Abstract
Oren Ergas’s (2017) Reconstructing ‘Education’ Through Mindful Attention provides a needed fresh perspective on education, curriculum, and pedagogy through his argument that we should position the mind at the center of learning. He makes the argument that “in here” learning should be as visible and valued as “out there” or third person learning. Ergas argues that “education” as we know it is missing any emphasis on the actual mind itself. He writes, “we have somehow managed to construct an incredibly thoughtful operation called ‘education’ that is to ‘make minds’ yet we never stop to directly examine the mind that this operation is to shape” (p. 9). The idiom one “can’t see the forest for the trees” has meaning with Ergas’s book, as he articulates the ways in which education holds power as a social construct—but one that only privileges third-person learning and devalues or makes invisible first-person learning and experience.
Purpose and Details of the Book
Central to his argument for positioning the mind at the center, Ergas cites the recent “contemplative turn” (Barbezat & Bush, 2014; Gunnlaugson, Sarath, Scott, & Bai, 2014) in education as that movement underlines this need for first-person learning through contemplative practices and approaches that connect mindfulness with learning. He asks, “Do we have enough ‘inside’ information about the mind we are trying to shape?” (p. 9).
His argument for a focus on the inside grows from many wisdom traditions originating in India. Ergas argues for a kind of learning that establishes an approach that is “embodied, concrete, and valid for you, but at the same time, it probably applies to anyone around you.” He adds that this approach to education should be “both about the mind as a universal and about your mind in particular” (p. 19).
Throughout the structure of the book, Ergas discusses and makes clear the theoretical perspectives and underpinning(s) needed to understand his argument for a focus in education on in here mindful attention. He argues that there are false demarcations between and among research, theory, and practice and offers this book as a “mind-opener…Not as an end but as a beginning” (p. 22). He does not claim infallibility but rather shares his own exploration(s) of what it means to learn. He offers many examples from his own teaching experiences along with mindful “experiments” throughout the book that are helpful and illustrative. He explains that engaging in these experiments may be helpful in making abstract notions more understandable through one’s own concrete experiences. Ergas makes plain that it is his goal to convince the reader that the missing part to education is a focus on in here learning that needs to be valued and exercised. Drawing on the work of John Dewey, Eliot Eisner, William James, and others, Ergas reveals what is currently accepted as status quo in education—knowing facts instead of knowing one’s self or developing one’s interiority. James’s (2007) work is cited early and often, and Ergas uses his ideas to illustrate how we experience reality from moment to moment and how we “as individuals, are positioned to reconstruct as well as practice ‘education’” (p. 20).
There are three parts to the book. Part I, has two chapters, which explore abstract notions of what Ergas refers to as the “physics” of education or fundamentals of experience. Building from James’s ideas, Ergas’s notion of the “matrix of the mind,” which starts with attention and places it in time and space and what Ergas delineates as “the kind of possibilities that open up for ‘education’ as a mind-making process” (p. 20). Part II has two chapters, and they view, diagnose, and critique curricular and pedagogical approaches to modern education. This critiques how society decides what is considered “knowledge,” and Ergas points out that this version of knowledge negates or is oblivious to what is happening inside any individual’s mind and body. Part III, with four chapters, lays the groundwork for how society and mind have created a system that expels ourselves (the in here learning) from the curriculum and offers a way out through enacting inner curriculum; celebrating mindful attention as a base; and bringing together psychology, phenomenology, and neuroscience. After introducing many abstract ideas and manifesting them in practice, Part III makes way for his argument for positioning the mind at the center of curriculum and pedagogy. In the conclusion, he admits that his book is “way beyond the understanding of the current construct of education, as we know it” (p. 303). However, this is why his book deserves wide dissemination to be in conversation with dynamic perspectives on how learning happens and how to improve learning.
Contributions and Connections to Transformative Learning Theory
Ergas’s work aligns with learning as a transformative process and the theory of transformative learning (Mezirow, 1991) because his work offers new perspective taking and underlines holistic learning connections made to body, mind, and spirit. His work goes beyond meaning-making and makes clear that third-person learning, what Ergas refers to as out there learning, is incomplete without connecting it to first-person learning or what he calls in here learning. Ergas’s work resonates with other researchers (e.g., Panitsides & Papastamatis, 2014) who have been investigating and broadening the vision of transformative learning beyond reflection into holistic education. Tobin Hart, like Oren Ergas, identifies and emphasizes contemplative knowing and a focus on mindful attention, as essential yet missing from today’s classrooms.
In line with transformative learning theories, Ergas and Hart make clear that contemplative teaching and learning can enrich analytic and other ways of knowing. The ideas of Jack Miller, one of the most important voices in holistic education, also resonate through Ergas’s work, which echoes Miller’s work, but takes it one step further to position the mind at the center of learning.
This book is an important contribution to education and how mindful attention and inner curriculum are left behind or invisible. Ergas challenges the status quo, and his book provides fresh, out-of-the-box perspectives on the bedrock assumptions about what qualifies as knowledge, and what it means to be an educated person in the 21st century. This text would be desirable for reading groups that engage the community, parents, and teachers in dialogue (and mindfulness activities) and in communal work to help students develop into active members of a democratic society.