105 WCD as a (W(H)olistic Response 2 presents to the dominant mechanistic and reductionistic worldview of our time. Emergent teaching is not a repackaged romanticism, nor is it a newly constructed vocabulary for progressive education. But it is reminiscent of these traditions. Philosophically, emergence is much more aligned with what has been labelled constructive postmodernism and espouses a radical contextualism and interconnectedness. It specifically uses and develops the language and questions of wholeness rather than reductionism. (Crowell & Reid-Marr, 2013, p. 5) This brought Crowell and Reid-Marr (2013) to a holistic perspective on the curriculum ‘as a conversation’ (p. 110) wherein the focus is not on premeditated content but on ‘the whole person’ (p. 112). Here, they started to adopt the ASCD terminology concerning WCE, claiming that ‘Emergent teaching is naturally situated within the framework of the whole person and holistic education in general’ (Crowell & Reid-Marr, 2013, p. 113). While still an outlier in terms of its larger perspective, emergent teaching is relevant to the overall vision of the whole-child initiative and provides an additional lens on how to create educational experiences that are potentially transformative and significant for learners. (Crowell & Reid-Marr, 2013, p. 113) Crowell and Reid-Marr (2013) also distinguished six interacting and interrelated elements of what they called ‘holistic health’ (p. 114): mental/ intellectual focus, emotional focus, social focus, physiological focus, environmental focus and spiritual focus. Intellectual development requires the ability to think, see patterns, consolidate understandings and make applications. Cognition is always inseparably linked to emotion. In particular, a lack of safety and emotional distress affect learning abilities. Human beings are social creatures who learn trough interaction, which starts early with simple play and is structured in communities. At its heart, all learning is physiological. Neural processes are not limited to the brain but present in the whole body. Body and mind are inextricably related. Good teaching appeals to all of the senses and counts alongside the necessity of the body to move. A good environmental focus means much more than the good decoration of the classroom. Indeed, it concerns the whole place where teaching and learning happens and interactions are formed. It is here that the senses are really activated. The spiritual focus is about significance and meaning. The disenchantment of the modernistic worldview has, in many ways, led to a world stripped of meaning and significance. The abandonment of the inner world and life of students needs to be corrected.
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