Why We should Teach the Whole Student

Why We Should Teach the Whole Student

One of the major flaws in our educational system is that we do not address the whole child. We make no effort teach our children about their being, about how their machine works. For the most part, we attempt to educate only one faculty of the student, the thinking center. With physical education classes we do give some instruction that is beneficial to the moving center. And with art and drama classes to a small extent we touch on the emotional center. But by far, the stress is on filing the students head with knowledge. Even with our emphasis on the thinking center, we do not teach students to think. We teach them to memorize and regurgitate facts.

In the Fourth Way we are taught that man is asleep. Because of his sleep, we have wars, violence, crime and economic disruptions. Man has both knowledge and being. Among other things his being consists of three major centers the thinking center, the moving-instinctive center, and the emotional center. Personality and essence are also a part of man’s being.

According to the Fourth Way, man’s personality is what directs him to life. And we must educate our children in such a way that they have a rich personality and are able to function in life, to earn their way and make some contribution to society. But man also has a spiritual side to him. The Fourth Way calls this Spiritual side man’s Essence. And it needs development just as much as the personality does.

In my forty some years of teaching, I was able to work on the being of my students to a small extent. I had them study their dreams and write compositions on what their dreams told them about their inner life. We had class discussions on the possibilities of life after death. I played music from the sixties, Dylan, Joan Baez, Simon and Gurfunkle , Moody Blues… We discuss the lyrics and wrote poems. I told my students that I was a pacifist, and we discussed non-violence.

I taught an elective on higher consciousness. In this elective we discussed the human machine and how it works. Some my middle school students actually observed themselves and to a small degree at least were able to see their different centers. I gave the students names of authors, Krishnamurti, Henry Miller, Grurdjieff, which I hoped they might look up when they got older. I planted seeds that I hoped would sprout one day.

Today, with No Child Left Behind, I couldn’t even plant seeds. I would not be allowed to teach an elective on higher consciousness. Such an elective does not address the standards. I would not be able to discuss dreams, or play sixties’ music. In today’s classroom all curriculum is dictated by state mandates. We are farther away from teaching our students about their being than we ever were.

Isn’t there more to man than his intellectual technological side? What is a human being? What is the purpose of life? Is there more to life than money, possessions, and power? How does our “human machine” work? We must take a serious look at these questions. Our public school system from pre-school to graduate school should spend at least as much time studying the being of man as it spends preparing one to earn a living. If our school system doesn’t educate the being and spirit of man then who or what does? Most educators feel that teaching spiritual values should be left to the family and the Church. But, both the family and the Church have failed in this responsibility.

Does life experience teach man about his being? And what happens to a society whose people have no knowledge of their being? Read the daily newspaper.

We cannot educate just one part of a child and create fully developed human beings. Of course we have to educate the rational part of our children. A child must learn to read and write and be computer literate. He must learn math and science. He must acquire the skills that will make him a “good householder.”

Acquiring these skills is important and meaningful. Children know this and respond with pleasure when they are actually learning something meaningful. They would respond with equal pleasure at learning about where their thoughts come from, about where their feelings come from, about what causes their movement and sensation. They would enjoy learning about their inner selves.

And, a child only really learns what he enjoys learning.