goals. Clearly the role of
schools and of the teacher could not stay uninfluenced by these developments.
Thus, both the school and the teacher are called today apart from the transfer of plain
knowledge and integration of new methods and technologies in teaching process, that
have partially failed to fulfill their goals, mostly because of lack of experience of the
teaching personnel or of lack of infrastructures, to prepare students to become right
citizens, guided by humanism and morality. It is therefore understandable that under
these conditions, a review of the educational approach is if not necessary, then surely
immediate objective and realistic vision for the future.
Holism into education as a movement, not only does reveal its necessity for this
modern era, with its institutions and values in crisis, but, perhaps, raises a middle
ground solution for various problems. The purpose of this article is to provide us with
reasons why we need of a holistic education and to give us a whole spectrum of the
various dimensions of the holistic approach that immerges in the teaching world and
let us imagine the opportunities and chances provided for the educational community
for the future.

In: Nasima Sharafutdinova (Hg.) (2012): Modern Technologies of Teaching Foreign Languages. Selected
papers from the International Scientific Conference. Ulyanovsk. Ulyanovsk: UlSTU, S. 2731.

2. Points of view of the holistic approach


During the past years a debate about education takes place constantly in a world
where knowledge and ways of learning become progressively more fragmented. Our
economy standards demand and often promote a specialized working force in various
fields with a lot of knowledge about a specific small area of science, who must act by
only using their mind, without embracing the heart.
But our lives cannot be dominated only by our work goals. We do understand that we
need much more than fragmented knowledge, something that many of us try to learn
outside our working environment though hobbies for example. This process is based
on the fact that people do not behave and act as robots, by just using their brains to do
their work, but they also have emotions and spiritual thoughts that make them human
and separate them for the machines. Actually for most of the worlds ancient cultures
mind and heart are not considered separately but as complementary dimensions of
one unit, that work and act together to reach a state of intelligence. This view that the
heart is a major center of cognition, emotion, will, insight, wisdom and spirit is the
most important common feature of different cultures, tradition and world religions in
the history of mankind (see Arguelles 2011, p.1) despite their cultural differences.
The basic ideal of a holistic approach lies in the understanding of its key words:
connectedness, parts and wholeness/unit. Holism describes the world and everything
in it as wholeness, consisted of many identical parts, which are totalized by the unit.
In fact the unit is important but only when it is seen though its parts. Parts and unit do
not act separated but always together, and every change in a part influences
immediately the unit! According to Ron Miller (2005), holism asserts that
everything exists in relationship, in a context of connection and meaning and that
any change or event causes an realignment (sic), however slight, throughout the
entire pattern.
The ideas of the whole (Holon) and the total (pan) are widely spread in the ancient
world. The well known Aristotelian phrase that the whole is greater than the sum of
its parts has dominated the holistic movement so much that it has become one of its
axioms. The integration of this thought in the education field has caused various
influences to and from psychology, didactics, linguistics, even neuroscience that have
supplied the environment on which various holistic aspects immerged.
A holistic approach can be described with various adjectives in modern science
fields. For a large group of modern educators the word holistic has the meaning of a
multi- or interdisciplinary approach in teaching process. Speaking of such an
approach in education we should imagine this as a process, where a student does not
come along with separated lessons in his school program, but instead subjects are
taught him by the teaching personal, that aim the better organization of the
knowledge he must learn (see Argyros 2009, p.182).

In: Nasima Sharafutdinova (Hg.) (2012): Modern Technologies of Teaching Foreign Languages. Selected
papers from the International Scientific Conference. Ulyanovsk. Ulyanovsk: UlSTU, S. 2731.

For others holism can be a method of integration1, where learning occurs with all
senses, with mind and body. Holistic learning of this type refers to an integral part of
the pedagogy of action-oriented concepts based on Pestalozzis idea of elementary
education, learning with head, heart and hand, where, except from traditional
learning, physical and emotional aspects are involved. In this type of teaching errors
are very important. On the one side they can be seen as an opportunity for perfection
for the teacher, who sees in them the needs of his students, while at the same time he
can strongly support the student, who in most cases feels disorientated. This
method focuses less on progression based on rules and the collection of standard
knowledge, but more on the individual learning process and on imitation, practical
procedures and creativity.
Another holistic aspect derives from the supporters of the Gestalt theory school. Here
holism can be seen as a game, where parts and unit play their roles with different
goals each time, but are always dominated by their internal connectedness. Insight,
imaginative-productive thinking and creativity are very important here. Let us see
why through some examples.
According to a myth, as Carl Friedrich Gauss, a mathematical genius was still a child,
his teacher gave him and his classmates a task: to add a list of integers in arithmetic
progression, or in other words the numbers 1 to 10, and calculate the result. While all
of the children tried to add each number to the following one, like this:
1+2=3+3=6+4=10+5=15 etc he stood up and said after a few seconds the result 55!
What he said he did, was the following. He understood that trying to add each
number to the following one, and then the first result to the next number it would
demand a lot of time and possibly he could make a mistake. Instead, he realized that
if he added the first number 1 to the last of the sequence, thus 1+10, and so on each
time he had a result of 11, because 2+9=11, 3+8=11 etc. He then understood that in
the sequence were only 5 pairs of numbers and with a simple multiplication he spoke
loudly the result 5x11=55, without making an error! Although the story is uncertain,
its a good example of how gestalt theory works.
Even further, in 1940, another mathematician, Katona, asked his students to watch
the number sequence 1 4 9 1 6 2 5 3 6 4 9 6 4 8 1 for about fifteen seconds, without
writing it down. The majority of the students tried to memorize it. After he cleared
the board, he asked his students to repeat the sequence. Only a few of them were,
however, in position to do that orally or in written form just by heart. Katona repeated
this experiment with the same students after a week. This time, he asked them to
search for a special relationship between the numbers. With this parameter in mind
several students understood immediately that the individual numbers were actually
representing the squares of the sequence 1-9. These students were now able to repeat

InGermanweusethetermGanzheitlichkeit

In: Nasima Sharafutdinova (Hg.) (2012): Modern Technologies of Teaching Foreign Languages. Selected
papers from the International Scientific Conference. Ulyanovsk. Ulyanovsk: UlSTU, S. 2731.

by hears the sequence and indeed in position to repeat it for their entire lives. (See:
Imvriotis, 1932).
From those two examples we understand that a holistic approach influenced by the
gestalt theory school, insights and the known aha-experience, at the moment the
insight occurs can be a wonderful creative tool in teaching.
Some modern linguists locate traces of holism in teaching in the theory of multiple
intelligences provided by Howard Gardner, according to which there is a wide range
of cognitive abilities that get combined differently on each person creating a whole of
skills, while in didactics we can see a practical aspect of holistic approach in the
global method of Ovide Decroly that focuses on visual function especially by the first
learning stages, when pupils visualize each thing they learn and build a system of
their own experience-based knowledge.
On the other hand, in the fields of alternative education we can also find aspects of
holistic education. Here we speak mostly of creativity, student-centered and
cooperation learning and of integration of modern technology means and learning
based on networking that asserts two dimensions. If we focus on the technology,
networking refers to projects that allow learners and teachers to interact while using
the internet. If we focus on the network as a system and we embrace the knowledge
provided by neuroscience, then we get an insight of a patterned-learning based on the
structure and way our brain works.
Maybe the most common and widely spread holistic approach, especially in
continents like America and Australia, speaks of a holistic education that involves
spirituality, love and religious ideals. Based on the premise that each one of us finds
his identity, meaning and life-purpose thought connections and relations to the
community, in social, environmental and even in spatial level, holistic education
seeks to unite people under a common goal, that includes passionate love of learning,
living free and in ecological way and in harmony with our environment and embrace
spirituality and prayer by integrating religion or faith in everyday life. It bases on the
concept that all the properties of a system, even if we call it community, school,
family, or universe, cannot be determined or explained just by the sum of its
components. Instead the system as a whole determines how its parts behave. The goal
is to understand that there are multiple layers of meaning and experience who bring
humanity closer than separate it. The combination of ethics and knowledge is
important for holistic education.
3. Conclusion
According to the Holistic Education Resource Book there are various reasons why we
need a holistic education or at least an education based on holistic values and

In: Nasima Sharafutdinova (Hg.) (2012): Modern Technologies of Teaching Foreign Languages. Selected
papers from the International Scientific Conference. Ulyanovsk. Ulyanovsk: UlSTU, S. 2731.

principles. The modern society struggles to balance or dance on a high wire within
the economic chaos of the last decades. People nowadays understand more often the
necessity of a global humanitarian goal for wholeness. We see ourselves not as
separated autonomous parts of a structure we call with different names, like society,
co-workers, family, friends, but we understand our common things even though we
can see differences among us. Our nature calls us to embrace and engage the whole
person. We do understand that we are more than simple beings who live together. We
share more common things that unite usmake us one. (see Schreiner, 2005)
Holistic education itself is multilevel and holistic. In its ideas we can find various
principles, methods, ideas or approaches that can change the way we teach and learn.
The sky is the limit! We simply need to start seeing the whole picture!
4. Bibliography
Arguelles, Lourdes: The Heart in Holistic Education. Online article
http://www.livingwisdomschool.org/howtoapply/qs-parsask/research/The%20Heart%20in%20Holistic%20Education.pdf, (Stand 10.11.2011)
Argyros, Ioannis (2009): Der fachbergreifende Ansatz als holistische Revolution
bei der DaF-Didaktik mittels neuer Medien in Griechenland. Der Einsatz neuer
Medien im DaF-Unterricht in Griechenland und die Perspektive der Nutzung
holistischer Anstze in der Fremdsprachendidaktik. In: Yuan Li und Jieping Fan
(Hg.): Deutsch als Fremdsprache aus internationaler Perspektive. Neuere Trends und
Tendenzen: Beitrge zur internationalen Konferenz "Deutsch als Fremdsprache aus
internationaler Perspektive" vom 07. bis 09. September 2007 am Institut fr German
Studies der Zhejiang Universitt in Hangzhou. Mnchen: Iudicium, pages. 180192
Imvriotis, Ioannis (1934): Morphologiki Psichologia. Athen: Gerasis. GR:
.
Miller, John P. (2005): Conclusion: Seeking Wholeness. In: John P. Miller (Hg.):
Holistic learning and spirituality in education. Breaking new ground. Albany: State
University of New York Press, pages. 233236.
Schreiner, Peter (2005): Towards Holistic Education: A Challenge for Education
Philosophy. Online under http://ci-muenster.de/pdfs/themen/bildung2.pdf, (Stand
10.11.2011)

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