Research on integral education
How do we define educational research in the context of Auroville?
The purpose of Auroville, as a living laboratory is to have a clean slate to co-create a new way of living and being, different to that which has become norm, to do what can not be done elsewhere because of past conditioning, habits, and society's expectations. It is a place created for humanity to be free to try, explore, develop and work with a deep research-oriented self-reflection, questioning, and allowing for the trial and error needed when leaving all the outdated practices of the past behind. Only as our human consciousness evolves will we open up to its possibilities and understand how education needs to transform to serve human unity.
How is Integral Education different to alternative and mainstream education?
The concept of Integral Education emphasizes the progressive evolution of human consciousness, setting it apart from alternative and mainstream education practices. Here's how they differ: Holistic Development Focus: • Integral Education: Focuses on the holistic growth of individuals, integrating spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical aspects. It aims to help individuals realize their inner potential and achieve self-transcendence, contributing to a collective consciousness. • Alternative Education: While also emphasizing holistic development, it typically focuses on specific aspects such as cognitive, emotional, or social skills. The spiritual dimension is often less emphasized or approached differently. • Mainstream Education: Primarily focuses on academic achievement and the acquisition of specific knowledge and skills, often neglecting the spiritual and emotional dimensions of development. Evolution of Consciousness: • Integral Education: Aims to foster the evolution of consciousness from basic to higher-order ways of thinking and being, encouraging students to achieve self- transcendence. • Alternative Education: Primarily addresses immediate developmental needs, focusing on nurturing creativity, independence, and community engagement without explicitly aiming at progressive consciousness evolution. • Mainstream Education: Concentrates on standardized curricula and measurable outcomes, with less emphasis on the evolution of consciousness or personal growth beyond academic performance. Integration of Spirituality: • Integral Education: Integrates spiritual growth as a core component, fostering a sense of unity and purpose in students. • Alternative Education: May approach spirituality differently or not focus on it at all, often rooting practices in specific philosophies rather than a broader evolution of consciousness. • Mainstream Education: Generally secular and does not typically include spiritual development as part of the curriculum, focusing instead on intellectual and practical skills. Systemic and Holistic Integration: • Integral Education: Emphasizes the integration of all aspects of life and knowledge, promoting interdisciplinary learning and adapting methods to the evolving needs of the learner. • Alternative Education: Employs innovative methods within specific educational frameworks, which might not aim for an integrative approach across all areas of development. • Mainstream Education: Often compartmentalizes subjects and focuses on content delivery and performance in individual disciplines, lacking a holistic, integrative approach to learning. Collective Consciousness: • Integral Education: Aims to contribute to the evolution of a collective consciousness, encouraging students to see themselves as part of a larger whole and work towards societal betterment. • Alternative Education: Focuses on individual and community development but may not explicitly aim at evolving collective consciousness in the same integrative manner. • Mainstream Education: Typically emphasizes individual achievement and preparation for the workforce, with less focus on fostering a sense of collective consciousness or global responsibility. The purpose of Kalvi is to explore practices, research and share on the topic of education, support practitioners in their learning journey both in theory and implementation, towards transforming education to become integral.
Kalvi’s programs and activities may put you out of your comfort zone, allow you to question the existing world, and especially how mainstream education methods, structures and practices are continuing to reproduce the value-base that is causing all injustice and harm we see in the world.
The aim of our work is to open up the mind to new ways of defining the purpose of education, growing children towards human unity and a striving to live in harmony with nature. Research is essential, as its our attempt to reflect on, understand and put words to what we discover along the way and share it with others.
Research can support us to find the courage to educate our children not for our past but for their future.
AURO.GAMES
CREATIVE THINKING PUZZLES
Creative thinking, concentration, spatial intelligence with: www.auro.games
Starting with inspiration from the original unfinished prototypes and sketches, extensive participatory research and development has shown us the potential and possibilities of this material. The past three years moved the research from an explorative stage towards understanding the deeper values of the material both as a mindfulness activity, and as a tool to develop creative thinking. During 2022-2023 over 100 teachers explored Auro.Games, giving valuable feedback that has been integrated.
We are during the year 2023-2024 taking the research to its next level, doing an in-depth study with 500 children and their teachers in different school settings. We are investigating how we can bring our puzzles as an integrated part of the school curriculum in India, taking the experience of Auro.Games into the mainstream classroom (NEP2020) by offering an enriched educational program.
Through this research we aim to more clearly identify the benefits of Auro.Games in areas like teacher and student motivation, joy of learning, concentration, creative thinking / problem solving and spatial awareness. Using imagination (mental visualization), the materials explore geometric concepts such as rotation, symmetry, mirror images, pattern construction and deconstruction, can be included as a part of the mathematics curriculum, and work through art-integration.
LEARNING AND GROWING
Learning and growing up in TLC, and living as a part of the community.
“HYPOTHESIS”:
An integral learning method advances one to become an independent, self-motivated, life-long learner.
An integral learning environment creates the conditions to grow consciously, to be and become your authentic self.
A learning community promotes (significant) individual development of all members of the community.
How can a “school” be “a place of being” not “a place of doing”?
What mindset allows the authenticity of both younger and older beings to exist?
How does a self-directed learning environment promote a conscious way of learning?
To explore these research questions, we have conducted semi-structured heartful interviews with 40-60 members of TLC in three categories:
Interviews with alumni - understanding what impact TLC made in their lives: how did it influence their learning path and their growing up process of becoming an adult / older being.
Interviews with parents - understanding how did TLC influence their perspective on learning on both holding a role of a parent of a student and being an individual human being - learner; how did TLC affect their parenting and family dynamics; how did TLC impact their views on being part of the a community
Interviews with facilitators - grasping the essence of integral learning; understanding how did TLC influence their perspective on learning on both holding a role of a facilitator for a student and being an individual human being - learner; how did TLC impact their views on being part of the a community
This research study will be completed during the summer 2024.
HOLISTIC EDUCATION
Life as/of a holistic educator. Holistic Education
Review. Issue: Contemplative Practices in Holistic Education. 3(2), Nov. 2023
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Link to the article:
https://her.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/her/article/view/2942
The Holistic Education review (HER) Journal publishes two online, open-access journal issues per year and conducts additional educational activities for the holistic education community to enhance and broaden the scholarship of holistic education. HER envisions a holistic educational movement dedicated to wellbeing and uplifting of human spirit on behalf of all life.
Abstract
This dialogue-based reflective essay examines the lives of holistic educators. It underscores the importance of educators embodying holism whereby holism is understood as an epistemology that supports educators embracing a way of living and being for themselves. It explores how teachers embody personal values to walk the talk, question and decondition themselves to develop new visions and approaches to education, and are engaged in lifelong learning of self-transformation. Ultimately, starting with inner-work and self-transformation, the growing consciousness guides interactions with others, the pursuit of one’s dharma, and contributions to the larger society.
LEARNING TO BE WHOLE AGAIN
Learning to be whole again - Holistic Approaches to Foundational Learning
NORRAG ISSUE 9, p.88-91.
Link to article:
https://osf.io/ajrxq/About NSINPRRAG
Special issue (NSI) is an open-source periodical. It seeks to give prominence to authors from different countries and with diverse perspectives. Each issue is dedicated to a special topic of global education policy and international cooperation in education. NSI includes a number of concise articles from diverse perspectives and actors with the aim to bridge the gap between theory and practice as well as advocacy and policy in international educational development.
Abstract
This essay critiques the narrow focus of foundational learning on literacy and numeracy in contemporary education; it argues, instead, for holistic education. It goes on to showcase several Indian examples adopting holistic approaches to foundational learning that utilize holistic curricula, prioritize child-centred pedagogy, promote empathetic teacher–student relationships, and transform school cultures.
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Research paper – EDUCATION SERVING THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS?!
Why is it that we continue to educate children using outdated methods and systems created 150 years ago?
Even in Auroville, these structures continue to form the foundation for educational practices. To understand why change is so difficult, an interview study was done with teachers from the Auroville schools. Through deep interviews, this study aims to understand the educational foundations, challenges and opportunities in Auroville, India.
Research Paper:
Education serving the evolution of consciousness?!
Summary of the research:
LEARNING FROM THE INTANGIBLE
TLC award winning research documentary 2022 – “Learning from the intangible”
The film has screened at film festivals and educational conferences both in India and internationally.
The Cinema Paradisio award under the category of Auroville films at the 2022 Auroville Film Festival is given to ‘Learning from the Intangible’ by Alessandra Silver. It is a film that truly captures the essence of an Aurovillian educational experience for children, creating space and opportunities to learn and expand their knowledge and experiential horizons.
The “Free Progress” pedagogy and curriculum are embedded in a value system that enables “integral education” grounded in reality, culture, and virtues essential for the sustenance of the human and ecological spirit. The voices of parents and children in Auroville make the “intangible” actually “tangible”, and the film becomes a medium of inspiring educators and parents to engage with a process that will build a generation of citizens who would actualise “the psychic being”. The film is shot and edited to make for lived storytelling. As India moves forward to implement the New Education Policy 2020, this documentary can sensitise and inspire educational policymaking and practice to transform education. The words “nothing can be taught” stay with you beyond the 85-minute film.
Research paper – LEARNING FROM THE INTANGIBLE
Today, schools wanting to work with Integral Education are caught between security that the traditional system of social reproduction offers parents and children, and the universal needs of a new global education for human change that is trying to emerge. This pull between the expectations of the past and the aspirations of the future, gives little scope for deepening in the present. This dilemma can be observed in Auroville, International township in South India, created for the purpose of experimentation in collective process working for human unity and sustainability. This is studied by defining the underlying foundations of Integral Education from a universal perspective, thereby identifying perimeters needed for implementation, and by observing practical application in an Auroville research "school" -The Learning Community (TLC) - give clear visibility of its purpose and assessment.
The following questions are used to answer the aims of the research:
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How can Integral Education respond to the universal needs of human change through transformational educational leadership (of facilitators/parents/children) in everyday work with children?
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How can an education with the aim of individual development and growth be assessed?
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How can the pedagogical principles of Integral Education be made visible to gain recognition?
The study was done through analysis of filmed material and reflective interviews gathered during an entire school year in one of Auroville’s schools - The Learning Community (TLC). The data collected, was analysed and discussed through a hermeneutic approach, using a three-step chain of inference, involving children, parents and teachers, to process the material. The results showed that Integral learning is indeed very tangible, made visible through the pedagogical core areas in the TLC approach and methodology, and exemplified through manifestations that can be observed, and results seen through the process over time. It showed that educational leadership is a key both to understanding Integral Education, and working towards recognition based on deeper connection to the practice and its universal intentions.
Link to the paper:
PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy - an exploration with Ananda
This work is based on a research on the conditions that allow children of different ages to enter the field of philosophizing. In teaching philosophy to children, I am concerned first of all with promoting a reflective approach to certain texts in order to launch a properly philosophical effort, of which I judge the children to be capable.
Read more:
TRAVELLING
"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page". Saint Augustine
In the classical educational system traveling is associated with leisure, pleasure, while learning is associated with goals, compulsory activities and the education system. Traveling often appears as an entertaining interlude in the school year of these students. At TLC trips are organically integrated into a process that values the educational benefits that children derive from such an experience. This paper is the result of observation and participation in the preparation of a trip with.children and adults to Elephant Valley, at Kodaikanal, from April 1 to 9, 2021. The nature of this paper’s research is partly empirical, but also consists of a conceptual elaboration of the issues of education through travel in the context of The Learning Community [TLC] and of Integral Education. As Johnny, a pioneer in the accompaniment of trips with children in Auroville since the 70’s that we interviewed, says: « trips allow to work with the whole being of the children ». Traveling creates an encounter between all the dimensions of the being in a narrow compenetration of the physical, the emotional and the intellectual journey. I will first present a synthesis of the observation carried out at TLC during and after the trip, then I will analyse the skills developed though the trip, and eventually I will highlight the elements that allow me to lay the foundations for a more general theorization on education through travel.
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THE ROLE OF CONTACT IMPROVISION IN TRAUMA RECOVERY
To explore the therapeutic potential of Contact Improvisation, an Art form of movement, in alleviating past traumas and significant life difficulties, and to understand its impact on self-awareness and professional practices among those involved in education.
Read more:
AGENCY ANC CONFLICT RESOLUTION AT SECMOL, LADAKH
Title: Exploring SECMOL: A Documentary Research on Community Dynamics, Leadership, and Self-Esteem
Short Introduction:
This research series provides an in-depth look into SECMOL's distinctive educational approach, which empowers young Ladakhis, especially those from rural areas, through innovative methods in community dynamics, leadership, and self-esteem. The series captures the essence of SECMOL's heartfelt philosophy and its impact on fostering a sustainable and compassionate educational environment.
Detailed Presentation:
Introduction
This document presents the introduction to a documentary research praxis conducted by Michelle on conflict resolution at SECMOL school in Ladakh. SECMOL (Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh) aims to equip young Ladakhis, particularly those from rural or disadvantaged backgrounds, with the knowledge, skills, perspective, and confidence needed to choose and build a sustainable future.
Research Questions
1. How does SECMOL foster a sense of agency among its students?
- How does the program encourage students to take initiative and make independent choices?
- How do students develop personal responsibility and self-motivation?
2. What methods does SECMOL use to manage and resolve conflicts among students?
3. How does SECMOL cultivate a positive community dynamic and enhance students' self-esteem and leadership skills?
Through immersive experiences at the school, film shooting, and interviews, Michelle explored these questions with a particular focus on conflict resolution, community dynamics, and self-esteem. Her findings indicate that SECMOL cultivates a tightly-knit and safe network of connections, understanding, and care among its students. This environment ensures that conflicts are resolved swiftly and effectively, preventing escalation. The school's culture of compassion emphasizes building a collective "we" rather than an individualistic "I," fostering a strong sense of community.
Additionally, SECMOL places a significant focus on enhancing students' self-esteem and leadership skills. The school organizes continuous activities that are highly motivating and involve interactions with young people and adults from India and around the world. This active environment exposes students to diverse perspectives and ideas, fostering creativity and dynamism. As a result, students not only satisfy their inherent curiosity but also become more comfortable in their own skin, contributing to a positive and energetic atmosphere.
The extraordinary aspect of SECMOL is its commitment to a heartfelt philosophy. This genuine sincerity in caring for one another creates a profound impact on everyone who enters the school. Students feel a strong sense of belonging and the freedom to be their true selves, significantly boosting their self-esteem. This sincere and compassionate environment sets SECMOL apart as an educational institution.
Further details and findings from this ongoing research will be shared in the next report.
APRICOT HARVEST AND JAM-MAKING
EXPERIENCE BEYOND THE CLASSROOM
The Apricot Harvest and jam-making at Alchi Orchard monastery is a project conducted in collaboration with the monks of the local Buddhist monastery, SECMOL, and Future Earth Asia Network, whose contributions have been instrumental in keeping up with this project. It is far more than just an agricultural or food processing activity; it is a holistic educational initiative that develops human and technical skills in the students of SECMOL and provides students with an experience that extends beyond the classroom, helping them understand the impact of human actions on the planet and inspiring them to live more sustainably and with Compassion.
In Ladakh, apricot oil is considered auspicious for butter lamps due to its purity and the clear, steady flame it produces. In Buddhist rituals, it symbolizes clarity of mind and pure intentions. Locally sourced and sustainable, it reflects a deep connection with the land and respect for natural resources.
The collaboration between the monks and SECMOL students is an inspiring example of how complementary efforts can create a nurturing and sustainable synergy. The Alchi Monastery, the oldest in Ladakh, dating back to the 11th century, is home to only four or five monks, making it impossible for them to collect the apricots of their quite extensive orchard on their own. This is where the partnership becomes invaluable. While the monks focus on the apricot seeds for their spiritual practices, the students transform the fruit into jams that fund a few of their educational projects. This partnership is not only a win-win solution but also a testament to the power of working together with respect for the environment, cultivating leadership, and fostering a shared sense of purpose.
Before the harvest, on the SECMOL campus, students participate in preparatory classes focusing on jam-making and hygiene, ensuring they are well-equipped with both the technical skills and the knowledge of proper sanitation standards. These classes teach the students the entire process, from harvesting to transforming the apricots into high-quality jam, all while adhering to strict hygiene protocols. But the real learning is hands-on.
The harvest and jam-making, which takes place on the lands of the Alchi Monastery, is a collective activity that emphasizes:
- Community building
- Teamwork
- Hands-on learning
- Food sovereignty
- Environmental care
- Sustainability
- Practical life skills
- Perseverance, care, compassion, and mutual support.
Through this experience, students develop valuable leadership skills while gaining a practical understanding of sustainable agricultural practices. The collaboration with the monks is also key, as they use the apricot kernel oil, obtained during the transformation process, for their religious ceremonies, particularly to fuel butter lamps, where apricot oil is highly valued for its auspicious qualities.
This project is meticulously managed, with every step—from harvesting to jam production—reflecting SECMOL's commitment to ecological sustainability.
Using recycled and sterilized jam jars is just one example of the school's dedication to minimizing environmental impact. In addition to using recycled jars, the project emphasizes minimizing the ecological footprint in several ways.
The apricots are hand-picked, hand washed, hand-cut by the SECMOL team, reinforcing the group effort and reducing the need for machinery or plastic tools. The project also minimizes plastic usage throughout the entire process.
To further reduce their environmental impact, the students and staff travel together by bus to lower carbon emissions. These practices are all part of SECMOL's broader commitment to sustainability and reducing their ecological footprint, directly addressing the challenges of climate change.