EHE News
Holistic education focus renews enthusiasm for teaching
Anna Soter
"I'm renewed. I've rediscovered myself as a teacher," the previously burned out professional exclaimed at the end of Anna Soter's course on The Power of Poetry: Connecting and Reconnecting to Self, Other, and the World Around Us.
The Power of Poetry is one of eight core courses offered in the new MA focus area in holistic education, which Soter and Lucila Rudge developed in the School of Teaching and Learning.
"The holistic education choice is for teachers who seek new ways to reach their students through personal renewal and professional development that focuses on the teacher," says Associate Professor Soter. "We offer a chance to understand who you are as a teacher, who your students are as learners, and how to connect your way of teaching to their way of learning."
Lucila Rudge (PhD '08), visiting assistant professor and Soter's former doctoral advisee, emphasizes that the specialization also helps teachers work within the school system. "Teachers must still help students pass the standardized tests. Our goal is to support teachers so they can transform themselves, and then find more humanistic ways to reach their students in the classroom."
Lucila Rudge
Soter, as cohort advisor for the college's MEd program in Integrated Language Arts/English Education, recognized the field's emerging interest in holistic teaching. She responded by drawing on her 23 years as a teacher educator to create one of the few such degree offerings in the United States today.
"Contemporary society focuses on delivery of education vicariously through print," Soter explains. "But we learn best by experiencing, by emotionally and physically engaging in a concept. Our goal in holistic education is to get teachers to reinvent feeling as part of learning instead of treating it as an intellectual experience."
In the poetry course, for example, Soter takes teachers into a meadow to reconnect with their senses, to feel the wind in their hair, and to articulate how it feels. They read poetry, feel poetry and write poetry to express their feelings. Soter argues that teachers need to experience the power of poetry firsthand in order to communicate that power to their students.
The approach, she says, is akin to what Ohio State Coach Jim Tressel does with his football players at practice, which is an effective model of education.
"You explain the phenomenon, you have people experience it, then you have them reflect on the experience and practice again," she says. "This takes you to a level of engagement beyond just absorbing what someone says. You are doing it yourself. It flips your teaching significantly."
MA focus area starts summer 2009: Structured for working professionals
The MA with a focus on holistic education is for:
- K-12 teachers interested in a new field of study for professional development
- Professionals in fields such as education K-12, counseling, social work, youth advocacy and related others
The focus area within the degree features:
- Two-week intensive, first term summer courses, starting summer 2009
- Online courses for autumn, winter and spring quarters for two years
- The choice of a thesis or nonthesis option
- The choice to take individual courses rather than pursue a degree
- The choice of taking individual courses or an elective strand in holistic education as part of another MA
Contacts
- Dr. Anna O. Soter, Associate Professor, School of Teaching and Learning, soter.1@osu.edu, (614) 292-8049
- Dr. Lucila Rudge, Visiting Assistant Professor, School of Teaching and Learning, rudge.5@osu.edu, (614) 598-9464
© 2009 The Ohio State University - College of Education and Human Ecology. All Rights Reserved.
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