Assignment inspiration from "The Heart of Higher Education"

Palmer and Zajonc's book The Heart of Higher Education is helping with assignment generation.  The authors advocate for 'whole student' education of heart, mind, and body.  [I like to remember that no Eastern language has two words for 'heart' and 'mind' but rather considers them one in the same.]   In general, they want educators and administrators to be mindful of the fact that none of us is composed of independent, separate parts, but rather always part of a larger, interdependent whole.

In terms of job satisfaction and spiritual integrity for the practitioner, the authors importantly remind me that "we can choose the way we teach" (pg. 89).  We are able to incorporate spirit in the questions, reflections, experiences, etc. that we emphasize in class assignments. 

In terms of assignments, I am reminded:

• I would like students (especially in Introduction to Sociology, but maybe in all courses) to have a dedicated notebook for the course that they will use to record daily questions, etc. in relation to the text.  The notebook would be exchanged with a peer at the start of class.  The peer would share the example(s) they liked best or had a question about.  The sharing would facilitate praise for student work from another and also community building and accountability.
  
• In Introduction to LGBT Studies, I hope to have more student assignments be extensions of the text.  Rather than having students just use the text to illuminate cross cultural comparisons, I would like them to pick a country and research attitudes and laws further on their own to bring back and share with a partner.
  
• In all classes, I think it will be important to have larger projects (interview, experiential, personal or group change or service learning) that will be formally presented in class.
   

• To consider beginning each class with a social construction framework with respect to identity and duality.  I think it may be more important to identify, up front, the dangers of divisive, dualistic identity construction.  I would like to start out by challenging the 'solidity' of big identity structures (race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) and look at the damage done by reifying and creating inequality on the basis of these identities.  I would like to add the false duality of 'democrat' and 'republican' and the damage done by dualistic problem-solving approaches as well.
• I would like to integrate many 'thought' experiment assignments as advocated by the authors.  I no longer see the need for exams in sociology so much as for creative, imaginative, application and analysis based experiential assignments.  I could see using a derivation of the assignment on pg. 85 in Heart of... wherein students are asked to be mindful of consumption in considering daily costs (e.g., the cost of one latte could provide hydration therapy for 5 children in a developing country).
• Similarly, I would like to try the 'interbeing project' (pg. 85-86) whereby students observe in a service environment (e.g., fast food, big box store) and look at (without judgment) how shoppers are behaving.  The students then apply the same awareness/mindfulness to their own pattrns of consumption and compare.  For instance, "How attentive are they to what they are doing at any moment?  What would it mean for us if we were more aware of our consumption?"
• I also like the exercise on pg. 86 that employs technology to facilitate mindful consumption by asking students to use online resources available through smart phones, etc. to investigate products or practices just prior to consumption or use.
• As mentioned in an earlier blog, I also want to try the tonglen meditation and time for quiet reflection at the start/end of class mentioned in the appendix.  I think that students will grow to appreciate a brief silence to reflect.  I think they might truly enjoy the opportunity to direct 'peace' and 'happiness' to themselves as well as others (tonglen, as applied here, would allow them to send feelings of peace and happiness to those who are suffering as described in our readings and experiential assignments.

In all of these ventures, I see the authors affirming my desire to 'sit beside' rather than 'stand over' my students (pg. 171) upon my return.

In an institutional context, they suggest the importance of ambassadors helping to spread the word about mindfulness resources throughout the administration and faculty, which I would be excited to do via KCELT and other fall/winter faculty trainings.