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Leading view papers – Days 1 to 7

A holistic approach to education in a learning community

Mr Rob Huntington
Overnewton Anglican Community College
Keilor, Victoria, Australia

Boredom in school can be overcome by a culture of student engagement with school and this requires a holistic approach, based on the idea of ‘educating the whole child’. The objectives of the holistic approach to education are to develop a whole child learning program, including the prescribed classroom curriculum, the co-curriculum and programs for personal development. Its promotion is reflective of the need to overcome the compartmentalisation of learning and the concept that ‘Learning takes place in the classroom, not in the world’ (Senge et al. 2000:11).

Many schools fail to highlight the learning that takes place outside of the traditional classroom setting. Much of the focus of teachers and parents is related to curriculum outcomes, as outlined by limited measurement tools, such as tests and examinations.

‘Learners, however, are full human beings. They have a life outside of the classroom, a life-world filled with family relationships, friends and enemies in the neighbourhood, hobbies and interests. They are engaged in a very important agenda of their own, namely to figure out who they are, how to make and keep friends, how the social and natural worlds make sense, and how they fit and participate in those worlds.’
Starratt, 2004:3

The anticipated outcomes for the students are greater self-esteem and a stronger sense of engagement with school, greater experience in leading peers, more pride in their school, and therefore, themselves.

These benefits have been outlined by a range of researchers, particularly in the last 20 years. Chiefly, they centre on the concept of engagement of young people with school. Finn (1989, in Fullarton 2002:6) has indicated that engagement with extra-curricular activities engenders a sense of belonging with the school that promotes self-worth and resilience in learning, whilst Lindsay (1984, in Fullarton 2002:6) noted that it increased the level of participation in voluntary social activities. Finn’s work has also identified that the opportunity for participation increases with the student’s age. Further, an increased level of engagement in extra-curricular activities has been associated with a decline in student drop-out rates from school (Mahoney and Cairns, 1997, in Fullarton 2002:7). A significant amount of data, generated by studies in both Britain and Australia, has strongly supported Finn’s assertions in particular (Fullarton 2002:6). This is reflected by the list of 10 characteristics of highly effective schools proposed by the National Commission on Education (1996, in Caldwell and Spinks 1998), which includes:

‘Extra-curricular activities that broaden pupil’s interest and experiences, expand their opportunities to succeed, and help to build good relationships within the school’.

The potential outcome for teaching staff would be a more vibrant employment situation and, therefore, a greater level of energy in the workplace; the opportunity to develop, participate and lead programs, and therefore become more skilled and better positioned for promotion. For parents, there is an enhanced possibility for them to recognise achievements and show pride in their children; and to recognise achievements and skills other than in the standard English, mathematics and other core academic achievements of their children. It would also allow them to develop their understanding that the modern school experience is broader than their own and that the performance of the school should be measured accordingly.

Engagement is achievable in schools when there is a strong desire for the development of performing arts and sporting programs, for the extension of activities such as debating and public speaking, and a push for integration between the schools to enable role modelling and student leadership. Within the parent body and the staff there is a wealth of expertise and interest in these programs and these can be recognised and utilised in the planning of the new proposals.

Teachers normally range from those who have an underlying grasp of a holistic program to those who only see themselves as classroom practitioners and never imagined what influence they could have as pastoral carers, invigilators of the house program, or supporters of the wider educational gains derived from the co-curricular opportunities. Symbolically, the latter group views these initiatives as a cultural shift away from core academic teaching, in that students’ focus and energies in the school day become more thinly spread across a greater range of activities.

As Owens (1991:175) describes: ‘To many educators, the schedule is such an inherent part of the culture of the school as to be taken for granted, accepted without question, an overriding symbol of what defines the school itself’, and the schedule now has significant changes .

What these staff members have overlooked, and what the school leadership must continually reinforce, is that the school’s cultural shift is toward the culture of student engagement with school. Symbolically, it is further recognition of the great benefits that sport, performing arts, house programs, leadership initiatives, extra visual art activities, peer support, academic and vocational clubs, and community service have in enriching a child’s education.

Development of programs associated with a holistic approach to learning require some contractual relationship between the school and the staff involved and should not need to rely on teachers volunteering their services, although good programs will encourage a sense of covenant from the students, parents and teacher who support each other and the school by undertaking the ‘little bit extra’ that is the hallmark of a strong learning community (Cotter, 2003).

In developing the programs that run outside of timetabled classes, there is always a concern regarding how they affect the academic program. Loss of focus on core academic program can result for some students during a house performance, a fabulous performing arts initiative in many schools, ostensibly run by the students. It requires some attention by key staff and the parents to refocus students in this situation, but the danger exists when such occurrences are used by traditionalists as the reason to peel back these highly beneficial activities. Invariably, new programs require staffing and equipment, which can be expensive. A balance has to be struck by the school administration between supporting any initiatives and restricting their development on the basis of their impact on the school budget.

Designing programs around an effective learning community

The design of new initiatives needs to be undertaken in a manner that ensures they become embedded in the college program. They need to be included as part of the structure of the college staffing and budget, and their development relies on a consultative approach. The programs’ acceptance and ongoing success depends on five elements working effectively in the learning community:

learning of the community
learning from the community
learning with the community
learning for community
learning as community

Stoll et al. 2003:134

These must be carefully built into each program’s design in order to develop the shared understanding and support of the overall vision:

‘Time spent in building a learning community will ultimately save the time wasted in acrimonious debate, false starts and frustration over aborted initiatives’.
Stoll et al. 2003:156

Learning of the community

For effective learning by the whole community, it needs to be educated, to be shown how the program will benefit the students, how it will help rather than hinder other programs, how parents and teachers can be involved without increasing the pressure on their time and resources. This is particularly crucial, as there is only a certain level of goodwill amongst the students, parents and the staff that will tolerate glitches in implementation and the corresponding impact on their time and energies.

Learning from the community

Any institution overlooks its own wealth of contextual experience and expertise at its peril. Across the breadth of the co-curricular and leadership realms, there will be staff and parent ‘experts’ whose invigoration lies in wait. People who have experienced the benefits of a holistic approach to education, through the opportunities of leadership and co-curriculum in their own school experiences, those with strategic, structural and political nous, and those who have the skills to articulate the virtues of the program, should be sought out and involved in the development phase. Clearly, it is important that this group collaborate effectively, otherwise their collective value will not equate to the sum of their individual potential.

When the program gets underway, there will be others whose on-site expertise and enthusiasm will invaluable. The English teacher wanting to expand public speaking and debating opportunities, the science teacher who would love to coach the soccer team, and the young music teacher, bursting to develop a new musical, are all resources waiting to be tapped.

Learning with the community

Almost without exception, school students welcome the support of their parents (and teachers) in the endeavours that they are passionate about. Parent-school-student-teacher relationships all have two-way learning opportunities because of the closeness of the working partnerships that already exist. Parents should not excluded from daily school life; they should be welcomed and routinely involved. Hence, they become aware of educational practice, the pedagogy of teaching and the ethos of leadership and co-curricular activities. They can see their children prosper first-hand. In return, they provide that intangible element, the ‘parent’s perspective’ and, given a measure of subtlety, they can impart this on those staff members and students with whom they work closely. Everyone learns in these micro-communities.

Learning for community

A holistic education approach, particular one that focuses on leadership and co-curricular involvement, can have a considerable benefit for the wider community. Students with the confidence and experience from the school setting can coach sport teams in local clubs, participate in community service projects, play leading roles in local performing arts projects and generally act as good role models for the local youth community through their leadership experience. This is vital to the community in the longer term; the whole principle of student engagement with school (Fullarton, 2002:6) leads onto adult engagement with vocation, and with the wider community, and is central to the maintenance of the core fabric of society (Cotter, 2003).

Learning as a community

In a spiritual sense, the school must be seen to be moving in a positive direction, to have a ‘beating heart’, embodied by a collective commitment from the members of its community to each other’s learning. This depends on a strong sense of relational trust that enables collective decision-making, deep engagement by the school community in the new initiatives and an acceptance of the moral imperative to take on the hard work of school improvement (Sergiovanni, 2005:119).

Adopting the holistic vision

For this vision and its associated programs to be accepted by the learning community, there has to be a strong sense of collaboration, partnerships and learning by the teachers, students and parents involved. Learning communities become operational by developing shared goals that are achieved through working together and building new knowledge and strategies. While there are many tasks that can be undertaken by an individual, ‘collaboration is called for when an individual’s charm, charisma, authority, or expertise just aren’t enough to get the job done’ (Schrage, 1990: 6). Collaboration is most effective when working within teams or groups. Collaboration between the defined experts is vital, for it is not possible for an individual to understand all the complexities involved in a project (Schrage, 1990). Such teams, working on the variety of co-curricular and leadership programs, are more effective when members reciprocate with one another strongly, coordination is strong and knowledge is shared across the group (Brown & Duguid, 2000:143)

Building capacity

While all people have the capacity to learn, the structures in which they have to function are often not conducive to reflection and engagement. Furthermore, people may lack the tools and guiding ideas to make sense of the situations they face. Organisations that are continually expanding their capacity to create their future require a fundamental shift of mind among their members (Senge 2000).

Schools with strong organisational capacity begin with a well-defined school mission. It requires that the leadership team can generate the enthusiasm for change and the learning community that will act upon it. For this to be effective, leaders must ensure that they initiate and manage the change, while maintaining the school’s core identity. They must develop and support a shared vision, values, and goals amongst the members of the learning community involved. Within the teams working on the programs there needs to be the opportunity to develop interdependence between each individual and to provide opportunity for cooperation, and to interpret and apply data (Hord, 2003:53).

Strong capacity schools (are) ‘collaborative places where adults care about one another, share common goals and values, and have the skills and knowledge to plan together, solve problems together, and fight passionately but gracefully for ideas to improve instruction’ (Garmston and Wellman, 1995:12, in Hord, 2003)

If these assumptions are applied and acted upon in schools, it is likely that staff will see the new initiatives as worthwhile; teamwork will develop to support programs and this team work between them will develop between all stakeholders: the teachers, parents, students and employed casual coaches, the contracted music staff and the performing arts leaders.

[Effective learning communities] ‘… are organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together’ (Senge, 1990:3).

The key indicators of progress are related to the programs’ popularity and outcomes in terms of value-added to student outcomes. This would be reflected by greater demand for them by parents and students, but must be supported by educational analysis that would demonstrate to the institution and its staff that these programs are worthwhile.

Evaluation

In evaluating the programs associated with whole-child education, it is important to develop reliable measures of efficacy. Primarily, the level of participation should be monitored, as should some estimation of the influence of the program on the achievements of students and in assessing their abilities in the whole range of academic co-curricular and leadership dimensions. These records need to be kept and compared on an annual basis to establish trend patterns, which enables ongoing changes to be made to ensure that the programs remain valuable and viable.

Bibliography

Caldwell, BJ and Spinks, JM (1998). Beyond the self-managing school. Falmer Press, London.
Cotter, Dr R (2003) Schools as learning communities. IARTV Occasional Paper Number 79, March 2003.
Finn, JD (1989). ‘Withdrawing from school’. In Review of educational research, 59 Volume 2, pp.117-142.
Fullarton, S (2002). ‘Longitudinal surveys of Australian youth, research report no 27’. In Student engagement with school: individual and school-level influences. The Australian Council for Educational Research Limited, Melbourne.
Garmston, R & Wellman, B (1995, April). ‘Adaptive schools in a quantum universe’. In Educational leadership, 52(7), 6-12.
Hord, S (2003). Professional learning communities: communities of continuous inquiry and improvement. Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, Texas.
Mahoney, JL and Cairns, RB (1997). ‘Do extracurricular activities protect against early school dropout?’ In Developmental psychology, 33 Volume 2, pp.241-253.
Owens, RG (1991). Organizational behaviour in education (4th Edition). Allyn & Bacon, Massachusetts.
Sackney, L, Mitchell, C and Walker, K (2005). ‘Building capacity for the learning communities: a case study of fifteen successful schools’. Paper presented to the American Educational Research Association. Department of Educational Administration, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Schrage, M (1990). Shared minds: the new technologies of collaboration. New York: Random House.
Senge, PM (1990) The fifth discipline. The art and practice of the learning organization. London: Random House.
Senge, P, Cambron-McCabe, N, Lucas, T., Smith, B, Dutton, J, Kleiner, A (2000). Schools that learn. Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London.
Sergiovanni, TJ (2005). ‘The virtues of leadership’. In The educational forum. Vol. 69, Number 2, pp.112-123. International Honor Society in Education, Indianapolis.
Starratt, RJ (2004). ‘The ethics of learning: learning to be moral by engaging the morality of learning’. 9th Annual Values and Leadership Conference, Barbados.
Stoll, L, Fink, D, and Earl, L (2003). ‘The learning community: learning together and learning from one another’. In It’s about learning. RoutledgeFalmer, London.