Whole Child ASCD
From Wikiprogress.org
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About
Since 2007 ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) a global educational leadership organization located just outside of Washington DC has been based around the philosophy of the Whole Child. They believe that each child, in each school and in each community deserves to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported and challenged. They also believe that education should be redefined to ensure that it develops the whole of the child - socially, emotionally, physically, civically as well as cognitively. These five key words are their tenets and along with the accompanying indicators provide the scaffold for developing the potential of each child.
Click here to see a video on the Whole Child and ASCD.
ASCD and the Whole Child
What will prepare each young person to work in careers that have not yet been invented; to think both critically and creatively; and to evaluate massive amounts of information, solve complex problems, and communicate well? Research, practice, and common sense confirm that a whole child approach to education will develop and prepare students for the challenges and opportunities of today and tomorrow.
Every school, community, classroom, educator, student, and family has unique challenges and strengths, and has a role to play in ensuring that each student is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. Collectively we have the knowledge, skill, and ability to meet these challenges and share these strengths.
It is time to put the child at the center of the equation. As Gene Carter, ASCD Executive Director stated, “If decisions about education policy and practice started by asking what works for the child, how would resources—time, space, and human—be arrayed to ensure each child’s success? If the student were truly at the center of the system,what could we achieve?”
Topics and Child Well-being Initiatives
ASCD Global Whole Child Approach Examples Map
This month we released a global version of our Whole Child Approach Examples Map which allows users to find inspiring examples of schools and communities putting the Whole Child approach into action. A whole child approach to education ensures that each child, in each school, and in each community is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. With this interactive map tool, find examples of schools and communities worldwide that are implementing a whole child approach to education.
The schools and communities highlighted on this map were identified by ASCD or our Whole Child Partner organizations and reflect a commitment to a whole child approach put into practice. Each example highlights a program, focus, or achievement with links to more information.
ASCD The Whole Child Around The World
Each month we produce a podcast and a blog theme based around a Whole Child theme. This month the theme is The Whole Child Around The World. Tune in to hear
- Daniel Kropf, founder and executive director of the Universal Education Foundation (UEF) and the Learning for Well-Being network.
- Professor Marwan Awartani, secretary general of UEF, chair of the Arab Foundation forum, and president of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem.
- Peter Paulus, lead researcher for the ANSCHUB (Good Healthy Schools), an alliance of schools for sustainable school health and education in Germany.
- Jordan LaPier, senior director of the 100 Best Communities for Young People presented by ING program at America's Promise Alliance.
Educating the Whole Child: Top 5 Strategies for Educators
In a teleseminar recorded earlier this month, Molly McCloskey, managing director of ASCD’s Whole Child Initiative, was interviewed by ASCD author and Rutgers University professor Maurice J. Elias. McCloskey shared information about specific initiatives and examples of how a whole child approach ensures that each child, in each community, is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.
Relationships Matter
What's missing from the school reform dialogue is discussion of the important role that relationships play in student success, writes ASCD Director of Healthy School Communities Sean Slade. In his most recent Huffington Post blog entry, Slade points to a variety of relationships that can make a difference and require our attention. For instance, positive teacher-student relationships are correlated with not only improvements to academic test scores but also improvements to school climate and the development of language skills, points out Slade. So why aren't we talking about them more?
Access the full post and catch up on ones that you may have missed on the HSC resource page
Build Student Self-Esteem Through Personal Relationships
"In this time of overcrowded classrooms full of increasingly more disengaged students, teachers need to go the extra mile to make personal connections with their students," writes educator and 2011 winner of ASCD's Outstanding Young Educator Award Brad Kuntz. Read a recap of his recent "In the Classroom" Education Update column on how to build personal relationships with students -- in turn, improving their self-esteem -- in the Inservice blog.
Using Fitness Literacy Lessons Focused on the Whole Child
Are you looking for creative ways to integrate movement into your students' day? Reading professor and author Michael Opitz recommends using FitLit, fitness literature that focuses on different aspects of health and wellness, as a tool. Find out how to integrate FitLit into a three-part fitness literacy lesson that gets kids moving, reading and thinking about their health. You'll find ideas and a sample fitness literacy lesson in Opitz's recent Whole Child Blog post. Read on
ASCD Healthy School Communities Program
ASCD's Healthy School Communities program has developed a new resource for schools in Canada at any stage of developing wellness programs.
The Canadian second edition of "Creating a Healthy School Using the Healthy School Report Card" offers schools a strategy for developing effective teaching and learning environments and building school cultures that address student and staff health and well-being. Full of new research, standards and examples of best practices, this action tool enables educators to independently evaluate their school's needs and use the collected data to develop a school improvement plan. Learn more and discover other HSC publications and resources.
Whole Child Podcasts
- The Future of Assessment
Join ASCD Faculty member, author, and senior research associate Susan Brookhart; Rhode Island Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Deborah Gist; and ASCD Director of Public Policy David Griffith for an engaging dialogue on the future of assessment and the existing model of accountability. Tune in to the free podcast.
