essay on education is multi-dimention
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The failure of education in the twentieth century is not the failure to teach humankind science, language or mathematics, but the failure to teach humankind to live together in peace and to harness the potentials in individuals and societies for full and equitable development'. (V. Ordonez, 1998)
A fundamental challenge to education in this century which calls for concerted actions, is to teach human values and social skills most necessary for learners to be a 'complete person'. This means going beyond an instrumental view of education that emphasises the development of the complete person. "The physical, intellectual, emotional and ethical integration of the individual into a complete man is a broad definition of the fundamental aim of education" (Delors Commission, 1996). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 26(2) states: "Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality...."
Throughout the history of public schooling, a group of critics has always pointed out that the education process should involve much more than simply moulding the young ones into future workers or citizens. There is more and more pressure from the economy and politics to prepare the labour force and citizens that fit into the needs of a globalized, economy dominated world. Employability, Mobility and Flexibility have become catch words of this development. Critique on existing curricula speak about an "unbalanced emphasis on economic and utilitarian aims, leading to an over‐emphasis on school as a competitive market where the child is unable to flourish and grow as a person, or to be listened to" (Watson, 2006, 253). The roots of holistic education can be traced back in the educational thoughts and practices of Swiss humanitarian Johann Pestalozzi, the American Transcendentalists, Thoreau, Emerson and Alcott, the founders of "progressive" education Francis Parker and John Dewey and pioneers such as Maria Montessori and Rudolf Steiner. They all advocated the that cultivation of moral, emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual dimensions of the developing child should be the aim of education i.e. promoting the growth and development of the whole person - the idea of a holistic education. (Dufty and Dufty 1989, Lovat and Smith 1990, Beare 1989, Boomer 1982, Eisner 1982). This gave birth to a perspective known as holism. The concept of holism refers to the idea that all the properties of a given system in any field of study cannot be determined or explained by the sum of its component parts. Instead, the system as a whole determines how its parts behave.