Toward a Philosophy of Integrated Learning

In the first chapter of The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal, Parker Palmer outlines some elements that contribute to a philosophy of what he and others have called “integrated education.” Integrated learning models typically center on techniques and approaches to learning that can help bridge the gap between discrete disciplines and enable students to make connections across the curriculum in ways that are holistic rather than piecemeal. These models include many now familiar elements such as capstone courses, linked courses, service learning, team teaching, first-year experiences, and other creative ways of engaging students as whole persons. While the value of many of these techniques have been recognized, in his chapter “Toward a Philosophy of Integrated Learning,” Palmer addresses not the practices themselves but an underlying philosophy of education that drives the integrated education model. He does this by outlining four categories: ontology, epistemology, pedagogy, and ethics.

The “ontological reality” that Palmer discusses (pp. 25-26) is based on new developments in science that have moved from atomic theory (an understanding of reality as a bunch of individual atoms) to a quantum theory which sees each particle as existing only in relation to other particles. This more relational approach to reality leads to seeing the cosmos as “a historical community of interdependent beings” (citing Ian Barbour). This understanding supports learning that is integrated and understood in ways that are interactive and interconnected across many disciplines.

Palmer discusses an “epistemological necessity” (pp. 27-29), by which he means that “we cannot know this communal reality truly and well unless we ourselves are consciously and actively in community with it as knowers” (27). Here he draws on Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge. He also discusses the issue of objectivity and argues that one can “know a relational reality only by being in relation to it” (28). He gives a terrific example of geneticist and Nobel Prize winner Barbara McCLintock who eschews remaining distant and objective: “Over and over again she tells us one must have the time to look, the patience to ‘hear what the material has to say to you,’ the openness to ‘let it come to you.’ Above all, one must have ‘a feeling for the organism.’“ (28, citing Evelyn Fox Keller’s book chronicling her work). As a scholar of early Jewish and Christian texts, I was struck by this statement and the realization that my own study of these texts has been most enlivened when I’ve approached these texts not as “ancient artifacts to be studied” but as the words of poets and authors who wished to communicate something that was of deep significance to them as human beings.

As “a pedagogical asset” (pp. 29-31) the ontology and epistemology lead to teaching that attends to the nature of the relationships between teacher and student, student and student, and student and subject. Hospitality becomes a key feature here as space is made for safe relationships where—I was surprised to see—academic and intellectual rigor can be expected. This approach to teaching brings together the “hard” virtues of scholarship and the “soft” virtues of community so that the deepest kind of learning can take place.

The “ethical corrective” (pp. 31-33) of which Palmer writes is the result of this relational learning: it results in an engagement with the world with a moral component. Not as an “add-on” but as a natural consequence of relating to the material rather than objectively learning facts about it. Palmer gives an example of his own learning about the Holocaust (in an objective way) versus later coming to grips with the kinds of systemic practices and forces which lay behind the Holocaust and continue to shape aspects of human existence even in Palmer’s own world and own mind.

In these ways, Palmer outlines a compelling case for seeing integrative education as a model for education that accords with the latest scientific research on the nature of reality as being interconnected and relational, that aligns with the rich and deep ways in which humans can truly come to know things, that has specific implications for classroom instruction, and that leads to meaningful ethical reflection rather than an artificial, ethically-stunted distance from a given subject. Those unfamiliar with the work of Parker Palmer but who are interested in seeing their students grow and learn in ways that prepare them for lives of meaningful service beyond the walls of the university will find some welcome assistance here in understanding why those aspirations make sense and why they should not be abandoned even in the face of many other pressures.