Providing a comprehensive overview of holistic education’s history, conceptions, practices, and research, this Handbook presents an up-to-date, global picture of the field. Organized in five sections, the Handbook lays out the field’s theoretical and historical foundations; offers examples of holistic education in practice with regard to schools, programs, and pedagogies at all levels; presents research methods used in holistic education; outlines the growing effort among holistic educators to connect holistic teaching and learning with research practice; and examines present trends and future areas of interest in program development, inquiry, and research. This volume is a must-have resource for researchers and practitioners and serves as an essential foundational text for courses in the field.

Holistic education is concerned with connections in human experience - connections between mind and body, between linear thinking and intuitive ways of knowing, between individual and community, and between the personal self and the transpersonal self. First published in 1988, The Holistic Curriculum examines the philosophical, psychological, and social foundations of holistic education, outlining its history and discussing practical applications in the classroom. This revised and expanded second edition concisely describes how holistic thinking integrates spiritual and scientific perspectives, drawing on romantic, humanistic, and other radical alternatives to the atomistic worldview of the modern age. The role of the teacher, the issue of accountability, and strategies for implementing the Holistic Curriculum are also discussed.

Forward by Nel Noddings This book includes papers written by teachers and how they engage holistic education in their classrooms. The papers come from a course taught by Jack Miller at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto entitled The Holistic Curriculum. This is a rich and diverse collection of papers showing how holistic education can be brought into public education despite the pressures of testing and other accountability measures. Although most of the teachers teach in public schools there are also examples from teachers working in private and post secondary settings. This book can inspire other teachers who are looking for ways to teach the whole person in a more connected manner. There are very few texts in the field of holistic education that include the voices and practices of teachers, particularly those working in public schools. Many of the examples of holistic education in practice come from Waldorf, Montessori, Reggio Emilia and alternative schools. A unique feature of this book is the many different voices of teachers describing their work in the classroom; they talk about their successes, the challenges and even a few failures.

Informed by the most up-to-date research from around the world, as well as examples of good practice, this handbook analyzes values education in the context of a range of school-based measures associated with student wellbeing. These include social, emotional, moral and spiritual growth – elements that seem to be present where intellectual advancement and academic achievement are being maximized. This text comes as ‘values education’ widens in scope from being concerned with morality, ethics, civics and citizenship to a broader definition synonymous with a holistic approach to education in general. This expanded purview is frequently described as pedagogy relating to ‘values’ and ‘wellbeing’. This contemporary understanding of values education, or values and wellbeing pedagogy, fits well with recent neuroscience research. This has shown that notions of cognition, or intellect, are far more intertwined with social and emotional growth than earlier educational paradigms have allowed for. In other words, the best laid plans about the technical aspects of pedagogy are bound to fail unless the growth of the whole person – social, emotional, moral, spiritual and intellectual, is the pedagogical target. Teachers and educationalists will find that this handbook provides evidence, culled from both research and practice, of the beneficial effects of such a ‘values and wellbeing’ pedagogy.

In Holistic Learning and Spirituality in Education, scholars from around the globe address the theory, practice, and poetics of holistic education. Some of the topics explored include educating the soul; partnership education; nourishing adolescents' spirituality; education and the modern assault on being human; the Eros of teaching; personal creativity as soul work; pedagogies of compassion; and meditation, masculinity, and meaningful life.

Public education is often viewed as dominated by an emphasis on test scores and narrowly defined parameters of performance and achievement. By contrast, John P. Miller's Whole Child Education fosters relationships between various forms of thinking, links body and mind, and recognizes the inner life of the child. Addressing issues of teaching, curriculum, the school, and teacher wellness, Miller presents three basic approaches (transmission, transaction, and transformation) that facilitate a connection with the whole student. Practical examples from teachers who have incorporated Miller's ideas into their own classrooms and description of Toronto's Whole Child School (founded in 2009) illustrate how the 'Whole Curriculum' can be implemented on both the small and large scale. Inspired by the powerful vision of Martin Luther King and his concept of the Beloved Community, Whole Child Education is a vehicle for building community through holistic education.