The “whole child” approach to education recognizes the importance of students’ holistic well-being, including their social, physical and emotional health, to their learning.
Rooted in progressive education ideas from the 19th and early 20th century, the whole child approach has gained attention in recent years. But while schools have increased their emphasis on social-emotional learning, and it’s common to hear administrators talk about using a “whole child framework,” education consultant and strategist Stephanie Malia Krauss says many schools still have a long way to go in this area. She highlights a lack of communication and collaboration between the various institutions and adults that shape young people’s lives.
Krauss, a former classroom teacher and social worker, works with state and national partners on youth well-being and related issues. In her forthcoming book, “Whole Child, Whole Life: 10 Ways to Help Kids Live, Learn and Thrive,” she draws on research from a variety of disciplines to outline ways for schools and caregivers to support kids in our post-pandemic moment.
Krauss says she saw the need after talking to parents and educators around the country while promoting her previous book, about what young people need to be ready for the future. “They would always say the same thing, which was they appreciated knowing what kids needed for the future (but) they were worried that kids would give up or burn out before getting there,” she told U.S. News. “They were saying that the kids were not OK.”
So Krauss set out to find “proven practices that have existed across time and generations, cultures and contexts that work to support kids every single time.” She spoke with U.S. News about her new book and what adults need to know to help young people thrive. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How do you define “whole child” and “whole life”?
Whole child is really thinking holistically about who a young person is, as a full, total whole little human. I think the pandemic showed us in really high definition just how interlinked learning and living are, and that in order to support a young person’s learning, you have to know about how they live. And in order to support how they live, you have to realize that they’re growing, learning, developing beings, and understand that piece, too.
[How Much Recess Should Kids Get?]
On the “whole life” side, it kind of goes one step farther to say we need to know the wide and the long of a kid’s life. The “wide” is what are all the spaces and places where they spend time, and who are they in those different places, and who are they with, and what do they get or what are their challenges there.
The “long” is understanding that when we are in contact with a kid, we’re seeing them for a moment in time, and there was life that came before and there’s life that’s going to come after.
Q: How has the growth of social-emotional learning changed public education? In what ways does it need to go further?
When we look at the rise of social-emotional learning and whole-child practices, what we see is the opportunity for schools and educators to move closer to the actual science of learning and development. Learning is deeply social and emotional, and is a huge part of how kids create connections and make meaning of their learning. Social-emotional learning optimizes the conditions for young people to learn.
We also know that some of the skills that are often called social-emotional learning skills are also the things that workers need … like communication and collaboration, critical thinking, or the kinds of supports in the workplace that optimize working conditions. So there’s a lot of overlap and integration.
Q: What are some key changes that schools can make to support kids holistically?
I have three very targeted recommendations among many. The first is that an easy thing that every school can do now is look into getting their staff and their high schoolers trained in Mental Health First Aid (which teaches people how to support others experiencing mental health issues).
A second recommendation is that many schools were able to use pandemic relief funds to bring on additional counseling and social work staff. And so school boards and state education departments (should) really recognize the importance of those roles and the need for permanency and sustainability. Those are positions that need to grow and stay. Our students and our school staff, our teaching staff, really need the additional support of having trained clinical mental health and student support staff in their campuses.
[READ: The Benefits of Mental Health Programs in Schools.]
And then the third recommendation is that this is definitely a time in education where there is a deepening divide between parents and caregivers, and teachers in schools. And so one of the things that I tried to do through “Whole Child, Whole Life” was to lay out a set of common conversations, concerns and conditions that people can come together on with the shared commitment to care for kids. And so I would encourage schools to use this to have a set of conversations with community members, and with parents and caregivers, about what kids are experiencing and what they need. This is a space where anyone who cares for kids can come together on common ground and have a discussion.
Q: What are some of the challenges facing educators and other adults who want to implement the practices laid out in “Whole Child, Whole Life?”
Among the challenges is that it’s vulnerable work and requires an honest appraisal of what you know and do not know and a willingness to engage in different learning. We have to be willing to stop ourselves and pause and ask some questions. And if we don’t know the answers, we have to do some learning and seeking out.
[READ: Understanding School-Based Mental Health Services.]
Another challenge is isolation. I think the biggest way to support and activate a whole child, whole life response and approach to how we care for kids is if we are an adult who is working with a child, we need to be in relationship with the other adults in that child’s life, because we only see a part and other people have important intelligence that can support that.
Q: What else do you want adults to know about supporting young people in today’s world?
We’re just kind of on the cusp of this wave of mental health challenges and developmental challenges, which means it really requires an all-hands-on-deck approach. I knew as somebody with a degree in education and in social work what I did and did not get in my training. Which means I know that there are teachers who are not trained in child development and well-being and that there are counselors who are not trained in the science of learning. We have to cross-train ourselves because it’s not only that our kids thriving is at stake, but their ability to survive is at stake.
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Q&A: Why Schools Should Focus on the Whole Child originally appeared on usnews.com
