Grants

In 2021/2022, Holistic Think Tank allocated funds in the amount of $300,000 USD towards the goal of transforming current education methods and practices by devising the Interdisciplinary Subject (IDS) to be taught at schools worldwide.

The contest was won by three teams, which received grant money to develop the curriculum of Interdisciplinary Subject: The University of Sheffield (UK), Human Restoration Project (US) and The Fab Foundation (US).

In March 2023, the second phase of the grant program was launched.  Within its framework, the University of Sheffield and the Human Restoration Project would receive $75,000 each for developing and promoting the idea of Interdisciplinary Subject (IDS) worldwide (more here.)

New approach to education
The grant contest was announced following the results of desk research conducted by the HTT research team. The key competencies that were the starting point for the grant teams were also the basis for our field study entitled “What school should teach – a phenomenography of school environment”.
Based on the insights we gained from the project, we were able to list the areas which should be taught in schools and the resultant key competencies that students need to master. They are included on the “What school ought to teach list” (WSOT). The list included, among other things, ten areas that we see as an answer to the present-day, real-world needs of students. They were: facing challenges, functioning in relation with the world, nature and your own body, the concept of learning and teaching, functioning in society, aesthetics and cultural education, functioning in diversity, functioning in relation with the state, entrepreneurship, interpersonal communication and self-development. Our desk research laid out the challenge and we wanted the best organizations to take it on. That’s why we announced a grant contest on the best interdisciplinary subject – one which would help students develop, shape and strengthen these key skills. We are firm in the conviction that its results will have the potential to change education all over the world.

Trying to find “the culprit” we could blame for the current, sorry state of education is futile. In many places the world over, education continues to serve primarily the needs of the labor market. Thus, it completely overlooks anything and everything to do with the art of harmonious life in society, including such skills as effective communication and problem resolving. The obvious challenge extends way beyond mere changes in curriculum. Teachers need effective tools with which to efficiently transmit these (and many other) key competencies to their students. In our team, we believe that an attractive, feasible solution lies in creating a new Interdisciplinary Subject (“IDS”). Based on the holistic principles of integrating separate methods of teaching “academic subjects” and drawing broadly from the world at large, such a novel Interdisciplinary Subject should serve as a practical means of implementing the relevant principles and educating K-12 (or equivalent) students in a radically new, more promising way.

Diagnosis that has to start the change
Our field research indicated that, on balance, too many educational institutions worldwide tend to miseducate children and teenagers by using methods, skills and knowledge wildly out of touch with the realities of the 21st-century. Such outdated, inefficient and sometimes outright counterproductive methods include, among other things: rote learning, forcing students to memorize hosts of isolated facts, and drawing clear lines separating particular “subjects”. As a result, typical elementary education graduates lack scores of key competencies. Advanced as we are, our schools typically (and tragically) suffer from a severe deficiency of relevant, context-based curricula. How could they then help students hone their personal and academic skills? And if they don’t, what are their students destined for but failure and uncertain future – both personally and professionally?

Awaiting results
The grant was meant to finance the “incarnation” of the IDS course into a practical programme, including the production of materials that will be instrumental in disseminating the new pedagogical methods and research findings. The call was for solutions rather than mere “ideas”. We expected the product to be a syllabus: a comprehensive description of an interdisciplinary academic course addressed to the primary schools that, to the extent practicable, follows our holistic, interdisciplinary principles.