Holistic Education

This piece of writing will discuss the role of the educator in contemporary learning contexts. In order to facilitate this discussion we will touch on a number of ideas and ideals about education and the educator. These will include a brief comparison of a more traditional view of the role of the educator versus a more modern one, technology in the classroom, the integrative approach, holistic education, how the educator influences the education and the role of the learner as it affects the educators approach.

This essay is not meant to explain the entirety of the subject (that would require a much larger word count); it is simply a snapshot of some ideas of what an educator 's role is.

Before we do all this we must firstly define a few important

Rather than focusing solely on content holistic educators teach things such as healthy relationships, positive and acceptable behavior and resilience (Raise Learning, 2012). In broader terms holistic education theory aims to take learners from all types of backgrounds and make them all into productive members of society by working with and overcoming whatever disadvantages and issues they may have. Holistic educators aim to provide both the moral support that religion or family used to provide and to assist the learner in gaining the skills and personal attributes that an individual needs to survive in the modern world. (teAchnology, n.d.). In the TED Conversations Archives (2011) a discussion was held on the effectiveness of the holistic approach. The moderator suggested that holistic education was less cost effective as it required more teachers and extra activities and materials. She also stated that recent studies have concluded that the lessened academic focus can leave learners wanting when it comes to higher education and the working world. Other users responding to the post agreed with the findings but said that the benefits outweighed the negatives but that governments and other bodies needed to be involved so that the correct balance could be achieved and the learners would get better

An educator can have many approaches to education such as the traditional approach of control and content, learning to work with the new technology, working under different ideologies such as the integrative approach and holistic education, recognizing that their individual experiences and personalities influence their teaching, recognising the other influences on the learner and working with them and potentially deciding that engagement and participation is as important or more important than