What is a holistic approach?

A holistic development of children

A holist approach pays attention to children's physical, personal, social, emotional and spiritual wellbeing as well as cognitive aspects of learning. Children's learning can be seen as integrated and interconnected, even if an educator may plan or assess with a focus on particular outcome of component of learning. Educators should recognise the connections between children, families and communities and the importance of reciprocal relationships and partnerships for learning. Learning should be considered as a social activity. Therefore collaborative learning is important as well as being involved in community participation.

An integrated, holistic approach to teaching and learning also focuses on connections to the natural world. Educators should foster children's capacity to understand and respect the natural environment and the interdependance between people, plants, animals and the land (DEEWR, 2009)

A holistic approach prevents the development of risk behaviour and underachievement. It encourages children to explore all their intelligences and capacities and to see the world in all his wholeness.

For the educator a holistic approach includes recognising and identifying, teaching, counseling, supporting, challenging, encouraging and including children in their development.

A holistic approach supports intellectual, social and emotional development of the children. 

A holistic approach in the toolkit

For observation, identification and fostering young children's abilities much emphasis is laid on the intelligence theories of Gardner and Bloom and handsome tools are developed based on the multiple intelligences. Pedagogical workers in Kindergartens and first grades of primary schools can use these tools for a differentiated and connected approach. 

To prevent underachievement in the childhood and adulthood

Definition of underachievement:

Underachievement is the unanticipated difference between accomplishment and ability. (National Association for Gifted Children(USA); https://www.nagc.org/resources-publications/resources/achievement-keeping-your-child-challenged/underachievement ) 

Underachievement occurs at all levels. An average child who performs very weakly is therefore also an underperformer. So underperformance does not only occur with gifted individuals. In gifted children, the risk of underachievement is greater, because they often have to adjust to a lower level.

A child can underperform in all areas, both at (pre-)school and at home. But it can also happen that a child only underachieves at (pre-)school. The child then reads difficult words at home, or makes difficult puzzles, while still reading at school or adapting to easy tasks. As a teacher it is important to realize this, because parents of these children often get little understanding at school. The school does not see the need to arrange some extra challenge for the pupil, because the child exhibits different behavior in the classroom than at home.

Underachievement: behavior or aptitude?

Underperformance concerns behavior and is often situational (Sousa, 2003). This means that a gifted student does not always have to manifest as an underachiever. For example, it is understandable that the child underachieves at school, but can deliver top performances at home or in sports. In this way it can also be explained that the pupil does a good job with one teacher and not with the other teacher at all. The explanation for this can then be sought in the learning environment, the relationship with the teacher or the group . The fact that it concerns behavior is hopeful, it means that there is the answer for the guidance: behavior can be influenced, aptitude not.

Positive characteristics

Often the discussion is about the negative characteristics of underachievers. But they certainly have positive characteristics. 

• They have unusual interests and a lively imagination.
• They often read a lot in their free time and have a great factual knowledge.
• In a one-to-one conversation they come out in a well-spoken and intelligent way.
• They understand and remember information well if they are interested.
• They are sensitive.
• They have a great sense of discovery and creativity.

Negative features

In addition, there are also negative characteristics of underachievers. It is not the case that every underperformer has all the characteristics, but in general the following matters are characteristic. Pluymakers and Span (1999) mention some below. Most of them are relevant for older children, but some also for the younger.

• They make little effort and are not used to making efforts to achieve success.
• They have little or no perseverance and self-discipline. They are difficult to get to work and find it difficult to keep a task full.
• They make unnecessary mistakes. There is a downward line in their performance.
• They do not or hardly prepare their homework.
• They have poor learning / working strategies and hate to automate.
• They oppose authority.
• They are quickly distracted and have a poor concentration.
• They do not pay attention or are busy with other things.
  They reject responsibility and take no responsibility for their own behaviour
• They have a strong external locus of control: they look for the cause of bad results outside themselves.
• They have a negative self-image and self-confidence. They themselves are also dissatisfied with their performance.

Necessity of prevention of underachievement in young children

Ever since a gifted child comes to school as a toddler with a development advantage, he is faced with expectations that the group has of him. That's natural. Based on this, the child develops over the years a self-image and social identity that, according to his own idea, corresponds to reality. At the moment the child starts to go to school, a group process will manifest in which social corrections to the behaviour of the gifted child take place. The gifted child knows at a young age that the group finds it difficult if someone is too far ahead of them. This can result in social exclusion. The result is that the pupil builds up a negative self-image (nobody likes me) and therefore develops a negative social identity (I am of no value to my environment). Underperformance can be a reaction to this. The child then has the impression that underachieving prevents exclusion from the group.

The conclusion is that identification of risks for underachievement should start as early as possible and educators should adapt their approach to prevent those risks. 

(Based on: Eleanoor van Gerwen in https://wij-leren.nl/hoogbegaafdheid-onderpresteren.php (Dutch language)

What is important for children:

• to encourage them to use their creativity and interests
• to develop awareness that all children are different and have their own capabilities
• to learn to accept failure as part of their own development
• to develop perseverence, patience in learning, play and work
• to learn strategies for coping with resistance, motivation and self-regulation

To encourage abilities and talents in every child

 Every child has talents and strong characteristics. Educators must therefore ensure

• that children are aware of their abilities, talent and they can use it all
• that children learn to direct their own motivation, desires and interests 
• that they support the self-esteem and self-mage of the child in relation to his abilities and learning.

To support emotional and social development (personal development)

Social-emotional development includes the child’s experience, expression, and management of emotions and the ability to establish positive and rewarding relationships with others (Cohen and others 2005, https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/itf09socemodev.asp )

In consequence it is important that children 

• learn to cope with own failure, success, fear and other intensive emotion
• develop personal qualities that will support them in life
• learn to cope with a variety of personal characteristics and disabilities (like ADHD, ADD, Asperger syndrome etc.)

To empower the families
 

Strong communication between school staff and families is important in any school and has special relevance for the development of children

The way in which parents deal with their child is important when it comes to (not) delivering performance. Often parents encourage a process of acquired dependency by taking things away from their child. They go to the teacher on behalf of their child to indicate that the subject matter is too simple or that they find certain assignments nonsensical. In this way the child learns that it being relatively helpless pays off. After all you are taken care off!

And so the child could continue this behaviour if he has to do tasks where he discovers that he can not immediately be successful directly. The child learns to  place the responsibility for success and failure at a smart way outside himself.
A disturbed relationship between parents and school can call up a loyalty conflict for the student, so that performance is not possible. The child literally and figuratively feels stuck between what his parents expect from him and what the teacher expects from him (based on: Eleonoor van Gerven: https://wij-leren.nl/hoogbegaafdheid-onderpresteren.php (dutch language)

So it is important to know:

• the active involvement of parents in the education of the child affects on the child's learning performance
• parents, members of families must learn strategies to support children's development and academic performance
• therefore it is important for teachers or educators in Kindergartens to educate parents how to communicate effectively with school and children about their development; but also the other way round: how do teachers and parents share a common approach. 

To develop learning skills

The 21st century learning skills are often called the 4 C’s: critical thinking, creative thinking, communicating, and collaborating. These skills help students learn, and so they are vital to success in school and beyond (source: https://k12.thoughtfullearning.com/FAQ/what-are-learning-skills )

Learning material with a too low didactic level has a negative influence on a pupil's ability to concentrate on the material. For a gifted child, learning material from a too low didactic level  is comparable to overwriting the pages of a telephone book. The activity does not challenge because he doesn’t actually learn. As a consequence the pupil will make mistakes in relatively simple tasks while the teacher has  the impression that it is precisely the gifted pupil who could complete it very easily. If a child so performs belows his control level, the teacher may give him as a 'reward' tasks with a similar learning goal, but with smaller steps. The pupil has to focus even less on his task and so a vicious circle is created.

Anyone who regularly receives tasks that do not evoke actual learning behavior will not develop effective performing and learning strategies. The sooner this process occurs the more damage it provokes. Learning is then synonymous with 'being able to do something but having done it by chance' and does not require that the pupil pushes his boundaries or uncertainties. As soon as the pupil is confronted with a task that requires a real learning effort, there is a good chance that he has no idea how this task should be tackled and that het dropped it before he actually starts. Learning material with a too low level therefore has not only negative consequences for delivering high performance with regard to the knowledge, but also with regard to the level of learning skills of the child.

As a consequence pupils must

•   learn their own way of learning that suits their capabilities

•   learn different techniques and forms of learning adapted to motivating task

and teachers must

•   be aware of the diversity in learning and teaching to meet the learning needs of the pupils

Encouraging motivation for learning, creativity and inquiry

Motivation is probably the most important element of learning, creativity and exploring.

Motivation is the impulse that brings us to carry-out and achieves what we propose and plays a large role in learning. It is an internal impulse that brings us to complete an action. Without motivation, there is no action.

According to a study, motivation influences performance more than IQ. 

Motivation to learn offers one explanation for he gap between gifted caldrons' potential and their performances. Recent research into the nature and consequences of pupils' goals in the classroom (performance versus learning) is especially useful in understanding why gifted students often underachieve. Specifically, when gifted children are more focused on preserving their identity as gifted than on increasing their competence, they may limit their potential by avoiding challenge. (T. McNabb, in: Handbook Gifted Education, ed. N. Collangelo & G.A. Davis, 2003)

What is important for motivation:

• strive to develop in children the joy of learning, exploring and creating
• stimulate to enhance, develop and preserve curiosity during liftetime
• be ware of the ability of children to learn, to be creative and to explore
• stimulate a growth mindset by encouragement, praise, and value to challenge.
• affords children to make mistakes, and mirror them the  "power of yet" (see "growth mindset below)

Developing growth and flexible mindset

It is Carol Dweck who learned us how important a "growth mindset" for encouraging children to learn, for motivation

Growth/Fixed/Flexible mindset describe the underlying beliefs people have abut learning and intelligence (https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/)

For most children, they need to be encouraged to take risks or that a lot of structure has to be provided (Neihart & Betts, 2010). For all children, motivation and a Growth mindset (Yeager & Dweck, 2012) are important. The achievement of a Growth mindset includes a culture of pricing of the process and the appreciation of challenges (Dweck, 2010). With that stimulation the emphasis is not on what a child "can" but on what he "does". A child who is confronted with what he can not do, with failures and insufficient performance, can easily get into a fixed mindset, especially if he is gifted and has high expectations of himself or is confronted with high expectations from, for example, parents or educators.

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TED talk and animation video about motivation

Motivation in (gifted) children can therefore only be promoted by educators if they stimulate a "growth mindset".

To fully understand the meaning of a growth mindset see this video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-swZaKN2Ic

An animation about the theory of Growth Mindset of Dweck might be useful as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUWn_TJTrnU

It is therefore important for educators 

• to be aware of children's mindset about learning and intelligence and to promote in any case growth mindset
• to promote learning of strategies to change mindset
• to promote learning of strategies how to cope with own and others' mindset about learning and intelligence

To support of a life long concept of giftedness and learning
 

Definition of lifelong learning
 

A practical definition of lifelong learning was formulated by the European Commission (2000): 'All activities that are developed throughout life to improve knowledge, skills and competences from a personal, civil, social and / or employment perspective'.(European Commission) (2000). Memorandum for Lifelong Learning. Brussel: (w.n.).
 

In his book 'Globalization, Lifelong Learning and the Learning Society: Sociological Perspectives', Jarvis gives a slightly different definition:' The combination of processes throughout the life of the human being (genetic, physical and biological) and mind. (knowledge, skills, attitude, values, emotions, beliefs and senses) - experiences social situations, the perceived content which is then transformed cognitively, emotively or practically (or through any combination) and integrated into the individual person's biography resulting in a continually changing (or more experienced) person' (2007, quoted in: Dr. T. van Dellen: Lifelong learning in Nederland: wat is het en waarom? (What is it and why), in: Handboek Effectief Opleiden, 2011).

Lifelong learning starts at the beginning of learning. The building stones for a mindset of lifelong learning are set at the start of education

Why lifelong learning?
 

Lifelong learning is formulated as a mission and a strategy of the European Commission in the so called Lissabon agreements (2000)

‘The mission is to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustained economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.’

‘Lifelong learning is the core element of the strategy, central not only to competitiveness and employability but also to social inclusion, active citizenship and personal development’.

That means that lifelong learning for the European Union is connected to both social-economic  (competitiveness and employability) and social-cultural (social inclusion, active citizenship and personal development) goals. 

The European Commission itself identified later some problems with the strategy. If this lifelong learning is applied to merely higher or upper-middle class people the risk of widening the cultural gap in society is imminent.

So it is important to emphasise the other need for lifelong learning: besides a topdown strategy of all kind of measures to promote lifelong learning an intrinsic motivated strategy of self-employability, personal empowerment and social-critical thinking with as a goal change of behaviour for all contexts and situations. This behavioral change originates in learning processes in which knowledge, skills, values, competence and culture (more or less simultaneously) are acquired. 

 It is  important therefore that
 

• educators promote awareness of lifelong learning
• educators enhance awareness that we learn all the time and in all situations
• learning should be holistic and inclusive
• educators attribute to awareness that we could learn and develop own talents during life (never to late)