Contemplative Education

Contemplative Education and Transformative Education

Morgan (2015) outlines five primary influences related to the development of contemplative education: Buddhism and Hindu philosophy; transpersonal psychology; research on meditation in medicine, sports, and business; yoga in the West; and research on neuroscience and meditation. Morgan acknowledges that contemplative education is a complex field with many strands that makes it difficult to define. She explores the connection between contemplative education and transformative education and concludes that:

Although the contemplative and transformative … have distinct methods, with their own pedagogies, journals, institutions, and conferences, their histories, principles and practices intersect. Each contains contemplative and transformative aspects, both take a holistic approach to education and share elements of their histories. (p. 15)

Byrnes (2012) also explores the relationship between contemplative education and transformative education. She argues that contemplative teaching creates opportunities for transformation. Her paper focuses on a kindergarten teacher, Diana, who employs contemplative practices in her classroom. Byrnes concludes from observing Diana:

Contemplative teaching embodies teaching with compassion, integrity, and mindful awareness. These three qualities of teaching are enacted daily by teachers such as Diana with a contemplative orientation and all three qualities embrace the wholeness of being human. A contemplative orientation to teaching creates space for learning and is a model of education that links the inner and external life in meaningful, transformative ways. (p. 16)

First-, Second-, and Third-Person Approaches to Contemplative Education

Gunnlaugson (2011) provides a conceptual framework for examining contemplative education. He describes three approaches—first person, second person, and third person. First-person methods focus on the individual’s contemplative practices and have been a response to the traditional academic third-person approach. He argues for a second person perspective:

Unlike either third-person or first-person methods, second-person approaches offer the benefits of engagement not only within but also between participants and the field of conversation. This provides a distinctive learning milieu or context in which collective wisdom and shared leadership processes can emerge from a participatory rather than individual-centered ethos within groups. (p. 2)

The second-person approach provides opportunities for “shared and co-emergent contemplative states of knowing and generally move individuals towards a more collective focus in their learning engagements” (p. 4). Gunnlaugson cites the work of Scharmer (2004) as an example of a second-person approach. Scharmer presents the concept of presencing that involves how a group can move together through stages of contemplative awareness. These stages include downloading, debate, dialogue, and finally, presencing. Gunnlaugson believes “With presencing we cultivate presence as a basis for apprehending, seeing, and sensing into emergent (i.e., not-yet-known) possibilities and knowledge with our students” (p. 9). With presencing, there is an openness and ambiguity to the present moment for a group that can lead to creative insight.

Morgan (2012) refers to Gunnlaugson’s work in her paper on ground-of-being experiences. Morgan conducted a study of student contemplative experiences, where students “experienced a place’ they could inhabit, which gave them a sense of stability or grounding” (p.43). One student described it as a “space in all of us that is not changing and it gives us a place, standpoint, so that you can step back” (p. 43). Morgan suggests that students move through different levels in the ground of being, which also can be seen as a form of “meta-awareness.” She connects this form of awareness to “presencing” and cites Gunnlaugson (2007) and how these experiences “move beyond reflexive discourse … [to a] deeper category of self-transcending knowledge” (p. 141).

Research Approaches in Contemplative Education

Research in contemplative education employs both qualitative and quantitative methods. Morgan (2012) in her study of ground-of-being experiences used phenomenology and yogic understanding as her primary methodologies. She writes that phenomenology as the study of first-person experiences is “particularly useful in this examination of subjective contemplative experience in education. For it directly supports the participants’ phenomenological reports, from the often ineffable realms of the subjective by providing a means to ‘word’ them” (p. 46). Morgan also employed Yoga philosophy as a means to make sense of the ground-of-being experiences. Yoga suggests the ability to attain full awakened consciousness through an understanding of Brahman as “a divine substrate that is said to underpin all reality” (p. 48). Brahman is also identical with atman (true self) within the person so that the inner and outer are experienced as one. The contemplative experience of ground in being is transcendental knowing where there is no distinction between subject and object. Morgan cites the experience of student as an example:

I think all of the fields are really all a part of the same field and when in deep meditation it all sort of comes together. I think that our mind tends to pull things apart when we’re in our superficial mind especially I notice when there is some angst or anxiety. It’s almost like different pieces are pulled apart and everything gets separated inside and once everything’s separated … well I don’t really find that very helpful because it’s not based on intuition, there’s more of you when you’re in that whole state, when intuition just happens (Interview, November 2, 2009). (pp. 48–49)

Other papers that used qualitative methods include Byrnes (2012), Dencev and Collister (2010), and Burrows (2015). Much of the research on contemplative practices and mindfulness, in particular, has been quantitative. Wilson (2014) notes that The Mindfulness Research Guide listed 420 research articles on mindfulness in 2010 (p. 2). Hart’s (2008) summarizes some of the research in his article. This research has focused on how meditation impacts that brain. Studies indicate that over time, meditation affects cerebral cortical thickness. The thickening occurs in the right hemisphere in the prefrontal cortex, which is related to sustaining attention and regulating memory (Lazar et al., 2005). Hart also refers to Davidson’s (2004) research, which indicates that meditation affects the part of the brain that is responsible for empathy and compassion. However, there is a need for more research in the area of contemplative education and the effect of contemplative practices in classroom settings. Jennings’ (2015) book, Mindfulness for Teachers, includes some of the recent research with respect to elementary and secondary education. Barbezat and Bush (2014) provide an excellent summary of the research in contemplative education in relation to higher education. Still there is a need for further research on effects of contemplative practices in educational settings.

Teaching/Learning Practices

The earliest article in this collection by Tobin Hart describes a variety of practices that can be employed in contemplative education. First, he develops a strong case for contemplation in the classroom. He argues that contemplation is a third way of knowing that complements the rational and sensory. He writes,

The contemplative mind is opened and activated through a wide range of approaches-from pondering to poetry to meditation—that are designed to quiet and shift the habitual chatter of the mind to cultivate a capacity for deepened awareness, concentration, and insight. (p. 29)

Contemplation can address current concerns in education around the issues of performance, character, and depth. Brooks (2015) makes the argument that schools are too focused on what he calls “resume” values rather than those of character. Hart believes that contemplative practices offer one way of deepening character. Some of the ways that Hart describes include deep listening, pondering, wisdom walks, body focusing, concentrated language, and freely writing. These activities are presented in way that the teacher can use them in the classroom. For example, pondering includes addressing questions such was “What is life about?” or “What would make your school, the world, your parents, the universe better?” Adolescence is often a time when young people think about these questions yet the secondary school curriculum seldom provides spaces for exploring them. Hart suggests that students should be given the opportunity to generate their own questions.

Body focusing is another important activity that is often connected to mindfulness. So much of school keeps both the teacher and the students in their heads, so exercises that bring the person into body can reduce stress and provide energy. Hart cites the example from his own daughter’s class, where the first grade teacher has the children take off their shoes outside in order to feel their feet on the grass.

Concentrated language includes poetry and, more specifically, writing haiku. Writing freely encourages the student to write spontaneously on a particular subject and then reflect on what comes forth.

Published in 2004, Hart’s paper is still relevant and could be given to teachers as a way to start exploring contemplative education in their own classrooms.

The paper by Dencev and Collister (2010) also shows how a variety of contemplative exercises can be employed in the classroom. However, here the course is at the graduate level and focuses on Theories of Educational Administration. Collister was the instructor and Dencev was one of the students. The students were asked to engage in some form of contemplative practice for the duration of the course.

The type of practice they chose was not prescriptive, thus allowing practices to be as diverse as vipassana meditation, Christian praying (of various denominations), quiet contemplation by a river, playing the piano, working with and riding horses, and a myriad of others. (p. 184)

The class began with a short vipassana meditation (focused on the breath) and was followed by a loving kindness meditation. Two different kinds of loving kindness practice were used. The first focused on moving out from the individual geographically (the person, people in the room, in the building, in the town, and eventually the planet). The second focused on giving loving kindness to specific people moving from an individual to whom the student feels close, then a more neutral individual and finally someone where there is difficulty. Students had opportunities to share their contemplative experiences in small groups. The students were also to reflect on their practices by answering in writing 6–10 reflective questions. These questions were related to topics that were presented each week, which were designed to provide a larger context for the various contemplative practices. Sometimes videos from the “Global Oneness Project” (http://globalonenessproject.org/) were used.

Another strategy that used was Palmer’s (2004) “Circle of Trust.” Here, the students would make a comment that was related both to the topic being discussed and also to holistic thinking, which focuses on such principles as “everything is separate and connected” (p. 187). Each person’s comment was followed by a short period of silence. The authors state, “The circle process encouraged mindfulness, deep listening, and authentic relationships in community” (p. 187). A final aspect of the course was applying the ideas from the course to the individual student’s specific context. This was done through appreciative inquiry which explores the “exceptional best of ‘what is’ […] to help ignite what ‘might be’” (Cooperrider, Whitney, & Stavros, 2008, p. 5). The authors write, “The aim is to generate new knowledge of a collectively desired future. At the heart of AI are deep reflection, dialogue, visioning, and construction” (p. 188). The authors state that course led to a “remarkably transformative learning experience” for the whole class, and some students experienced transformative learning that included a shift in consciousness.

Two papers focus on teaching mindfulness (Burrows, 2015; Robinson, 2004). Robinson’s paper is a moving narrative of how she attempted to introduce certain learning practices (e.g., sitting in a circle and working small groups) to Buddhist nuns in Cambodia. She found these approaches did now work and she writes “I still cringe at my arrogance” (p. 111). Robinson uses mindfulness practice to look at her own clingings and ego. At the University of Massachusetts, she teaches mindfulness meditation to students, faculty, and staff. She writes that:

The practice is an effort to support the student in moving toward the release of the compulsive or debilitating aspects of the false belief system or self-negating and in cultivating equanimity, warmth, and a loving awareness of these patterns so one can let them go. A more authentic identity is revealed that reflects a greater send of connectedness and wholeness. (pp. 115–116).

Burrows employed a different approach to mindfulness, which he calls “nondual.” He describes it subsequently:

Mindfulness capacity is understood to be already present within the individual waiting to be catalyzed by the presence of someone who has already had experience of the state of nonduality—a “primordial, natural aware-ness” (Prendergast, n.d.)—in which all things are understood to be connected and not separate, while at the same time retaining their individuality. In the spiritual teacher Krishnamurti’s (1971/2005, p. 97) words “To bring about a radical transformation in society and oneself, the observer must undergo a tremendous change—that is to realize that the observer and the observed are one.’’ (p. 3)

This approach to mindfulness was employed to help teachers from eight schools in Australia deal with a self-identified relational dilemma with a student, colleague, or parent who was causing a concern at work. The strategy of “innersensing” was used, where the participants felt the sensations in their body while also being aware of what is going around them. Through the innersensing approach to mindfulness, Burrows found that the process allowed insights to arise that helped the teachers resolve the dilemmas. Participants also become more compassionate toward themselves and saw the situation from “a nuanced and multidimensional perspective” (p. 9).

Barbezat and Bush (2014) address issues that arise when introducing contemplative practices including some of the limitation and pitfalls. The recommendations they make for instructors to avoid some of the pitfalls are worth citing here:

A committed practice of their own, which allow them to plan their timing, adapt practices as needed and process the students’ experience afterward.

Attention to and knowledge of the context from which the practices arise and the appropriate incorporation of the tradition into the classroom.

Freedom for students to maintain their own beliefs while not requiring them to believe anything specific in order to engage in the exercises.

Humility and clarity so that students new to these practice do not identify them exclusively with the teacher.

Awareness of the different backgrounds of the students to that practice can be introduced in the most open and accessible manner.

Recognition that these practices are powerful complementary to other forms of teaching and learning (pp. 84–85)

Conclusion

These nine papers provide a varied and comprehensive picture of contemplative education. Also explored is the relationship between contemplative education and transformative learning. I was interested in Morgan’s (2015) comment that “both take a holistic approach to education” (p. 15). This is my principal area of inquiry, and I also believe that holistic education provides a broad framework that incorporates contemplative education and transformational learning (Miller, 2007, 2010). Holistic education focuses on educating the whole person and is based on the principles of interconnectedness. Contemplative practices and transformative learning strategies are integral to a holistic approach. I have argued that contemplative practices can be integrated into the higher education curriculum in ways that support transformative learning (Miller, 2014). I work in the area of teacher education and have introduced meditation to both beginning and experienced teachers. The rationale of this work is that it helps teachers deal with the stresses of the classroom and also can allow them to be more fully present to their students.

The literature of contemplative education continues to grow. Two recent important additions referred to earlier include with the work of Jennings (2015) and Barbezat and Bush (2014). Jennings focuses on elementary and secondary education, while the Barbezat and Bush text deals with higher education. Both these texts are grounded in the research and also offer a variety of teaching/learning approaches that can be used in the classroom. Together, with the papers in this edition of the Journal of Transformative Education, these texts provide educators have a wealth of material to support their work in contemplative education.

Jack MillerProfessor, University of Toronto