Understanding the Whole Student

Book excerpt: Understanding the Whole Student presents a holistic approach to multicultural educational issues by viewing them in terms of the student as a physical, psychosocial, cognitive, ethical, and spiritual being. Conversely, these levels of a student's being cannot be seen apart from the student's cultural identities. This unique book demonstrates that, in a pluralistic democracy, good teaching and deep learning must be multicultural and must look at the student as a whole being, not just as a future worker in a transnational corporate economy as is currently the case with both neo-liberal and neo-conservative programs for 'reform.' The authors contend that good education is, and must be, multicultural in order to gain a deeper perspective on issues under analysis in the classroom through the sharing and negotiating of many different cultural perspectives.