who is wholeschool?
Wholeschool Founded in 2003 as a Bridge to Personal, Social, and Cultural Understanding for Children
Wholeschool was created in 2003 with a vision: to bring children together throughout the world via the exciting new world of the Internet, so together they can explore what it is that makes us all human. This unique approach to education was designed around the concept of helping every child explore, "Who Am I?", in a way that their lives would be transformed.
From 2004 through 2009. Wholeschool, a 501(c)(3), developed and tested a course in self-understanding for elementary school-age children, which we call The YETI Club. YETI stands for Youth Education To Inspire, and also describes our friend, Poto the Bigfoot, who shares in the adventures. In The YETI Club, Poto is a young Bigfoot who is very curious about these interesting beings called humans. He wants to learn all about them. Together with Poto, children explore their complex and amazing bodies, thoughts, emotions, cultural beliefs and views of "normal," and their creativity.
The YETI Club program was introduced and hugely successful in Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCA programs, and school district and private school programs in Washington, Idaho and Iowa.. Funding of approximately $100,000 during this period came from foundations, local grants, businesses and individuals. Learn more about The Partners With Wholeschool.
The YETI Club© is delivered live, over the Internet in a safe, engaging, social networking way, using web conferencing services by Cisco/Webex. The curriculum emphasizes common physical, emotional, and creative realities of human beings. It is fun for children, informative and acceptable to children of families from all faith and cultural backgrounds.
Wholeschool plans to expand the program throughout the Northwestern U.S., then connect children throughout the U.S. and Canada, and then move to other countries in a bilingual program called “The Global Wave”. Initially, this program will connect target groups of children in the United States and Canada with target groups of children in Mexico and/or Costa Rico to provide two-way foreign language experience (FLEX) training in English/Spanish that will be based in the self-understanding lessons. By adding a foreign language experience to the self understanding curriculum, Wholeschool’s Global Wave will build an appreciation within each child for his or her uniqueness and a strong appreciation for other children and their social, cultural and environmental contexts.
Learn more about Wholeschool's projects to connect children, and how you can get involved, here.
Wholeschool’s programs create a bridge to personal, social, and cultural understanding and appreciation. This exploration of a child’s own heart, mind, body, and culture, combined with illuminating conversations with children in other same-nation schools and children in other-nation schools, brings forth a new context and perspective to make healthy choices about themselves and the world around them.
Learn more about the Programs here.
who are the founders?
Dr. Robert Hager is the founder and Executive Director of Wholeschool. He has a Doctorate Degree in Aerospace Engineering and has founded and managed three successful technical companies. Dr. Hager shifted his focus from scientist and businessman to educator, when in 1997 he decided to live in Tanzania, East Africa, for 27 months as a Peace Corps volunteer. He taught Engineering Science and Physics to high school students in Mtwara, Tanzania.
Dr. Hager returned from this life-shifting experience with a vision of an education organization that could teach personal awareness, empathy, and tolerance for other cultures. He glimpsed the possibility of a world where children could connect with their peers in peace and understanding, and then grow to become adults who would already be more self-aware and culturally-aware – who could then focus on the larger problems facing humanity.
He partnered with his daughter, Mrs. Kristin Cook, a teacher and education writer with particular focus on learning styles, and together they created Wholeschool.
Kristin Cook, Director of Curriculum Development, brings her life-long passion for teaching and writing to the Wholeschool project. Mrs. Cook, an avid student of learning development and learning styles research, views quality teaching as a function of "translation." She sees the role of an educator as being a bridge between a student's current thought process and a breakthrough "aha" revelation for the student in any subject area.
Cook studied early childhood through adolescent learning development while pursuing a secondary education degree with a dual English-Math minor, but then moved into journalism to feed her love of writing. She became the first person to serve as editor-in-chief for both the CU-Denver bimonthly and the Metropolitan State weekly newspapers, which shared a campus in Denver, Colorado, and won numerous national collegiate journalism awards for her work on these publications. She wrote as a daily news reporter, and later as an education reporter for a monthly parenting magazine in Seattle WA.
Cook has spent the past decade back in the classroom, developing and instructing curricula in history, English and math. In addition to teaching children grades 4-12 in a variety of subjects, she homeschooled her two sons through high school. Her older son is entering the U.S. National Guard and studying to become an EMT; her younger son is pursuing a Criminal Justice degree with plans to serve in Law Enforcement. Cook also tutors students individually, utilizing a unique Learning Style Centered Plan approach for student mastery.
Cook created and tested the YETI Club program through numerous "student laboratory workshops", and later developed for webcast and Internet delivery. Her passion is "watching the lightbulb light up" in children's minds as they explore themselves and the world around them.
