Holistic Wisdom Education : Towards Transformational Creativity

Abstract

We suggest that holistic education and pedagogy, which are grounded in a philosophical holistic view of human nature, would be important in the current era for the development of transformative creativity at all levels of education. We base our holistic view of human nature on the model of the philosopher Lauri Rauhala. Holistic pedagogy refers here to an approach where multimodal perspectives that include emotional, volitional, cognitive, ethical, and physical education, are brought together. It is furthermore theorized that wisdom and creativity are closely related phenomena, and as part of holistic pedagogy, they may create possibilities for innovations and new understandings. Wisdom is understood here as progress toward an ethical common good of action and creativity is defined as the ability to produce something novel that is also applied in practice. When holistic pedagogies include also integrative thinking, which enables synthesizing inner and outer realities, different logical systems and mental modes, they have the possibility to support transformative creativity, which is the ability to benefit both self and the environment (social, cultural and physical) in a purposeful way. For supporting our theocratization, we present examples of two kinds of holistic education practices in formal and informal education, as well as in children and adults that could provide a sustainable approach to support growth. Firstly, we give an initial example of a qualitative empirical study of practical wisdom of pre-schoolers in the forest environment. The study found that when asked about children’s ability to learn wisdom, the teachers reported contents of creative thinking and acting. Secondly, we suggest that in adults’ self-education such as in the model of Positive Disintegration by Kazimierz Dąbrowski well as others could be possible fruitful way to enhance wise, and creative competencies. We conclude that different forms of holistic education can be planted, and they have the ability to support transformative creativity, which is essential for countering the challenges of socio-emotional sphere, as well as in ethical decision-making and acting for common human well-being.