Understanding the Whole Student

Holistic Multicultural Education

By (author) Clifford Mayes, Ramona Maile Cutri, Neil Goslin, Fidel Montero

Publication date:

17 March 2016

Length of book:

206 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781475813883

Understanding the Whole Student presents a holistic approach to multicultural educational issues by viewing them in terms of the student as a physical, psychosocial, cognitive, ethical, and spiritual being. Conversely, these levels of a student's being cannot be seen apart from the student's cultural identities. This unique book demonstrates that, in a pluralistic democracy, good teaching and deep learning must be multicultural and must look at the student as a whole being, not just as a future worker in a transnational corporate economy as is currently the case with both neo-liberal and neo-conservative programs for 'reform.' The authors contend that good education is, and must be, multicultural in order to gain a deeper perspective on issues under analysis in the classroom through the sharing and negotiating of many different cultural perspectives.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: What is Holistic Multicultural Education and Why Should It Matter?
1 Culture, Language and the Classroom
2 President Lincoln Visits Mayfield High School: Six Students’ Perspectives
3 The Sensorimotor Domain
4 The Psychosocial Domain
5 The Cognitive Domain
6 The Ethico-Spiritual Domain
Conclusion: Teaching and Learning in the 21^st Century
Bibliography
Index

This may be the most important book on teaching and learning to have emerged in years. The authors have masterfully crafted an in-depth analysis of holistic education, while humanizing the multicultural experience as a pedagogical imperative. The text is well organized, clearly written, and meticulously researched. Faculty and students in teacher preparation programs, in graduate education programs, and those parents, administrators, and teachers working with children in today's classrooms will find this book timely, insightful, highly engaging, and critically essential. I applaud the authors for this most significant contribution to the field of education.