Dear visitor,
This site has been created for educators who aspire to educate the whole child. A holistic approach to education engages hearts and hands as well as heads, and considers all the developmental needs of a child: physical, emotional, moral, aesthetic, and spiritual, as well as intellectual and vocational. A holistic education should have a deep moral purpose, and raise children to be good global citizens with a broad cultural outlook. Curiosity, empathy and a willingness to learn and to serve are qualities that holistic educators attempt to foster in their students.
Many educators have aspired to a holistic approach in the past. Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Tolstoy, Steiner, Korczak, Montessori and Sukhomlynsky provide some of the most striking examples of a holistic approach to education. Vasyl Sukhomlynksy is less known among English speaking educators than the other educators mentioned above, but deserves much greater attention. He is part of a humanistic tradition that is inspired by a desire to refine human nature, and ultimately to lead humanity to a more civilised future.
Over the past years I have written a book about Sukhomlynsky, and translated some of his works into English, in the belief that they are still relevant and thought provoking. I invite discussion from other educators on the holistic approach that he exemplifies. To date I have published four books that attempt to throw light on Sukhomlynsky’s legacy:
The first book, Each One Must Shine, published by Peter Lang in 1999, and republished by EJR Language Service Pty. Ltd. in 2016, is a study of Sukhomlynsky’s legacy based on doctoral studies I completed at the University of Queensland. It has also been published in Seoul in a Korean language translation.
The second book is a picture book for children, A World of Beauty, published by EJR Language Service Pty. Ltd. in 2013. This book contains 19 of Sukhomlynsky’s little stories for children, illustrated by students from Ukraine and Belarus. It is also available in Ukrainian, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese editions, and as an English language audio book.
The third book, My Heart I Give to Children, published by EJR Language Service Pty. Ltd. in 2016, is a translation of a new (2012) edition of Sukhomlynsky’s best known work. It describes Sukhomlynsky’s interactions with a group of 31 children during an experimental preschool year and the subsequent four years of their primary schooling.
The fourth book, Our School in Pavlysh: A Holistic Approach to Education, is a slightly abridged translation of Sukhomlynsky’s Pavlyshskaya srednyaya shkola [Pavlysh Secondary School]. In it Sukhomlynsky gives an overview of how his school functioned to provide a holistic education to its students, and how Sukhomlynsky worked as a principal.
All four publications are available from The Really Good Book Shop in Brisbane, Australia. The four books are also available in print-on-demand editions from major online retailers.
I invite visitors to this site to subscribe to a monthly newsletter that contains new translations of Sukhomlynsky’s works, articles and information about new publications.
I welcome feedback from visitors. My contact details are at the bottom of this page.
Alan Cockerill
Brisbane, Australia
