Guest Viewpoint: We need to educate the whole child

By James D. Moran III

04/05/05 -- Over the past century, the American Association of Family & Consumer Sciences has been educating the “whole child.” So, for nearly 30 years, I have talked about and taught that principle.

Yet, on a personal level, it has really been only in the past two years, as my daughter, Mollie, approaches graduating from high school, that I have had to take a step back and ask myself: How did I do?

Talk about accountability: How do we measure the sum total of 18 years? Next year Mollie will be on her own and I have to ask myself whether she is prepared for life. Does she have the wherewithal to manage daily life without the support systems that she has relied on? What have I, as a parent, done or failed to do? How has her school prepared her for the next step?

How do we measure our success? Mollie gets individual report cards, and school systems now get report cards. Even her teachers get report cards. Thank goodness parents do not, as yet, suffer the same fate.

Yet, with all the reporting we still need to ask: Have we indeed educated the “whole” child? Mollie is a fairly well-rounded, fairly typical 18-year-old. She plays tenacious basketball, coordinates her school dances, and has finally, in her own words, “learned how to study.” She now actually enjoys reading, thanks to a course on Southern literature.

She managed to survive algebra, economics, and calculus, and she spends an inordinate amount of time “conversing” with friends through chat rooms and text messaging. Basketball provided her an opportunity for leadership and confidence, and through a wonderful art teacher, she found a talent for photography we never knew existed.

But how do we know she is really ready to begin thinking, experiencing, and living independently and responsibly? How do we know we have provided for the “whole” child? Has she obtained what we, as seasoned veterans, define as critical life skills? Can she extend what she has learned in school in the context of everyday life experience?

As a parent, I not only worry about whether she reads more than the cover of popular magazines sitting by the register as she buys her Red Bull soft drink and Krispy Kreme doughnut in the morning on the way to school, but also whether she can evaluate the long-term implications of her everyday decisions.

Can she balance a checkbook? Does she really understand the implications of her third accident within the last two years on car insurance rates? Will she make the transition from doughnuts to yogurt once she stops her basketball regimen? Does it matter to her that the scant 140 votes that determined who became governor of Washington reflects similarly narrow outcomes in many local elections every year?

In short, has she had the opportunity to demonstrate “learning in context” not just in the classroom? Contextual learning is the essence of educating the “whole” child and a concept very familiar to Family & Consumer Sciences (FCS) professionals.

In our national standards and professional documents, we cite the need to integrate multiple life roles and responsibilities. We ask our students to “apply knowledge . . . to the issues of individuals, families, consumers, and communities in the environments in which they function.”

FCS professionals focus on capacity building, use of appropriate technologies, global interdependence, resource development, and sustainability not just in their own lives, but also in the lives of their communities.

Individual health and wellness, sustainable and functioning communities, and family resource management are daily applications of the reading, math, and science curricula that don’t really show up on Mollie’s report card or on ours.

Yet, developing adults responsible for themselves and for their communities is part of my charge as a parent and our charge as educators. Indeed, “bringing people together to improve the lives of individuals, families, and communities” is the charge of the American Association of Family & Consumer Sciences.

Later tonight, I’ll watch Mollie play in one of her last basketball games, so perhaps that’s why a sports analogy comes to mind. Making free throws in the back yard requires practice, drill, and focus with easily measured success. Yet, the ability to shoot free throws without the context of the game fails to adequately tell the story.

The real skill is not just in shooting the free throws, but also in knowing how to get fouled so you get to the line. That type of skill can be learned only in the context of playing.

Albert Einstein admonished us to remember: “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” To me this suggests that for us to measure our success we need to consider not just skill level but also the application of knowledge -- not easily measured by our typical assessments, but no less important.

Do we dare measure our success not just in test scores, but rather against future rates of bankruptcy, incidence of childhood obesity, successful employment, or even participation in school board meetings? Probably not, but then, “Not everything that counts can be counted.”