These are First Principles that have helped guide our work, for more than 40 years. It is my experience, as I deeply reflect back over my experiences, learning, travel, including my earliest memories, that even though these First Principles are articulated and symbolized differently, they are at the Heart of Indigenous World View's across the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands.
As well, they are reflected in the cutting-edge thinking of Physicist and Educator, Alfred North White Head, " Process and Reality" and beloved mentor's Dr's Dan Jordan and Donald T. Streets, Anisa, "Tree of Life" Model of Education.
Other students that joined me for two years, 1978-1979, studying this holistic model of education were Dr's Lee Brown and Martha Manygreyhorses. From my perspective, these First Principles are an expression of the Natural Laws that underly the very foundation of our Infinite Cosmos.
FIRST PRINCIPLES FOR HOLISTIC EDUCATION
1. Wholeness. All things are interrelated. This connectedness derives from the reality that everything is a part of a single whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. Hence any given phenomenon can only be understood in terms of the wholeness out of which it arises.
2. Change. All of creation is engaged in a process of constant change. There are two general categories of change: development or integration, and disintegration. Both are necessary and inseparably linked.
3. Process. The course of change generally follows observable patterns, which occur in cycles or stages. There is a direction (an implied purpose, or vector) to all change that leads to some outcome, which can only be fully understood in relation to the context within which the process is taking place.
4. All of creation may be understood in terms of two categories of existence: material reality and spiritual reality. These two categories of existence are functionally inseparable. Yet there are distinct laws and principles, which govern each dimension.
5. Human beings exist in connection with all other aspects of creation.
6. Human beings are material and spiritual beings.
7. Human beings are in the process of becoming (i.e., actualizing potentiality) from conception to eternity. This is true of individuals as well as human collectives such as the family and the community.
8. Human beings have the capacity to create further potentiality through the cumulative effects of learning and culture. Hence human potential may be regarded as infinite.
9. As human beings, we transcend the limitations of mere materiality by virtue of our ability to direct the process of our own becoming.
10. The spiritual dimensions of human development may be understood in terms of four related capacities.
First, the capacity to formulate and/or to respond to non-material realities such as dreams, visions, ideals, spiritual teachings, aims, purposes, and theories.
Second, the capacity to accept these realities as representations or manifestations of unknown human potential.
Third, the capacity to give these non-material realities symbolic expression (through art, mathematics or language).
Fourth, the capacity to use this symbolic expression to guide action that is aimed at translating potentiality into actuality.
11. Human spirituality is expressed and developed through the practice of life-preserving, life-enhancing values. (A value may be understood as a patterned use of human energy.) These values (we may also call them qualities or virtues) include honoring the Creator, honesty, love, wisdom, justice, courage, respect, courtesy and humility to name only a few. The realization of these values in human affairs is an indispensable component of human development.
12. The essence of human actualization is the process of coming to know and to love the ultimate unknowns underlying the ordering of the universe. This is an infinite process. It may be expressed by individuals as well as by human collectives.
