Book excerpt: Nurturing the Whole Student: Five Dimensions of Teaching and Learning begins with the assumption that education is at its best--healthiest, most engaging, and most effective--when it is holistic. By holistic, the authors mean that the various dimensions of the teacher and student are honored and nurtured throughout the education process. These dimensions are organic, psychodynamic, cultural, academic, and existential. Nurturing the Whole Student contends that any truly humane educational theory or practice must celebrate and cultivate these facets of the student-teacher relationship. In readily-accessible theoretical terms--as well as in practical suggestions for classroom application--the authors demonstrate how holistic education is an antidote to the standardized approaches to education that breed failure, alienation, and discouragement in the classroom. Systematically broken down into five thematic chapters, this teacher's guide will help any educator foster the five dimensions of teaching and learning.