What is Integral Education?

Integral Education is a philosophy and practice of education for the whole child: body, emotions, mind, soul, and spirit. The modern practice of education for utility or for productivity is not enough for the children of the 21st century. It ignores the highest and truest parts of their being. Too often it ignores the physical and emotional development of the child as well.

Integral Education unites the ancient educational goal of self-knowledge with the modern goal of world-knowledge. Both of these goals are admirable, and the two of them must go hand-in-hand in any educational system that is integral.

Integral Education assists the child to discover for himself/herself out of his/her own temperament and being the aim of life and the purpose that he or she has to play in it. If everyone truly has a spark of the Divine as the center of his being, a comprehensive education must do more than ignore it or passively acknowledge it. Integral Education takes that spark, the soul, as the guiding principle for the education of each child.

"The role of the teacher is to put the child upon the right road to his own perfection and encourage him to follow it, watching, suggesting, helping, but not imposing or interfering." - Kireet Joshi

This vision of integral education is based on the pioneering work in education of Sri Aurobindo and his collaborator, known as the Mother. Integral education already has a developed body of theory and more than half a century of refinement and practice at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in Pondicherry, India.