Importance of Whole Child Learning

04/09/2019

Importance of Whole Child Learning

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Letise Dennis, writing on the website LearningLiftoff.com, describes the importance of whole child learning:

“With the rise in rigorous testing and students being held to higher academic standards, children are becoming increasingly stressed. This is leading to both behavioral and health issues, causing experts to consider the implications of the existing intensive educational structure. Parents and educators are left wondering if the wellness of the whole child has been sacrificed in the pursuit of academic excellence.

Out of this concern, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) has developed a whole child approach to education which encompasses the entirety of what develops a truly successful student: health, safety, engagement, support, and challenges. By focusing comprehensively on the developmental needs of a student, they are more wholly prepared for adult life after school.

Dennis quotes Sean Slade, director of whole child programs at ASCD:

“‘It is an approach that does not see youth as empty vessels to be filled with narrowly defined content knowledge, but as individuals who each have great potential to grow and develop socially, emotionally, physically, mentally, and civically as well as cognitively.’”

Source: “The Whole Child: A Well-Rounded Approach to Education,” by Letise Dennis, April 10. 2018, learningliftoff.com

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