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Since its founding in 1863, Boston College, like many Jesuit institutions, has practiced “whole person” teaching, powered by the belief that one learns in multi-dimensional ways well beyond subject matter knowledge and vocational training. Over the last 20 years, B.C. has devoted particular time and resources to developing its approach and becoming a leader in the larger field, known as “formative education.”  

The university in Chestnut Hill, Mass. now has a formative education department within the Lynch School of Education and Human Development and has recently launched a campus-wide Transformative Education Lab (TLab), an interdisciplinary research and innovation hub dedicated to advancing the theory and practice of formative education.  

“We’ve been building up a particular vision of what education for undergraduate students should be about,” said Stanton Wortham, dean of the Lynch School. “Formative education is this notion of integrated or holistic approaches that are not just intellectual and not just vocational but include an interconnected set of social, emotional, ethical, and spiritual questions and developments.”

Wortham said the lab is designed to clarify and promote formative education so that it may benefit other institutions, both K-12 and higher education. Its first mission is to share best practices, through the literature and by convening people who are doing this work. Secondly, the lab will focus on the research on the method itself, with an intention to distinguish it from other practices such as social and emotional learning or character education.  

“All of those things are good but what we are doing here is different and has something special to offer,” Wortham said. “The purpose of the lab is to articulate that and present it to people more broadly.” 

“What we often do with children is just teach academic material, mostly through memorization, when what we need to do is ask them what kind of person they want to be.”

According to Wortham, formative education has four distinctions: It focuses on intrinsic ends, developing dispositions that stay with us for life; it centers both individual and community development so that young people are disposed to contribute to the common good; it is holistic, acknowledging the multiple dimensions within which young people develop — emotionally, relationally, civically, ethically, and spiritually; and it includes an emphasis on purpose, on discerning what we are called to do.

Deoksoon Kim is a Lynch School professor in the Teaching, Curriculum, and Society department and a strong believer in how the right kind of education can change people’s lives. As the inaugural director of the TLab, she seeks to seed within other institutions a method she believes can lead to personal growth in a way that other pedagogies cannot quite match.    

“What we often do with children is just teach academic material, mostly through memorization, when what we need to do is ask them what kind of person they want to be,” Kim said. “As an educator, I really wanted to make differences in people’s lives and in the world. This work really gave me a deeper sense of who I am and what I want to be doing.”

Kim has an ambitious blueprint for the TLab that includes three major strategies announced at the launch. In an effort to jump start and share new ideas, the TLab will hold a K-12 Formative Education Grant Competition which identifies and supports promising practices in schools, after-school programs, and community-based learning environments.  

In summer 2026, the TLab will host an intensive professional development institute designed to prepare K-12 educators and leaders to implement formative education practices in their teaching and leadership. And in October 2026, the TLab will hold its inaugural conference on formative education, bringing together scholars and practitioners from around the country and the world in both K-12 and higher education.  

Kim said developing the TLab to help expand the formative education pedagogy within higher education is a major goal. It is part of what she hopes will address a narrow focus on academic standards that she and others believe has “gone too far.”

“This is a great kind of a movement we are in — one that broadens education to be about meaning, character and purpose,” Kim said. “This is what we need to do to transform higher education.”  

You can reach LearningWell Editor Marjorie Malpiede at mmalpiede@learningwellmag.org with comments, ideas, or tips.