<p>Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE) is a professional development program designed to reduce stress and improve teachers' performance. Two pilot studies examined program feasibility and attractiveness and preliminary evidence of efficacy. Study 1 involved educators from a high-poverty urban setting (n = 31). Study 2 involved student teachers and 10 of their mentors working in a suburban/semi-rural setting (n = 43) (treatment and control groups). While urban educators showed significant pre-post improvements in mindfulness and time urgency, the other sample did not, suggesting that CARE may be more efficacious in supporting teachers working in high-risk settings. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure and 1 footnote.)</p>
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High school students' self-esteem and locus of control were evaluated before, during, and after exposure to either a health curriculum based on elicitation of the relaxation-response with follow-up or a control health curriculum followed by the relaxation-response. The experimental group significantly increased self-esteem and internal locus of control. (SM)
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Experiential learning in meditation and self-awareness can be valuably integrated into the college and university curriculum. Along with this promotion of experiential learning, greater attention should also be brought to the wisdom and diversity that students with disabilities bring to the college campus. A course was offered at a state university in the South in the fall of 2001 that aimed to address both of these educational goals. The course, entitled “Contemplative Practice, Health Promotion, and Disability on Campus: An Experiential Seminar in Partnership with Disability Support Services,” was developed through support from a Contemplative Practice Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. The experiential course content involved mindfulness meditation and somatic education. The course was open to all students, but students with disabilities were particularly welcomed. The following article describes the nature of the course, its development, and the results. The course syllabus is provided in the appendix.
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This article explores the concept of interiority as it relates to education and contemplation. Primarily, four general dimensions of consciousness related to learning are examined: presence, clarity, detachment, and resilience. The direct experience of these states and processes are described and explored in light of contemporary research on the neuro-physiologic correlates of various contemplative practices. This neurophenomenological approach considers the evidence and argument for the value of contemplation in education.
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<p>An introduction to the special issue of Teachers College Record on Contemplative Practices and Education.</p>
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This course will be an elective internship course for J.D. students enrolled in the College of Law. Students will enroll contemporaneously in a field placement where they will be supervised by practicing attorneys. Field placements can act as a bridge between the worlds of a law student and lawyer. Placing contemplative practice in the context of the practice of law offers students a unique opportunity to consider professional values at the heart of law. I would like to develop a course that would give law students in the program the basis for developing the steadiness within so that they can handle their challenging profession with dignity and integrity. The course would encourage the knowledge that they are who they are first, and that being a lawyer is just one of their talents that, used wisely with their other skills, can give them a satisfying, rather than struggling life. The course will introduce students to the foundations and practices of several disciplines through texts, meditation practice, experiential “homework” and journaling. The goal is to encourage students to have experiences not only in class but also on the job in order to introduce them to the value of contemplative practice within the context of law practice.
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<p>The role of contemplative practice in adult education has a long history if one includes traditional monastic education in Asia and the West. Its use in American higher education is, however, more recent and more limited. Nonetheless, on the basis of evidence from surveys and conferences, a significant community of teachers exists at all levels of higher education, from community colleges to research universities, who are using a wide range of contemplative practices as part of their classroom pedagogy. In addition to existing well-developed pedagogical and curricular methods that school critical reasoning, critical reading and writing, and quantitative analysis, this article argues that we also require a pedagogy that attends to the development of reflective, contemplative, affective, and ethical capacities in our students. The significance of these is at least as great as the development of critical capacities in students. The rationale for the inclusion of contemplative modalities is articulated within this context. On the basis of considerable experience in teaching at Amherst College, I present an "epistemology of love," which emphasizes a form of inquiry that supports close engagement and leads to student transformation and insight. This approach to knowing is implemented in the Amherst College first-year course, Eros and Insight. It includes a specific sequence of contemplative exercises that are practiced by students and integrated with more conventional course content drawn from the arts and sciences. Our experience shows that students deeply appreciate the shift from conventional coursework to a more experiential, transformative, and reflective pedagogy.</p>
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<p>This article explores Asian traditions of meditation, with particular attention to Buddhism as it was developed in ancient India. It delineates a core curriculum, initially developed in monastic institutions of higher education, that has been most fully preserved in Tibet. It then explores how this curriculum might be adapted so that it can help support a genuinely humanistic education within American higher education. This exploration focuses not only on the inherent values of Buddhist meditation but also on practical strategies that can be used to introduce these values in the academic curriculum and in the broader campus life.</p>
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<p>This article explores the role of contemplative practices within an emerging interdisciplinary area that I refer to as "creativity and consciousness studies." Within this new area, consciousness is studied from an "integral" perspective that brings together insights from a range of wisdom traditions and modern science. Meditation is presented as an essential first-person modality for investigating consciousness, and formal and nonformal approaches to meditation are delineated to establish important guidelines for the introduction of meditation into an academic setting. The role of "first-person" experience helps to develop new notions of rigor and interdisciplinary learning that can lead to an expanded educational experience, which can help to develop qualities such as mental clarity, inner calm, insight, compassion, and creativity. The article closes with reflections on the importance of expanding our approach to education in light of the demanding challenges and creative opportunities in today's world.</p>
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<p>This article describes the design and advocacy of the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Jazz and Contemplative Studies curriculum at The University of Michigan School of Music. The curriculum combines meditation practice and related studies with jazz and overall musical training and is part of a small but growing movement in academia that seeks to integrate contemplative disciplines within the educational process. The article considers issues such as the structure of the curriculum, the reconciliation of contemplative studies and conventional notions of academic rigor, the avoidance of possible conflicts between church and state, and other challenges encountered in gaining support for this plan, after weeks of intensive debate, from a 2/3 majority of the faculty.</p>
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<p>Covering both theory and practice, this work provides a guide to reflection and meditation in school, showing how to relate such principles to the curriculum as a whole.</p>
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