The Discourse of Natural Learning Rhythms™

Natural Learning Rhythms is a whole-child appreciation of child development. This document traces holistic trends in psychology and education which paved its way. It is not intended to be exhaustive.

In order to comprehend these trends it is first necessary to understand some of the basics of holistic development.

Whole-Child Development:

• Accounts for all aspects of the child: physical, psychological, emotional, social and spiritual. Moreover, it recognizes the synergy of these aspects that is the whole of the child. The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
• Sees development as occurring in the relationships the child has with family, teachers, community and environment.
• Inquires into the value, meaning and purpose of human capacities and talents.
• Views a developmental stage as organized towards self-actualization, meaning, values and purpose.
• Includes all relevant developmental information, including fieldwork.
• Observes children in their lives, as they are, and not only in contrived environments such as laboratories.
• Meta-learning is crucial. It is as important, if not more important, to know how one learns than what one learns.
• Appreciates that the basic nature of a human is goodness, wholeness & health.
• Emphasizes the full activation of health and well-being; it is not a fixation on pathology.

Relevant History of Psychology

Psychodynamics—a view of the relevance of the biographical past and how personality is created. It is also a view of how to treat personality disorder.

Aim—Removal of psychopathological behavior

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)—Five stages of psycho-sexual development. Health depends on the resolution of conflicts between childhood sexual urges and demands from society. The five stages are oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital.
• Erik Erikson (1902-1994)—A Freudian who extended Freud’s theory to a great extent. Social environment combined with biological maturation provides the child with “identity crises” that must be resolved. The results of the resolution are carried forth into the next stage crisis and provide the foundation for its resolution. He took the very important step of stating the nature of health for the child when these conflicts are successfully resolved. He created a stage theory that encompassed the whole lifespan.

  His eight stages, ages, identity crises and accompanying expression of health are:

  1. Oral-Sensory (Birth to 12 or 18 Months): trust v. mistrust, hope
  2. Muscular-Anal (18 months to 3 years): autonomy v. shame, willpower
  3. Locomotor (3 to 6 years): initiative v. guilt, purpose
  4. Latency (6 to 12 years): industry vs. inferiority, competence
  5. Adolescence (12 to 18 years): identity v. role confusion, fidelity
  6. Young adulthood (19 to 40 years): intimacy vs. isolation, love
  7. Middle Adulthood (40 to 65 years): generativity vs. stagnation, care
  8. Maturity (65 to death): ego integrity vs. despair, wisdom

Basic Belief—that human behavior is almost completely the result of response to stimulus and conditioned learning. It is the study of observable stimulus response learning and an approach to actually “shape” human behavior.

Aim—desired behavior

• Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)—classical conditioning, stimulus-response and effect of the environment on overt behavior.
• B. F. Skinner (1904-1995)—helped found behaviorism, operant conditioning, behavior modification. Skinner saw the environment, in combination with genetic dispositions, as predominant in determining the learning of the child. He suggested there were phases of environmental treatment for the child to develop best.
• Arnold Gesell (1880-1961)—his institute relied primarily on interviews with children. From these he derived detailed descriptions of the “normal” behavior of American children.
• Albert Bandura (1925-)—evolved out of behaviorism to cognitive psychology. Reciprocal Determinism: environment causes behavior and behavior causes environment as well. Also, observational learning (modeling) and self-regulation. Motivation becomes internalized by learning self-efficacy. No childhood stages described but Bandura did point to the importance of social relationship in learning.

Aim—Study of Intellectual functioning and how humans map their world.

• Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)—social interaction as the primary source of cognition and behavior. Posited a “zone of proximal development”, which is the difference between the most difficult task a child can do alone and the most difficult task a child can do with help.
• Jean Piaget (1896-1980)—Theory of cognitive development was formed during the 1920’s and 30’s. Mostly deals with the formation of ideas—data into thought forms (how we come to know). Piaget found 4 primary cognitive structures:
  1. sensorimotor (0-2)—intelligence takes the form of motor actions,
  2. pre-operational (3-7)—is intuitive in nature,
  3. concrete operations (8-11)—logical but depends upon concrete referents,
  4. formal operational (12-15)—thinking involves abstractions.
• Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987)—studied the cognitive processes of the moral development of children. Through interviews and through grading moral conundrums that were presented to the students.
• Carol Gilligan (1936-present), Feminist—gender related moral development. Gilligan overthrew Kohlberg’s perspective that “justice,” which they defined as emphasizing individual rights and views people as differentiated and standing alone, was a male perspective and that “care,” which emphasized  interpersonal responsibility and interconnectedness with others was a female perspective. Each child has a unique blend and gender is not the deciding factor.

Aim—Realized human potential and full well-being.

• Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)—Humans are pulled to self-actualization. Maslow recognized a hierarchy of human needs. When the lower ones are satisfied one is automatically drawn to the higher.
• Carl Rogers (1902-1987)—Process orientation vs. outcome orientation. The goal of education is to facilitate change and learning. No knowledge is secure. The aim of education is the fully functioning human. The aim of teaching is to create relationship with the child and develop curriculum that arises out of the child’s meaning structures.

Aim—Full actualization of wholeness.

• Alfred Adler (1870-1937)—Insisted that children have a “will to be superior;” that is to achieve to their full potential. Taught teachers and parents how to nurture this will. He also emphasized family dynamics as crucial to a child’s health.
• Carl Jung (1875-1961)—Jung’s exquisitely detailed description of the deeper realms of the human mind left no doubt that self knowledge was the aim of relationship with children. He did not posit a specific child development approach but realized that neglect and insensitivity to children caused much unnecessary suffering. 

Aim—Describe and access the full breadth and depth of consciousness.

• Ken Wilber (1949- )—main proponent of Integral Psychology. His book of the same name and many other works set the stage for a truly holistic view of the “spectrum of consciousness”

Family Dynamics—though not specified here, psychologists such as Laing, Satir, Bradshaw, Bateson, and many, many others have made important contributions to the understanding of the interpersonal dynamics and family environment in the development of children.

Holistic Education means the development of the Whole Person.

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau—(1712-1778)—established the Western developmental dialogue with his book, Emile. He presents the ideal citizen and the means of training the child in accordance with nature. He inspired Pestalozzi.
• Johann Pestalozzi—(1746-1827)– Swiss reformer whose curriculum structure and pedagogical practices were influential and seminal to the development of child-centered education. Saw that the child in part determined his readiness in a developmental stage by his or her ‘spontaneous activity’ or ‘self activity.’

   The purpose (aim) of education:

  1. Unfolding natural capacities
  2. Development of capacities
  3. Fitness for life
  4. Preparation for Independent Action

• Freidrich Froebel (1782–1852)—Student of Pestalozzi, he was a German educationalist, who is best known as the originator of the “kindergarten system.” “The purpose of education is to encourage and guide man as a conscious, thinking and perceiving being in such a way that he becomes a pure and perfect representation of that divine inner law through his own personal choice; education must show him the ways and meanings of attaining that goal.” (Friedrich Froebel, 1826, Die Nenschenerziehung, pp. 2)
• Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925)—Father of Waldorf Education. Taught that there are higher, unseen “bodies” within us that are playing through each developmental stage. He believed “capacities for conscious spiritual perception lie dormant within every human being and can be awakened…”
• Maria Montessori (1870-1952)—well known for her children’s houses (casa dei bambini.) She taught that there is a profound biological intelligence playing through each developmental moment. She said “To aid life, leaving it free to unfold itself, that is the basic task of the educator.” She is known to have pointed out that the mental organism is a dynamic whole which has the ability to transform its structure in relationship to environment.
• John Holt (1923-1985)—emphasized the uniqueness of each child and the importance of relating to children with dignity and respect for their intelligence and talent. Father to the homeschooling movement, Holt spoke of the joy in learning and the natural curiosity of children.
• Howard Gardner—Pioneered the Theory of Multiple Intelligences in which he shows that there are seven types of intelligence and that each of us has a unique blend. Education must meet the intelligence profile of the child to be effective. The intelligences are spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, logical-mathematical, and verbal-linguistic.
• J. Krishnamurti—Brilliant spiritual philosopher who insisted the education be tied to meaning. School should be for nurturing consciousness and awakening insight into oneself and the world.
• Aurobindo—A spiritual child developmentalist and great spiritual leader who inspired a whole town in India, Auroville, through his teachings. His schools emphasize awareness and meaning, within developmental capacities.

There are contiguous discourses in anthropology, physics, biology, spiritual philosophy, , and brain research that have contributed mightily to Natural Learning Rhythms.