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Whole learning

(see also other useful terms)

“The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing” (Blaise Pascal, 1669)

The Heart

Humour The Hand

The Head

Literacy is not enough

• At present, many mainstream universities remain strongly book-centred in their approach to learning.
• We will refer to this bias as head-based learning.
• If education is to catalyse paradigm change it needs to engage at more levels of learning.
• For example we will need to engage hearts and minds by combining scientific reasoning with playful experimentation and practical skills.

a Holistic mnemonic

HEAD - forms of knowledge that can be spoken or written down

HAND - tacit knowledge including practical and performative skills

HEART - emotional, experiential & sensory aspects

HUMOUR - discourse that may be playful, creative or convivial

• These four (loosely defined) modes of learning (see diagram above) map out a Holistic learning strategy.
• They act as a simple mnemonic map that invites a comprehensive, holistic and transdisciplinary approach.
• This correspond (loosely) with The Wise Path essays which identify the following:
  • Cognition / Emotion / Action / Coherence
• Unity of the 4 parts depicts the distributed, situated, embodied and implicit nature of knowledge.
• Here we depict them within a tetrahedral format.
• This figure is useful as it displays the 6 relationships (see numbers 1 to 6 below) between the 4 'H's:

Further reading

• Kahneman, D., 2011. Fast and slow thinking. Allen Lane and Penguin Books, New York.
• Iain McGilchrist, (2024) A Revolution in Thought
• McGilchrist, I., (2009). “The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World”. USA: Yale University Press. ISBN 030014878X
• Goleman, D., 2020. Emotional intelligence. Bloomsbury Publishing
• Von Humboldt's memorandum of 1810 argued that State interference in academic research would impair the wholeness and integrity of cross-disciplinary learning and what he called ‘self-cultivation’ (German: Bildung). c.f. Elton, 2008).