Holistic education group looks to sustain the 'light and passion' of teaching

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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — It doesn’t look like much, but this stick has powers.Long from its days as a vital branch on a mighty tree, it’s weathered and stripped of most of its bark. But it still has the ability to bring life to a room, especially when that room is full of educators, willing to bare their souls for a better understanding of what it means to teach as well as what it means to be human.
In late January, that stick was passed around the Holistic Education Faculty Circle, empowering each attendee with the opportunity to speak uninterrupted in the “council” discussion style. That morning, a fresh snowfall gave a bright glow to campus, and there was quite a lot of illumination inside a meeting space in Penn State's Pasquerilla Spiritual Center.
Part support group, part meditation circle, part coffee talk, the gathering is the culmination of a few years of work to create something that acknowledges students as whole beings, shaped by so much more than just what happens in the classroom.
“It’s more than studying four years in a place and becoming competent in a certain area of study,” said biology professor Chris Uhl. “More than becoming skilled in a cognitive pursuit. As one of my colleagues (author and activist) Joanna Macy says — ‘We’re not just brains on a stick.’ And so, how can we cultivate all the things, all the potentialities that we’re born with as human beings — our potential, our capacity for imagination, for play, our emotional development, our capacity to really feel deeply, to express emotions and matters of the spirit?”
The mission of the group is still evolving, but a likely goal will be the creation of an holistic education minor that would be open to all students and/or circles for students that could be “incubators ...

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