Strategies to Foster an Holistic Approach

In my research to create a class room to suit the new millenium, I have found a great deal of controversy surrounding the preponderance of attitudes that the ideal elementary class room includes computers. Tapscot (1998) tells us that the only way to surive in the Global Economy is to be wired in to the Internet. I disagree that computer should be placed in such importance to the learner.

Computers in Education

One tool, underused by some, over used by others, is the computer. Yet, computers are not the answer to creating a multifaceted, holistic curriculum. Young children, especially, need to play, jump, love and laugh -and not in front of a keyboard. I passed the JKs, all 25 of them, parked in front of a computer waiting for the teacher or the volunteer mom to show them how to start drawing in McPix. How much more fun to pick up a crayon, smell that waxy smell and feel the rubbing over the texture of the paper as you chat with your neighbour?

Computers do appear to change how we think, theorize, remember, communicate, process information, solve problems, explore. Saddy (1996) wrote an extensive article on these topics. The premise, and I agree, is that children need to learn to make sense of the environment, best done in a hands-on, activity based manner. Piaget, amongst others, figured this out. It is not by viewing data and assimilating information that we learn, but by synthesising this information into knowledge.

Computers may give us data or information but they cannot give us knowledge. This comes with the manipulation of data and information, into complex, abstract ideas, formulated for the betterment of us all.

Computers change how we: Think & Understand

It is the left hemisphere processes language. The right processes the visual, and the right hemisphere does not process and filter information as critically as the left. We used to have to trust our cave-woman eyes to warn us of danger. We have a biological bias to react quickly and to accept what we see. "A picture is worth a 1000 words."

Visually we do not critically assess the information. If we use our left brain, higher-order critical thinking skills, we can logically sort out fact from fiction. Most kids, viewing a multimedia CD Rom, some refer to them as "Edutainment Software", do not read the text, & absorb the information. They process the pretty pictures and watch the action. This is why sensible, logical, intelligent people can be entertained by something like "The Blair Witch Project", "Mission Impossible" or "How the Grinch Stole Xmas" when they are looking for entertainment. How much more creative to imagine the scene, setting, action than to have it created for you on the computer screen? My son uses the analogy: Dungeons & Dragons, an interactive, non-computer board game, is to video games, what books are to movies.

Computers change how we: Theorize & Solve problems

When we similarly view a simulation of a complex system (computer modelling of scientific phenomena; behaviour of ant colonies, Canada geese: V-formation. Saddy proposes that this is how it is that we might recreate a system without understanding it.
This is how Newton devised a new mathematical system (calculus), and to show how planets orbit around the sun. If we recreated it on a computer, perhaps we would not have had such an understanding of this system.

Pythagorean theorem. The hypotenuse squared is equal to the squares of the two sides. We need to manipulate these ideas and work with them, to think about our thinking. Artificial intelligence *is* artificial.

"In the past, intelligence was used as a substitute for calculation. Now calculation is incredibly cheap, so you can be dumber." (Saddy, 1996, p.58)

Computers change how we: Remember

Think of your Palm Pilots: "When you write things down, you don´t remember them as well. And worse than that, you don´t think about them deeply because you´re not committing them to memory, you´re committing them to electronics and paper."

Computers change how we: Communicate

Elementary students writing essays, parents have told me, think screen by screen in 3 or 4 paragraphs-worth. They do not see the big picture: the thread of the argument. They must be guided in this endeavour, do overviews and mind-maps and plan out their logical thoughts.

E-mail standards are lowering. Friends used to be careful about writing to me. Now it is acceptable to fling into cyberspace flawed pieces of writing, cute emoticons and inadequate pieces of work. In a 1988 piece of research at Perdue University, as discussed by Saddy, they found that students did write longer sentences and more words on a computer, but the longer sentences didn´t result in increased complexities of thought. "Word processors don´t make better writers.", they concluded, "They make more writers."

Computers change how we: Explore

Visit three Internet sites, and you'll find three different birth dates for the same person...unreliable information abounds. Here we are relying on a tool to find something basic, and not being able to find accurate information. Often kids don´t know how to look it up information in an index and they are used to firing off one word work search topics, finding loads of information at their fingertips. They print the first piece of information available and figure their research is done.

How much more exciting to go to the Museum of Civilization and walk through exhibits, interact with the sites at the Science Museum in Toronto than to pop in a CD Rom and let real life pass you by. The Internet is very a sexy medium, but I am finding more and more children who are unable to look up information in an index, or to do some leg work to pursue a fact, if it doesn't come up on the search engine they have chosen. They become frozen in real-time!

Multi-age Groupings

Another strategy for creating a Holistic Approach is one which creates an environment Multi-age Learners (Wolk, 2001). There many opportunities for opting out of particular courses/classes and doing independent studies. Within each of these models is the understanding that we modify the assessment strategies, as well as the expectations and develop open-ended tasks for the students to pursue. The key lies in teacher education and in-service opportunities which will benefit all learners and meet their individual needs.

References:

Holistic Education: Bibliography

by Jennifer Jilks

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