Holistic & Intergrated Approach: Challenges & Opportunies

September 9, 2019 Educator's Corner

The shift of focus from teaching to learning with the learner as the center of the educational process is a major change in education. This shift from content to process, knowing to valuing and teacher-to-student-centered orientation has many implications for curriculum development, and teacher roles.
A great part of this change is preparing and shaping the learners to become catalyst for improving people’s quality of life and initiating positive societal transformations including that of future generations. This sounds ideal to many but could be transformed to reality through the use of the so-called holistic and integrated approach.
In this approach educators however, will be challenged in different aspects of the valuing process as described by Quisumbing (2008) such as examining the level of teaching that is engaging to the learner, structuring processes in the learning environment where the learner’s values are examined and clarified, guaranteeing a democratic space in the learning environment, and teachers ‘willingness to invest in the learning process.
Despite the challenge the approach dictates, going against all odds, is something educators were capable of doing. Educators always find ways to present lessons of their areas in a holistic and integrated way. Educators employ various teaching strategies and methodologies such as values voting and ranking, values continuum and whips, unfinished sentences, autobiographical questionnaires, picture without captions/freedom board, coded papers and many more.
Educators always take into account what Howard Gardner said, “Anything worth learning can be taught in number of ways. To think it can be taught one way reflects the limits of one understand”.
After all, as the learner is being enriched, the educator learns from the learner as well, making the learning a dialogical process (UNESCO-APNIEVE, 2004).
Rimalyn M. Poclingan
Pines City National High School