What Does It Mean to Be Whole?

Our group started off with a bang by mapping out all of the different things we thought of when we heard the words Whole Teacher or Whole Child. After some rearranging and organizing, we came up with these Big Ideas:

I will admit that when I first signed up for this topic my brain automatically went to the Health / Well-Being group of ideas from the pictures above, and I was thinking that our focus would be more on incorporating active learning opportunities into our classrooms. But my teammates added so many more ideas that it really broadened my thinking about what it means to be whole.

As Maslow stated LONG ago, we have many needs that need to be met in order for humans, adults or children, to get to the point where they can do the kinds of thinking that we are now requiring in schools. While I was focusing on the lowest levels of those needs, The Physiological and Safety Needs, my teammates reminded me that there are other levels to being whole as well. Our group's placement of so many items around the theme of Connections shows how we can only be whole if our Social Needs are met. Esteem Needs are covered in the themes of Health / Well-Being, Creativity and Connections.

It looks like our group is on the right track. The activities and big themes that we are thinking about, when compared to Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs, seem to show how we can address the different pieces humans need in order to be a whole person. I suppose now the question is how do we take this and turn it into a PBL experience for us and our students.