In Vito Perrone’s A Letter To Teachers we are presented with a book designed as a letter to educators about the issues and complexities involved in modern education. The theories revealed in the text take a holistic approach to teaching, one that sees all issues and all subject matter as interrelated. In a sense, the holistic approach is also advocated as one that encompasses administrators, educators, students, curricula, and community. The lengthy letter covers a variety of teaching issues, from purposes of teaching, engaging students and valuing differences to empowered teachers, accountability and the community connection. This analysis will cover the basic ideas and theories of holistic teaching, ones that fit perfectly with my own views of teaching and the learning process.
Perrone’s biggest complaint is that modern educators suffer from misplaced concerns that lie at the heart of the larger purpose of teaching. Too much teaching is focused on mechanical, assembly-line learning that is more concerned about passing on information to students who are expected to memorize and regurgitate it, as opposed to being concerned about developing students who are self-learners, and contribute to their own development and to society:
There is, it seems, more concern about whether children learn the mechanics of reading and writing than grow to love reading and writing; learning about democratic practice rather than have practice in democracy; hear about knowledge, essentially being in settings where knowledge is dispensed, rather than gain experience in personally constructing knowledge; engage in competition rather than learn the power of cooperation and collaborative thought; see the world narrowly, simple and ordered, rather than broad, complex, and uncertain; and come to accept the vested authority that exists around them in organizational structures and text rather than being helped to challeng
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