Holistic Education, a New Approach in Accordance with some Elements of Iranian Islamic Art Traditional Education

Holistic Educational Approach was an educational movement which appeared in the domain of education in the mid- 1980s in North America. In fact it was a result of mental and cultural anxiety during the 60th and 70th centuries and was a reaction to the educational mainstream of the world. Holistic Educational Approach is essentially an educational paradigm that tries to join educational theories with philosophy and spirituality and its instructions aim to oppose against modern improvements and the subsequent crisis such as losing traditional societies and ignoring traditional and spiritual values. Gradually, this led to a situation in which people realized that they had to look at the “wholes” to see the details, and found out that within a paradoxical context, “wholes” were of a great importance. Holistic Educational Approach holds a holistic viewpoint and also a spiritual tendency. In the modern society the ways of learning things get more detailed day by day. Meanwhile education is trapped in some competitive and unbalanced approaches and methods and reductionism has ignored the multi-dimensional aspects of life. The main purpose of Holistic education is to feed the innate abilities of people. So, Holistic Educational Approach succeeded in attracting the teachers and parents who used to criticize imposed and limited educational techniques. The main purpose of Holistic education is to feed the innate abilities of people. In this context, everyone is a capable and unique person who is creative by nature. His skills and needs including physical, mental and spiritual ones are distinctive. Education should try to highlight the individual’s inner self and world. It trains the entire body of an individual with his diverse aspects. Having flexible and holistic points of view, this educational approach is able to deal with different domains. Iranian Islamic art principles also include many detailed points which need close attention. It has always had its special and unique ways of educational ways and manners. A deep study of this approach and its basis shows that the elements and features of this educational approach are very similar to some features and even basis of Iranian traditional art education. Focusing on the main factors of these two domains shows that there are many common factors between these two domains. Such factors are self-transformation, ultimacy, spirituality, experiential learning, uniqueness, love, reverence for life, apprenticeship, interdisciplinary points of view, reasoning, mutual trust, etc. Here in this article, Holistic educational approach is thoroughly introduced and analyzed; its most important elements are explained and then, Iranian traditional art education is studied through a new viewpoint. It seems that Holistic Educational Approach can be considered as a spiritual yet modern approach which may accord with the principles of traditional art education in Iran. Finally, finding harmony and agreements of opinions in Holistic Education Approach and Iranian Islamic art education might prove that Holistic educational approach is somehow in accordance with some of the Iranian Islamic art education principles. This is a qualitative study and the data is collected through books, documents and articles.