** 5 minute Read **
On Wednesday June 7th, 2023 members of the CPN steering group Chiara Cirillo, Rosie Holmes and Mike Wride took part in a panel discussion on Designing Contemplative Learning, which was very ably facilitated by Tony Reeves of Ding Learning.
It was a well-attended and wide-ranging discussion which was very enjoyable for everyone involved.
Tony’s excellent questions addressed the following areas (with timestamps if you would like to delve into the video).
Designing Contemplative Learning – the Contemplative Pedagogy Network from Ding Learning on Vimeo.
What is contemplative pedagogy? How do you define it?
1:30 CP is very broad, but a key feature is moving from a third person to a first-person approach and including the lived inner experience of both the educator and the learner. It involves intentionally slowing down and creating more space for reflection, moving away from doing, producing, performing, speed, and efficiency, and also cultivating less judgemental attitudes, kindness, discernment, and curiosity. The whole idea is that it resists definitions in itself – it stays ‘open with’. It has the qualities of awareness and openness – opening up to ways of learning beyond the kind of critical thinking that is normally considered valid in HE. It allows the body, emotions and intuitions to also be valid forms of learning. Reflection is familiar to us, but contemplation is an even more spacious and expanded way of learning. So, it has benefits and complexities. Particularly in an era of AI, where everything is speeding up, there is a need for an embodied and more contemplative approach to help us slow down. The book The Slow Professor is a good example of this (Berg & Seeber, 2016).
Why did you become interested in the value of contemplation in learning? What caused you to start investigating this area?
4:50 Mike described his personal story of becoming interested in Goethean science, mindfulness and heartfulness in scientific research. For more on Goethean Science see Franses & Wride (2015)
What are the main benefits that a contemplative approach to pedagogy brings to learning?
8:30 ‘How’ we know is as important as ‘what’ we know (Hart, 2004). The benefits are numerous. For example, CP has a very important role in health & wellbeing and flourishing, but it is not limited to that. Benefits also enable more engagement and asking questions like why is this important to you and the world? It improves focus and attention and helps us make creative links between things. It also helps us connect to others in community and to the environment and wider world. It also helps to develop self-awareness and helps us reveal our hidden biases, which is helpful around inclusivity and diversity. CP is a great tool to slow down and help us question our habits and biases. For example, there are potential implications of AI for assessment, i.e. we need to assess how students come to know things. Our biases can influence the prompts we put into the AI. We can develop a deep sense of ethical concern and create a deep space for connection with the subject, with others and with the more than human world in terms of the self in relationship.
When you’re designing or redesigning a learning experience, how might you introduce more contemplative practices? What would it look like?
14:55 We can be less influenced by the need to ‘cover content’ and create more space in the curriculum. It is an act of resistance to create space for contemplation and use related practices such as poetic transcription (Smart & Loads, 2017) to see and learn differently, e.g. turning a manual for a piece of engineering equipment into a poem. This enables us to tell what we know. We can use the classroom time more productively through a flipped classroom approach for example where students come prepared to discuss or reflect on a particular topic. We can also translate CP practices such as mindfulness to online. Although it has its challenges, it can be easier to teach online – maybe at home people are more relaxed and find it easier to connect.
You’re also hosting an event in the autumn as the Contemplative Pedagogy Network – what is the focus of the event, and where can people find more information about it?
22:30 We provided an overview of the Contemplative Pedagogy Symposium, Dartington, Devon Sept 4-6th, 2023 ‘Contemplative Pedagogy in Higher Education: Growing Confidence, Creativity and Community’. We are encouraging courage! See Up-Coming Events | Contemplative Pedagogy Network for more details.
How can we align assessment and CPs?
25:57 There are different levels of reflection (Hatton & Smith, 1995) and different kinds of reflective rubrics, e.g. see Assessment rubrics | The University of Edinburgh. We need to have a way for students to be rewarded for their first-person narratives – not only the ‘what’ of their subject, but also the ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions are the means by which students can gain the ability to reflect at deeper levels. There is also the possibility of combining self-reflection and peer review. Students share reflective pieces with each other and discuss the levels of reflection they have achieved.
What are some of the main barriers that prevent tutors and lecturers from adopting contemplative pedagogy?
28:55 We can lack confidence to implement CPs. We often worry about the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way of doing it! There can be a time pressure to cover the material, as well as the pressure to prepare for assessment. Because you’re bringing something new to the classroom or a less mainstream approach, there is also the possibility of students pushing back and not recognising the value of moving beyond the usual ways of learning. It may not feel very rational to the students, so they might think that it’s not ‘in the right place’ with regard to academia. There are different models, e.g. the Alive Model from appreciative inquiry (Cockell et al., 2020) to maintain academic rigour while enabling spaces for debate.
If you could give one piece of advice to help teachers and learning designers shift towards a more contemplative approach, what would it be?
31:35 The main barrier is over-coming habits. We tend to do things the way we have been taught. So, the word ‘disruption’ is important – it takes courage and confidence to try new things out, e.g. trying to implement some quiet time at the beginning of a lecture. It doesn’t always have to be explicitly stated. We can also practice mindfulness to be more present in the classroom, e.g. model generosity, respect and good listening. It can be fruitful and enjoyable to break out of our habits and try new things, which can bring a lot of pleasure to the way we work.
How can CPs help develop emotional intelligence?
33:40 By definition various CPs allows us to be more aware of our bodies through breathing into our chests/hearts to enter a space where students can become more aware of the value of the unique ‘other’ through compassion and empathy, as outlined by Levinas (Todd, 2002). In terms of habitual lenses, measurement is so intrinsically part of what we are asked to do. However, CPs gives us an opportunity to consider whether measurement is absolutely necessary and whether it is useful to challenge/resist measurement. We would like a more expansive and deeper way of doing things, which helps to develop emotional intelligence. We can apply the principles of CPs to group work, to help students work in groups – to appreciate the value of conflict. How can the quality of my work be improved by the ability to actively listen and compromise? There is then potentially less conflict. This is an example of where emotional intelligence is useful. An appreciation of the ability to recognise feelings. What are the spaces where we do have agency? We do have control in the classroom and the kind of learning experiences we create, which can be an act of resistance. We are trying to raise our awareness to a higher level. We are looking for a definition of a what a ‘higher’ education should be. It is about ourselves, and others and how we interact in terms of ‘head, heart and hands’. For example, in data analysis courses, where the most important thing is developing the ability to work effectively with each other and to trouble shoot at a higher level.
Do you encounter pushback from colleagues?
43:05 Perhaps academic meetings could begin with a short period of contemplation/tuning in. It is good to provide evidence of its effectiveness, e.g. from neuroscience about the benefits to learning, communication, and resolving conflict. There are lots of things we can do in the classroom, but we can also take our students out of the classroom, e.g. a contemplative walk that combines dialogue and silence (Wride & Franses, 2015).
How diverse are the educators within the CPs community? Can CPs have a role in race, class and gender?
47:20 There is an opportunity to integrate mindfulness into anti-oppression pedagogy (Berila, 2015) and Contemplative Practices for Anti-Oppression Pedagogy (contemplativepracticesforantioppressionpedagogy.com). The aim is to break out of existing habits. CPs can support being more mindful of and attentive to these issues. The network is quite diverse. CP started in the US and Canada and has a long history. There is a lot of work done around racial justice and other forms of oppression, e.g. issues around indigenous land. CPs provide a way into a more critical approach, e.g. the work of bell hooks and Paulo Freire in terms of practical strategies and theories of social justice. CPs can be very helpful in activist burnout, and this can extend to academic work (O’Dwyer et al. 2018). CPs overlap with critical pedagogies. We can also open up to the compassionate by integrating CPs into teaching & learning (Bai et al., 2013). There is also an opportunity to immerse ourselves in nature, in opening us up to the ‘more-than-human world’ and helping us to empathise with and have compassion for nature, which is so important in our current predicament.
References
Berg, M., & Seeber, B. K. (2016). The slow professor: Challenging the culture of speed in the academy. University of Toronto Press.
Berila, B. (2015). Integrating mindfulness into anti-oppression pedagogy: Social justice in higher education. Routledge.
Cockell, J., McArthur-Blair, J., & Schiller, M. (2020). Appreciative inquiry in higher education: A transformative force. FriesenPress.
Franses, P., & Wride, M. (2015). Goethean pedagogy: A case in innovative science education and implications for work based learning. Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, 5(4), 339-351. https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-06-2015-0037
Hart, T. (2004). Opening the contemplative mind in the classroom. Journal of transformative education, 2(1), 28-46. https://doi.org/10.1177/15413446032593
Hatton, N., & Smith, D. (1995). Reflection in teacher education: Towards definition and implementation. Teaching and teacher education, 11(1), 33-49. https://doi.org/10.1016/0742-051X(94)00012-U
O’Dwyer, S., Pinto, S., & McDonough, S. (2018). Self-care for academics: a poetic invitation to reflect and resist. Reflective Practice, 19(2), 243–249
Smart, F., & Loads, D. (2017). Poetic transcription with a twist: supporting early career academics through liminal spaces. International Journal for academic development, 22(2), 134-143. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2016.1210519
Todd, S. (2002). On not knowing the Other, or learning from Levinas. Philosophy of Education yearbook, 67-74.
Wride, M.A. & Franses, P. (2015) Creative Development of Meaning in Matter: Reflections on a Silent Pilgrimage. Lifewide Magazine Issue 15 (Our Creative Life), p48-50. https://www.lifewideeducation.uk/uploads/1/3/5/4/13542890/lifewide_magazine__15.pdf
Contemplative Pedagogy Network 