If you talk about improving student academic performance today, invariably someone will say “We need to be more concerned with the whole child than just test scores”. The comment is meant to dissolve the discussion of objective curricular performance by wrapping arms around the subjective developmental characteristics of childhood. The implication is that those focusing on curricular results are not interested in the socio-emotional development of a child and, more implicitly, that increasing a focus on curricular outcomes decreases consideration for the holistic well-being of a child. Whoa!

Take Away

The education of children always provokes the question of “to what end”. Five generations past and more, white, male children were educated to become literate citizens. Female and children of color or any disability were not publicly educated. Three generations past, children from elite families received pre-professional educations and most other children were educated to be productive in the local and national economy. Post-WW2 children were educated to strengthen our nation in a Cold War and for international leadership. A generation ago children began to be disaggregated by their observed characteristics of gender, race, ethnicity and language, and disabilities and disadvantages and education was purposed to close achievement gaps between disparate groups. Across generations there is a common theme that school prepares a child for adulthood, adulthood needs being defined by the times.

A three-legged stool historically supported the rearing of children. The first and most significant leg was family. The second leg was church. And, the third leg was community, including school. A phrase embraced this triad: “These are the parents’ children, the community’s kids, and the school’s students”. Today, almost 50% of marriages end in divorce, only 12% of the population attends church once per month, and traditional institutions, such as Scouts and 4H are under suspicion due to some disreputable adults . The Y (no longer an MCA) and Boys and Girls Clubs provide day care. School, despite its detractions, remains the constant over time in the lives of children, kids and students.

The “whole child” interest is valid and wholesome. It also is either uninformed, misinformed or purposefully distracting.

What Do We Know?

Who the speaker is matters. The commenter may be seeking help. A parent advocating whole child may be addressing the lack of support from the other two legs and looking to the school for non-educational support. Or, the parent may be facing a significant challenge or problem in raising the child and looking for non-academic help from school. Or, the commenter could be a social worker or law enforcement officer who understands the implications of an “unwhole” child and knows that school through mandatory attendance represents a singular, and positive constant in the life of most children. And, the commenter could be a politician needing to make answers to confrontative problems, like community violence and drug and alcohol addictions, and so he legislates that schools will address mental health issues.

Educators have a simple and direct response. It is – “Good teaching and good schooling grow a whole child”.

Why Is This Thus?

Good teaching understands the concept of readiness to learn. Readiness means that a child is physically, intellectually, and emotionally prepared to engage with a teacher and prepared instruction for the purpose of learning. Even though a child may be present in the classroom, sitting at a desk, and looking ready to be taught, this may not be the fact. Good teaching looks closely at the child to appraise “is this child or are these children ready for this?”. Good teaching listens to other teachers, parent communications, counselors and school health personnel and understands when a child is not ready to or may be significantly distracted from learning. Readiness to learn considers all facets of the child.

Readiness to learn are daily measures taken several times each day. A child’s night before and amount or quality of sleep affect readiness to learn. Breakfast or its absence affects readiness. A bus ride or walk to school affects readiness. A child’s experiences in the morning classes and at recess and passing from class to class and at lunch can affect subsequent readiness to learn. Good teaching is a child first attention to each student and looks for any of these enhancers of or distractions to learning. A child who is not ready or clearly distracted will not learn.

A balanced curricular program understands and helps to educate the whole child. Balance is access to curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular opportunities. Interestingly, adults seem to think that all children seek opportunities to sing and play an instrument, and be on stage in a play and make the varsity each season and to paint and make pottery and be on the debate team or Key Club or dance team and take a load of academic classes. While some may, most do not. What they want is opportunity to explore what they want to explore. And, opportunity to extend learning in the areas they choose. Balanced curriculum provides an expanse of experiences and open choices that help grow a whole child.

Today a whole child must be a contemporary child. When adults don’t like what is happening in education, they either make comparisons to what life, childhood and school was like when the adult was young or they call upon theory as blatant truth. From the get go, yesterday is past and there is no getting it back and the past was not perfect. Believing that school in the 80s or 90s was more focused on the whole child than today is just plain wrong. Additionally, believing that school can operate on a theoretical model of whole child education is tantamount to believing every girl should look lie Barbie and every boy like Ken.

To Do

Good schooling and good teaching facilitates a whole child by:

• offering a wide variety of educational opportunities for all children and letting children choose. Inclusive options let children explore and develop their skills and interests and talents, not just those that adults prescribe.
• celebrating child successes. Some children who do not have supportive homes or family networks do not know what a celebration of success feels like. Success begets more success and celebrations are part of that begetting.
• making 360 degree observations about each child. Listening to parents, bus drivers, cafeteria servers, hall monitors, custodians – everyone who makes a comment about a child helps good teaching to grow a whole child. At the same time, good teaching filters commentary that pertains to teaching and learning and passes non-teaching and learning commentary to other school resources.
• helping children grow from their failures and mistakes. Neither of these close children from future teaching and learning. Instead, they make it more compelling. A whole child experiences bumps in the road to her future.
• engaging with every child as frequently as possible. When a child is able to ghost through a school day without a direct teaching-learning conversation with a teacher, this child is falling toward unwholeness. We must know that some children choose this silence and invisibility. If we are listening to all our sources about children, we will know when a child may needs to be left alone and when to re-engage them. Otherwise, engage all children continuously. Children shall not be ghosts.
• lastly, the assessment and measurement of learning in all areas of academics, activities, arts and athletics should be embedded in our attention to the whole child. The fact that a state mandates schools to test all children in reading and math is not a negative. In advocating for a well-rounded education for all children, the state and each school should have an assessment and measurement system informing us about each child’s growth in art, music, world language, history and civics, and financial literacy. We should have measurements in tech skills. And, please, we should have strategies for assessing a child’s social and emotional well-being and abilities to be collegial and collaborative. Without systems of assessment how will we know a child is whole?

The Big Duh!

Good teaching is all about the whole child.