Why is Holistic Education Important for One of the Best Schools in Kolkata? The importance of education doesn’t need an introduction. To say that it is the basis of making a bright nation, is only doing partial justice to its importance. From prehistoric times, India has been the land of advanced studies, enlightening the likes of Gautam Buddha, The Mahatma and many more. However, in the recent times, education experts have felt the pressing need to rank up the education system followed all over the country to match up to western styles. A lot is spoken about holistic education and its benefits over traditional practices. Following suit, most schools in the country, including the best school in Kolkata, are turning towards imparting holistic education. While most of us understand the broad concepts, switching to a new pedagogy can be a little overwhelming. In this blog, I will outline few modern day concepts and the overall benefits of holistic education.
What is holistic education? The underlying principle of holistic education is that each child is unique in their capacities and skills. Holistic education aims at providing a more natural and engaging teaching environment. This helps in shaping up the child to become a wellrounded person at a later point. Most parents want a little ‘more’ from their kids and holistic education gives them ample scope to think out of the box and explore. How to implement holistic education at schools? Holistic learning encourages children to hone all their skill-sets and build on their strengths. Since, all children differ in their skills; there is no one way of implementing such methodologies. Learning while playing is a great way to inculcate good habits like curiosity, creativity, imagination etc. in children. According to a top school in Kolkata, a no-books policy up to class 1 is helping kids develop their cognitive senses better.
Thus, a holistic curriculum should put equal emphasis on dancing, sports, painting, drama and other co-curricular and extra-curricular activities in addition to the traditional subjects. Another great way is to encourage children to study inter-disciplinary courses and try to build connection between lessons learnt. This helps develop a natural problem solving instinct. Advantages of a holistic education system The first thing to keep in mind is that, education is no longer measured in tangible metrics. Gone are the days where committing and vomiting was considered fine. Children today face a strong competition and the only way they can succeed is by having in depth command over multiple subjects and areas. This helps them grasp even difficult concepts very easily. In addition to a stronghold over the core subjects like math, language and science, holistic pedagogy allows them to learn emotions, social and psychology-helping them to become well-rounded humans.