A HOLISTIC Education

So what could a truly holistic education look like?

It would be an education that does not align itself with any single culture or particular spirituality, but instead embraces them all through a path of learning and discovery focused on reconnecting human beings with the very source of their essential humanity — regardless of the name we give it.

Yet, is there still room for innovation in this ocean of indifference, scepticism, defeatism, distrust, resignation, fear and submission in which individuals survive as best they can today, sometimes clinging to an ideal or a cause in the hope of one day seeing it come to fruition? Will we settle for this hyper-negative observation, even though it is not without foundation?

We will be careful not to proclaim an ideal or turn education into a political issue. However, the rejection of authority, of powers, of established religions when they become oppressive and instruments of control — of everything that constrains and formats the individual — is of course an obvious prerequisite for this educational quest. But it is not enough and does not constitute a project in itself.

For, beyond presuppositions and expectations, what truly matters in education is first and foremost the child, as Octave Mirbeau so powerfully emphasised — that formidable potential constantly mistreated by the institutions historically responsible for ordinary alienation: religion and state schooling.

The family has also long been regarded as a pillar of this alienation. Yet it remains the biological nucleus that structures every society by providing basic protection for the child. It must now more than ever be defended, because it is currently subjected to subtle pressures aimed at stripping it of what is commonly called parental authority. These pressures serve perverse ends that raise serious questions, with the fairly clear objective of removing the last protective barrier around our children in order to destroy them.

And it is not enough to assert a virtuous ideal to protect ourselves from the destructive power of state schooling — that cold monster in the service of those who are intent on tearing everything apart.

It is therefore appropriate to begin at the beginning. While it may no longer seem possible (though who knows !) to open a school like Sébastien Faure's La Ruche or Francisco Ferrer's Escuela Moderna, we can nevertheless draw inspiration from their approach and draw strength from the tenacity of Paul Robin, Célestin Freinet, and all those educators whom state systems prefer to ignore.

And to do what, exactly?

Perhaps to instil a different spirit into the relationships that develop among children of all origins in this ignobly hierarchical world divided between dominators and dominated.

And how?

That is the whole question. Pedagogy also involves the creation of tools that can serve both learning, awareness-raising and consciousness-building. The field is vast and wide open.

To show children that no form of culture is superior to another, to find ways to do so, to link learning with the development of autonomy and mutual aid, and thus to go against what is being done today almost everywhere in the world in education — the formatting for submission, for the resigned acceptance of an authority that generates the established disorder and the ongoing disaster — such could be the guiding principles of Holistic Educ.

It is indeed urgent to lay the foundations of a holistic, transcultural (and not merely multicultural) education, one that is also anti-authoritarian and anti-globalist. An education that gives all young people the sense of a common belonging to what makes every individual, everywhere in the world, first and foremost a human being — a universal fact that lies at the root of all identity.

To dare hope, to dare utopia. To dare to live, to bring life… and to grow in freedom !

There is no age limit for continuing to believe in humanity and striving to manifest what makes the greatness and beauty of our human condition. The path is open, but it has not yet been traced. Thus, all those — if any — of every age, every origin, and every background (or with no formal education), who feel drawn to this approach, may join it.

Holistic Educ is therefore open to anyone who is aware of the tragic quagmire in which young people are sinking and who refuses to remain a passive, disillusioned spectator.

More than ever, the paths of Life are side roads. The question is no longer whether we should conform and bow our heads in a millennial reflex of genetically ingrained fear. When the ship is about to sink, following the rats offers no salvation. What is called for is desertion from the educational barracks of misfortune.

And if this world is still sensitive to it, let us recognise this: the quality of an educational relationship also lies in the poetry that emanates from it — a poetry that nevertheless remains ineffable.

"Immense childhood slices of bread
on which the butter remained fresh,
on which the jam formed a glossy glaze,
were sometimes, during play,
placed on a grey stone post
until they were forgotten."

Jean Follain (1903-1971)