Individual Self-Governance in Whole Child Education

Educating the Whole Child grows mind, body and spirit healthy simultaneously, but the developing psychological state of growing children, through an ever strengthening individual Ego and continuous consistent mentoring, finds favor over other constituent parts of formal schooling. Ego strength is founded on and in the individual’s increasing Autonomous Self-Regulation capacities which are premised in student satisfaction of the basic psychological needs for Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness. Schools unfolding student Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness structure themselves through the characteristic of Individual Self-Governance. Individual Self-Governance places the locus of all knowledge decisions squarely within the individual student rather then being placed on the student from a power external to the individual. Schooling in this way requires formal learning to fully allow intrinsic draw to compatible knowledge seeking, acquisition and use at each level, early childhood, primary and secondary education. Here discusses general school structures founded in this characteristic.

An Early Childhood Whole Child Individual Self-Governance exemplar would position students within an ungraded, mixed age setting developing an early autonomous self-regulation of social-emotional dispositions and executive functioning, cultivating natural learning instincts, appropriate language competency and growth in gross and fine motor movement and in overall body capacities while school staff uncover individual student psycho-dynamic, psycho-social and psycho-cognitive baselines enabling counseling a point of departure. Such early childhood settings would be a prepared play world filled with practical life materials and activities, sensorial materials, wooden blocks and puzzles, sensorial keys and experiences of nature, of people, of art, of music, of language, of math and measurement; it would also be filled with age appropriate toys, like dolls, cars, trucks, planes, rail roads, as well as items such as sand and water tables. There would be provided areas intended to stimulate and accommodate free, imaginative play as well as free individual and group physical play. Specific engagement with the materials and the activities of the prepared environment would be wholly up to each child rather than be directed by a teacher.

In an exemplar of Early Childhood Whole Child Education, students would process through and graduate into Primary Education at their own pace. Criteria and demonstration of criteria for advancement through and out from such an Early Childhood program would be community decisions undertaken through school Collective Self-Governance.

An exemplar Whole Child Individual Self-Governance Primary Education would position students within an ungraded, mixed age setting strengthening or beginning to develop autonomous self-regulation of executive functioning and social-emotional management promoting behavioral habits of both independence and cooperation, competencies in book literacy, language, numeracy and self-selected subject topics while Primary Education staff develop psycho-dynamic, psycho-social and psycho-cognitive profiles of enrolled students whether new to or continuing with Whole Child Education enabling counseling to proceed in proper directions.

Such Primary Education spaces would provide for free play and for developing intentional learning skills and subject topics of interest. Thus, it would be filled with materials like Lincoln Logs and building blocks, toys, puzzles and games, costumes and theatrical makeup, paints and crayons, newsprint and paper, performance spaces, indoor and outdoor playground equipment, and readers, charts, time lines, lab manuals, models and arts materials. Academic learning would be set in Learning Stations centered on Literacy, Language, and Measurement and in discipline areas of Earth, Space and Life Sciences, History and Geography.

Subject content learning of a Whole Child Individual Self-Governance exemplar Primary Education would be individual and emergent rather than being uniform and mandated: the course of topic content acquisition over an entire residency would emerge unique to every child as they engage the prepared learning environment through distinctive neurology, interests, abilities and communication styles.

However, a goal of the Primary Education common to all children would be the development in each child of competency in receiving, processing and communicating written, oral and graphic information, including mathematical information, allowing each to comfortably accept Secondary Education. These objectives would emerge over time as student-mentor negotiated agreements and would be based on felt student need to gain additional tools to explore more of the prepared environment than through mandated mastery on or before a time or an age certain.

In an exemplar of Whole Child Primary Education, students would process through and graduate into Secondary Education at their own pace. Criteria and demonstration of criteria for advancement through and out from Primary Education would be community decisions undertaken through school Collective Self Governance.

Primary Education classes in the usual sense of mandatory, age and grade grouped, teacher-directed, whole group instruction are not intended to be part of the best examples of a Whole Child Individual Self-Governance structured Early Childhood or Primary Education. Rather, in-school learning engagement during the school day of Early Childhood Education would be through self-organized individual or group involvement with elements of the prepared environment; in-class learning engagement during the school day of Primary Education would be mostly through self-directed independent or self-organized small group involvement with the materials and activities of the prepared environment, but also, if students desired, through small group teacher initiated and student voluntarily accepted cooperative topic study and/or through self-initiated one-to-one instruction. Outside-school learning engagement during the school day of both formal learning levels would be through the student choice of varied field trips.

In both Whole Child Education levels the role of the teacher is to facilitate student learning, growth and maturation, rather than directing it. It would be incumbent on teachers to closely observe each child to determine his and her needs and to change the prepared environment as much as feasible putting in the way of the child elements able to meet the observed needs.

A Whole Child Individual Self-Governance exemplar Secondary Education would have students within an ungraded, mixed age setting developing high quality deliberative concrete through high abstract thinking, manual skills, language competency, and habits of cooperation, and to cultivate self-selected subject topics while secondary education staff work with individual students to retain and to further build autonomous self-regulation as adolescent drives conflict decision making.

Inquiry Project Based Learning, for instance, would be a preferred content learning structure utilized by students to process through a Whole Child Individual Self-Governance Secondary Education. Students would engage the knowledge world through individual or cooperative small group inquiry projects. Projects would be developed, implemented, presented and feedback given through participation in Cooperative Learning Labs where Lab members act together to achieve individual or cooperative small group project objectives and where Lab members through demonstrations and presentations share the knowledge gained by their projects. There could be a number of Cooperative Learning Labs inhabiting their own spaces and facilitated each by at least one Learning Specialist: They could cover areas such as Outdoor Education, Physical Science, Mathematics, Social Science, Social Studies, Letters, Fine Arts, Performance Arts, Foreign Language Arts, Digital Sciences, Carpentry, Metal Working, Home Arts and Athletics.

For the purposes of easy explanation, Cooperative Learning Lab areas of knowledge responsibility detailed immediately below are divided according to customary discipline breakdowns, but are not to be taken as necessarily conventional Secondary Education subject division and content. For instance: in the usual Social Studies Secondary Education curriculum questions into leather tanning are unaddressed, but if a student were interested in knowing about leather tanning either as an exercise in actual tanning or as an academic inquiry, say, as it happened in New York City in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, then the student would find such knowledge within the American History domain of the Social Studies Learning Lab or the Agriculture domain of the Outdoor Education Learning Lab or both.. The student, then, would proceed within these spaces to execute the project in leather tanning.

Suggested Cooperative Learning Lab areas of knowledge responsibility:

Outdoor Education Cooperative Learning Lab includes adventure leadership and experiences, and studies in student selected aspects of Botany, Geology, Forestry, Zoology, Environmental Science, Agriculture, Oceanography, Cartography and Surveying.

Physical Science Cooperative Learning Lab supports study in student selected aspects of Astronomy, Biology, Cosmology, Chemistry, Physics.

Mathematics Cooperative Learning Lab supports study in student selected aspects of Numbers Theory, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus.

Social Science Cooperative Learning Lab supports study in student selected aspects of Health and Wellness, Sociology, Anthropology, Philosophy.

Social Studies Cooperative Learning Lab supports study in student selected aspects of: Geography; General World History; Specific Regional or Nation State History; Specific Regional or Nation State Contemporary Culture, Government, Politics and Economics; New York State History; Contemporary New York State Government, Politics and Economics; American History, Government, and Politics; Contemporary American Government, Politics and Economics; Political Economic Theory and History.

Letters Cooperative Learning Lab supports study in student selected aspects of Written Communication, World Literature, English and American Literature, Mythology.

Fine Arts Cooperative Learning Lab supports study in student selected aspects of Drawing, Painting, Sculpting, Photography, Film.

Performance Arts Cooperative Learning Lab supports study in student selected aspects of Dance, Music, Theater, Interpersonal Communication, Public Communication.

Foreign Language Arts Cooperative Learning Lab supports study in student selected aspects of the acquisition of Latin, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian and English as a Second Language.

Digital Sciences Cooperative Learning Lab supports study in student selected aspects of Information Technology Construction, Operation, Repair, Networking, Programming, Computer Aided Design, Graphic and Fine Arts.

Carpentry Cooperative Learning Lab supports study in student selected aspects of Building Construction, Cabinetry, Furniture, Crafts, Fine Arts.

Metal Working Cooperative Learning Lab supports study in student selected aspects of Construction, Fabrication, Civil Engineering, Crafts, Fine Arts.

Home Arts Cooperative Learning Lab supports study in student selected aspects of Fashion, Culinary Arts, Community Planning, Residential Design, Interior Design, Home Repair, Clothing Repair.

Athletics Cooperative Learning Lab supports study in student selected aspects of Individual Sports, such as Tennis, Golf, Aquatics, Hand and Racquet Ball, of Team Sports, such as Baseball/Softball, Basketball, Soccer, of Coaching and Team Management; of Fitness Training and Exercise Physiology, of Sports Medicine.

Whole Child Secondary Education students would initiate selection for all inquiry projects rather than rely on mentor or learning specialist directed selection. Although topic lists would be made available by learning specialists for students it would be preferred for students to create their own topics, but it is sufficient to satisfy Individual Self-Governance that students form their inquiry questions from pre-listed topics.

Prior to the start of each and every inquiry project, students would state their Criteria for Project Success based on performance assessment methods. Performance assessment rubrics would consist of qualitative statements describing specific standards against which student's can self-assess and/or measure other students' project work, especially as the final project product is being developed. Criteria for Project Success would be self-generated but they should have the approval of both the student's mentor and appropriate lab learning specialist wherein the project would be completed. A student may request the Learning Lab group within which he/she is working to evaluate a project at any stage of its undertaking using the students own criteria for success rubrics.

Beyond the feedback opportunities, Whole Child Education Individual Self-Governance would relieve the student and his/her project from formal assessment unless the community as a whole sanctions it through its Collective Self-Governance. However, while mandated formal evaluation of completed projects is not intended, individual students presenting their completed projects may request a formal assessment from the Learning Lab members and/or the learning specialist wherein the project is being presented. Whole Child Education recommends that under the conditions of formal assessment, the student develop an assessment instrument based on the project's Criteria for Success through which Lab members and/or a learning specialist can evaluate the student's presented work. Students and their mentors would be obliged to retain a portfolio of projects demonstrating work done, its quality and its fulfillment of Criteria of Success.

Occasionally there may be a need felt by students or observed by the learning specialist for direct instruction of project skills or of assessment methods or of common subject content. In these cases, a student, a group of students or the learning specialist would call a learning lab non-compulsory seminar to fill the need. All learning lab seminars having these objectives would be conducted using Cooperative Learning. methods. Also, on occasion, there may be felt a need by students, especially, or by the Learning Specialist in a Learning Lab to gather students together for facilitated conversations on topics of interest. Here a student, a group of students or the learning specialist would call a special non-compulsory seminar using a Socratic Pivotal Questioning method, or a similar method, to lead the conversation.

Students when not acquiring additional project skills or common subject content or evaluating project efforts or working with mentors would work on their projects independently or cooperatively depending on the youngsters’ inclinations and the kinds of tasks to be done. However, an expectant behavior of the cooperative norm of Whole Child Education is that each youngster is to look for opportunities to help fellow students as well as to be open to help when needed.

In the best examples of Whole Child Individual Self-Governance Secondary Education, students would work with their mentors to plan the course of their progress in satisfying the requisite benchmarks toward graduation, the criteria for graduation and life after graduation. They would process through and graduate at their own pace . Criteria and demonstration of criteria for advancement through and out from Secondary Education are community decisions undertaken through the school's Collective Self-Governance.

Leveraging the properties intrinsic to individuals under a close mentoring relationship of community adult and student to impel learning engagement, to live well with each other within the learning environment and to cooperatively assure the smooth management of the school community would unfold Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness in youngsters at each schooling level and would have the best chance of developing a healthy mental state and schooling success of growing children.