Cultivating a Culture of Learning

Reviews / Votes

Byrnes, Dalton, & Dorman have managed to achieve throughout their 3-volume, edited collection, ideas both practical and inspiring. They offer the reader great scope and depth in describing contemplative practices from a variety of settings and perspectives. Teacher educators will understand more deeply what contemplative education is, ways to incorporate its practices, and why it is so valuable in supporting teacher education students and practicing teachers. Throughout the chapters, they provide the tools for self-transformation through experiences that move the soul, awaken the heart, and strengthen pedagogical thinking. -- Sandra Finney PhD, author of "Strong Spirits, Kind Hearts," coauthor of "The Way of the Teacher" Cultivating a Culture of Learning is a profound and crucial wake-up call in the field of education. A collection of brilliant insights-contemporary and historical-into the need for mind-body-spirit balance and how to accomplish that in today's varied teaching environments. These educators value "process over product," a real coup in a world that needs more authenticity. This is precisely the sort of revamping our educational systems need! -- Chris Saade, author of "Second Wave Spirituality: Passion for Peace, Passion for Justice" In Cultivating a Culture of Learning, the contributors succeed in the difficult task of balancing scholarly rigor with transformative wisdom. They point beautifully to the power of contemplative practices in awakening the best qualities educators need to become masters in the art of teaching. With this artful collection, readers can learn a new paradigm for teaching with greater awareness, compassion, and skill. -- Daniel Rechtschaffen, author of, "The Way of Mindful Education: Cultivating Well-Being in Teachers and Students" As a recently retired Education professor, I am delighted Byrnes, Dalton, and Dorman are curating this series of books on contemplative teacher education. Several years ago, a student interested in contemplative education but frustrated with the lack of specific examples, said to me, 'I get what you are saying, but I have no idea how to teach that way.' Colleagues who may feel uncertain about 'stepping into the unknown' in their teaching, who prefer to plan lessons to eliminate uncertainty, will benefit from the theory of practice presented in this text. The essential understandings and practical models shared engage both teacher educators and students of teaching in deepening their understanding of contemplative teaching and learning. -- Tom Bassarear, retired professor of education, Keene State College Kathryn Byrnes, Jane E. Dalton, and Elizabeth Hope Dorman are to be commended for this vitally required three-volume series for the field of contemplative education. The series offers abundant riches in theory, application, and research for teacher education.
It is widely understood, if not applied, that if schools are to avoid becoming increasingly irrelevant and ineffective in an age of distraction, anxiety, and superficiality, then how we educate educators has to change. At a time where, on a global scale, radical changes in K-12 curricula are occurring, these volumes are indeed welcome. Doubling down on instructional strategies, e-learning devices, and content expertise miss the point entirely: we need to attend to the inner lives of aspiring teachers so they in turn can foster a learning environment that honors both the interior and exterior world of students.
The three-volume work edited by Byrnes, Dalton, and Dorman fills a timely need to apply the principles and processes of contemplative inquiry to pre-service teacher education. Today's teacher education needs to include contemplative orientations to address the challenges of pre-service teachers becoming more fully human and to offer specific contemplative foundations and approaches for those who design and teach in pre-service programs. The essays in these volumes will be valuable to both faculty and the pre-service teachers themselves.
Drawing from a rich and eclectic range of teacher education programs infused with various contemplative practices, the first volume, Cultivating a Culture of Learning: Contemplative Practice, Pedagogy, and Research in Education, serves as an extremely useful primer. The editors and authors outline the many benefits contemplative orientations and pedagogies offer, reminding us that teaching and learning "at its best is one of the most elemental of human exchanges," one that requires "all dimensions of human awareness and action." Contemplative approaches allow us to deepen the inquiry into self, self-with-other, and self-with-the-world, and the contributors in this first volume offer a truly rich banquet of insight, depth, and practical pedagogical and curricular suggestions. They cover theory, practices, and research into the application of contemplative inquiry in teacher education, and they write from first-hand experience. Importantly, the chapters in this book advocate for creating spaces where the inner life is nurtured and plumbed, allowing intuition, creativity, and heart-centered learning to flourish.
The examples of pre-service training initiatives outlined in volume one, while different in pedagogical approach, share a common commitment to illuminating and developing the inner lives of students. By providing such an illustrative array of program examples, the editors demonstrate that there are many paths to the same destination.
Perhaps the greatest contribution in this book by Byrnes, Dalton, and Dorman is the recognition that the inner lives of teachers and their students are neither incidental nor insignificant, but rather, essential ingredients in engaged, dynamic teaching and sustained deep learning. This volume is timely and needed on its own, and generates positive anticipation about the two volumes yet to come. -- Heesoon Bai, Laurie Anderson, and Charles Scott, program coordinators of Master of Education in Contemplative Inquiry and Approaches to Education, Simon Fraser University, Canada