On Teaching: WHOLENESS

I’ve been thinking lately about the concept of “wholeness”, and have discovered some interesting connections with my teaching. First of all, the concept of wholeness implies “togetherness”, something every teenager surely wants to feel. If a classroom has an atmosphere of wholeness, togetherness, support, collaboration – an atmosphere, you might say, of a club or a team – then the students are certainly going to enjoy it more than they might. Every young person wants to feel like they are a “part” of something important, and it might be that I can provide them with that in my classroom. I would also like to build an atmosphere of togetherness, or unity, between my students and me. It’s important that I not see myself as separate from my students – as an unconnected physical being who is “in charge” of them and required to control and manipulate them. The scientific fact is that we, my students and I, are as together as waves in the sea or breezes in the air. Every slightest thing that happens to one of us affects all of us, though often in ways that my students are not aware of. I'm afraid they are also not often aware of the wholeness of my curriculum, which I suppose often seems disjointed and fractured to them. My hope is that I can gradually bring them to see that each step I take in a lesson is naturally related to every other step. This, of course, necessitates that I see that relationship -- that wholeness in my teaching -- and see it clearly, day in and day out.