Should Schools Continue to Use a 100-Year-Old Practice?

Walking into a small breakout room adjacent to Taylor’s spacious classroom this spring, I am quickly enveloped by kelp. Not actual kelp, but ribbons of dark cellophane meant to be kelp suspended from the ceiling created by his 8- and 9-year-old students. The kelp simulacra cling to papier mache “holdfasts” on the floor, imitating the real ocean plants, and reproductions of other organisms that live in and around kelp forests populate the room like a biotropic tenement, similar to the areas off our Northern California shores. The walls are upholstered with information cards about each type of plant and life form, accompanied by watercolor paintings and infographic posters. It’s a room-filled science and art installation.

What at first glance appears as a fun and interactive lesson unit about kelp forests is actually a complex interplay of subjects masterfully blended to perform like an orchestra - science, art, literacy, research, and math, and generous doses of social and emotional skills are combined as a whole rather than separate parts. This installation is not only creative and informative, but conceptually it beautifully illustrates the strength of how integrated, experiential units of study, a keystone of whole child education, stimulate learning, student engagement, and social and emotional skills.?

School Mirroring Life

In 1915, John Dewey understood that we don’t divide our daily lives into silos. Writing that school settings should be as natural as life itself, he believed that segmenting school subjects would essentially divide a child’s experiences into unnaturally discreet parts. As in the Indian parable about a group of blind men who come upon an elephant for the first time, each man (they were all men in the original parable) only touching a single part has his own definition of the animal, isolated from the others. In John Saxe’s English interpretation he writes, “Each was partly in the right, and all were wrong!” In other words, each had a separate silo of information and failed to understand the whole.?

Avoiding the result of the blind men’s experience, early 20th century progressive schools recognized and honored the entirety of a child’s experience, what we now call “whole child education.” Academics and the arts are joined, but also other subjects and aspects of a student’s life are considered important including world languages, physical education, social and emotional learning, even unstructured time and community engagement. Abundant recent research has fortified this perspective of curriculum design.

Where this lesson differs is in the way the students naturally blend multiple disciplines and skills to collaborate as a whole class on the details of what the installation will include and how it will look.?

Two weeks before my visit to their classroom, I’m trying to keep a group of students from getting too far behind a guided visit through the Monterey Bay Aquarium. An octopus folded into a corner of an eye-level tank is too fascinating for these pre-adolescents (and me) to pass. A field trip to learn to enhance the learning experience is a typical beginning for a lesson unit like this. And back at school it’s fairly expected that the students would spend time in research groups where they learn some basic information and improve their research skills. Where this lesson differs is in the way the students naturally blend multiple disciplines and skills to collaborate as a whole class on the details of what the installation will include and how it will look.?

Here, the students engage in some pretty sophisticated social and emotional skills. They are expected to work as a whole class to agree on which organisms that live in and around the kelp forests to research, which students will research those organisms, what information will be displayed, how components will be created and by whom, etc, all with the goal of making a unified exhibit that exemplifies a full aquatic ecosystem. It’s not always efficient or a pretty scene, but with Taylor’s help and some class discussions about how to productively communicate and manage expectations and conflicting views, the students find a path forward.

As a result, several students created watercolor paintings, other students made papier mache sea urchins, abalone, and sea stars, and another group printed out informational cards from their research. Both traditional art materials and found materials are employed to create an array of organisms, they scale ladders to pin kelp to the ceiling and arrange sea stars on the floor.??

Following Student Interests

Some of the most exciting moments come when students begin to improvise ideas to add to the immersive experience of the installation. “We should have speakers with ocean sounds!” one shouts to no one in particular. Another student adds, “And kelp forests are kinda dark, so we should cover the lights with cellophane!” Taylor, of course, rolls with it. When teachers actively incorporate and build upon students' interests, they provide a way for students to be authors of their own learning. This “student agency” approach was advocated by Dewey and other educators including Loris Malaguzzi, the founder of Reggio-Emilia, A.S. Neill at Summerhill, and Piaget and Francis Parker. Dewey wrote, "The teacher should be a guide, a director, a stimulator of growth, rather than an arbitrary dictator."

Every year and every part of the child’s journey that is interconnected and interdependent helps them construct more complex, personal and nuanced meaning and knowledge.

Taylor deftly allowed another unplanned activity to develop during this unit that unfolded from the visit to the aquarium. As students wandered through halls filled with tanks of crustaceans and parachuting jellyfish, they picked up free Seafood Watch cards that the aquarium distributes. During a brief class meeting, one student brought up the sustainable seafood information contained in the cards. Inspired by this information, the students sought to find a way to spread information to the school community that making good seafood choices when shopping or eating out is important to sustaining healthy ocean ecosystems.

Curious to learn more about what the school community already knew about sustainable seafood, the students decided to conduct a survey. Taylor cleverly incorporated a bit of a lesson on the importance of survey size and suggested that they survey 100 adults at school (A good sample size, and it also makes it easier to teach percentages!). The students tabulated the survey results and used fraction and percentage math skills to create posters with pie charts which were displayed in the installation as important information for visitors.

“Soft Skills” Are a Crucial Component

Integrated, whole-child units like this one have some strong measurable benefits for learning how to conduct research, writing, measuring, etc. But there are also significant benefits that can’t be measured as easily. Intrinsic motivation, increased curiosity, a flourishing imagination, and, as some call “soft” skills which, when asked, happen to be at the top of the list for most parents.?

John Dewey was particularly passionate about the importance of incorporating social and emotional skills in schools, writing that education should be a social experience that helps children develop social skills, such as cooperation, empathy, and respect for others. He also promoted the idea that democratic values incorporated into education developed respect for others, equality, and participation in civic life.?

Many parents express that they want their children to grow up to be good people with strong life skills. They want them to think critically, to have a social conscience, to act with compassion and empathy, and to make good life choices. They want schools to teach academics AND those “soft” skills. Don’t we all?

Taylor’s program thoughtfully focuses on the whole child's school experience. Every year and every part of the child’s journey that is interconnected and interdependent helps them construct more complex, personal and nuanced meaning and knowledge, develops social and emotional skills and provides students with opportunities to confidently contribute to the world.?

Walking through the installation, the outcomes of an integrated, whole-child educational approach are tangible and profound: students who have been active participants in a lesson unit are highly engaged and enthusiastic about learning beyond what was expected. Their level of excitement acts as a powerful testament that some 20th century theories like whole child education still hold immense value. In a world that demands adaptability, creativity, and strong interpersonal skills, this 100-year-old practice is more relevant than ever. By seamlessly weaving academic subjects with the arts, social skills, and real-world experiences, lesson units like this can be simultaneously rigorous, creative, and deeply meaningful, preparing children to navigate and contribute to an increasingly interconnected world.

Sources:

Becker, K., & Park, K. (2011). Effects of integrative approaches among science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects on students' learning: A preliminary meta-analysis. Journal of STEM Education, 12.

Costley, K. C. (2015). Research supporting integrated curriculum: Evidence for using this method of instruction in public school classrooms. ERIC. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED552916.pdf

Cremin, L. A. (n.d.). John Dewey and the progressive-education movement, 1915-1952. Teachers College, Columbia University. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/442489?journalCode=schoolreview

Dewey, J. (1902). The child and the curriculum.

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education.

Le, H. C., Nguyen, V. H., & Nguyen, T. L. (2023). Integrated STEM approaches and associated outcomes of K-12 student learning: A systematic review. Education Sciences, 13(3), 297. https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/13/3/297

Malaguzzi, L. (n.d.). Loris Malaguzzi and the schools of Reggio Emilia: A selection of his writings and speeches, 1945-1993.

Noddings, N. (2005). What does it mean to educate the whole child? Educational Leadership, 63(1), 8-13. https://pdo.ascd.org/LMSCourses/PD13OC009M/media/WholeChild_M1_Reading1.pdf

Roehrig, G. H., Dare, E. A., Ellis, J. A., & Ring-Whalen, E. (2021). Beyond the basics: A detailed conceptual framework of integrated STEM. Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research, 3(11). https://diser.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43031-021-00041-y

Saxe, J. G. (n.d.). Blind men and elephant. In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 20, 2024, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant