I want to write on the power of a holistic educational process. From what I have experienced, the holistic approach includes lectures, discussion, videos, movies, social interactions, hands-on activities, cultural integrations, and all aspects of your daily life that you choose to actively observe and learn from. This broad list does by no means encompass all aspects of a holistic approach, but are those that I can pinpoint as educational experiences I have had in Iceland.
As someone who has excelled at test taking and standardized tests, unfair judgment of my intellect and adversity to the ‘system’ never drove me to look beyond the current education model. This is because I was being rewarded for things that, comparatively, I never really had to study for. This bred a host of its own issues that I have been dealing with as a University student in a much more rigorous system than I had previously experienced, but I want to emphasize my blindness to other ways of attaining a technical education than your typical memorization and regurgitation. Before coming to Iceland, this new teaching methodology captivated my interest, and now that I have experienced a great deal of it, I can honestly say that it is leaps and bounds ahead of the conventional system.
Back home, I got bored in lectures often, and couldn’t focus to save my life on work that I didn’t have an intense desire to do. I believed that educational motivation was one of my pitfalls, but after experiencing the holistic approach, I have been engaged constantly, excited to learn on a daily basis, relieved of stress, and shockingly much more productive. This session abroad has been nothing short of inspirational.
The scientist in me cannot simply state one side of the coin. Coming from an engineering background, I have lost a lot of the intense detail, technical aspects, mathematical relationships, as well as the chemical and physical driving forces behind what I am being taught. However, I do not attribute this lack of technical detail to the holistic style, but the curriculum of the CELL program. This will make my return to my ‘normal’ academia much more difficult, but there has been much more good than bad. Taking a step back from the nitty gritty to appreciate the whole picture and glimpse it from countless perspectives that have been omitted in my traditional education has been priceless. CELL has not given me the answers to all my questions of sustainability, but has provided me with the framework to tackle problems from directions I would not have imagined 3 months ago. The value in a holistic education is not marked by the test scores of the students, but by its ability to inspire productivity, creativity, satisfaction, and confidence within a diversity of individuals through their respective diversity of talents and interests. In my experience, a holistic education is essential for a happier, healthier, smarter, and more successful student.
Bryce King