The Yoda of all assignment lists?

So much reform in curricula for the fall in order to infuse spirit, sense of purpose/self, and experience in education.

• I'll be trying the 'sit beside' instead of 'stand over' model.
• We'll invoke a variety of personal/group change, experiential (e.g., explorations in nature, service learning agency profiles), non-profit agency research, historical (tax rates per "Inequality for All")and cross-cultural comparison research (e.g., Denmark homelessness, health insurance, education, and taxation), interview, current event, example/application, lectio divina reflection pieces etc., in dynamic engagement with the text.  Where engagement with the text contradicts research or experience, the approach will be one of questioning rather than assuming that I have the right answers.
• Assignments will ask students to work toward figuring out how they want to relate to the world now (e.g., what they do/buy) and in the future (e.g., their contribution in the work world that supports their spirit).  Again, I cannot decide this for them.  I can only use theory and the text to help them learn what questions to ask in their lives.  Clearly, I do not have all of the answers myself and need not be conceived of as the source of all learning!
• Class assignments must retain hope.  As stated in Nature and the Human Soul (henceforth NHS) by Lewis Carroll (pg. 456) from "Alice in Wonderland" "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."  Likewise, Einstein (same pg.) "No problem can be solved fromt he same level of consciousness that created it."  On pg. 313 of NHS, Vaclav Havel also states: "Either we have hope within us or we don't; it is a dimension of the soul.  Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not hte same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.  The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is."  As noted on pg. 25 of CTL (see next paragraph), while 'great and all,' "critical thinking, when it becomes an ethic, can turn into a metaphysics of nihilism or a psychology of pessimism...like a carefully employed butcher knife hacks the whole animal to pieces.  Contemplative teaching teaches on the other side of critical thinking...where affirmation is again possible."  After all, "contemplation of our subjects teaches that freedom is always a freedom to love, and that love must always spring from an inner freedom." (pg. 27).

Per the issue Contemplative Teaching and Learning (henceforth CTL with citations from pg. numbers though an edited volume) from the journal New Directions for Community Colleges, future assignments will focus heavily on the above as well as much slower, more deliberate, and in-depth reflection on readings. Reflection, contemplation, and spiritual integration (not in the religious, but in the life purpose sense) benefits teacher, administrator, and student (pg. 19,92-93).  Future work can further explore (along with KCELT, admissions, and counseling services) how contemplative practices might improve campus climate.  [Quotes in section immediately below all from CTL.]

• Rather than quantity, we will focus on quality and depth of reading with frequent reflection assignments that apply or analyze (see second bullet above).  Passages of text will be "reflection" pieces per lectio divina (pgs. 14, 34, 44).  The authors of all entries suggest contemplative learning is most apt for the fragmented lives of community college students.  Reflection assignments will likely start on the first day of class.
• All of the quoted passages in this blog (and the others noted here from NHS and CTL) can be the source of lectio divina reflections.  Likewise, the textbook and other texts (e.g., the fabulous quote near the beginning of Occupy Spirituality re: the enduring myth of the meritocracy) should be the source of material for lectio divina.
• Assignments will ask how what we are studying impacts what is going on with students' lives in the present and how it is connected to history and other people in a bit picture way (pg. 22).  One instructor (pg. 24) asks students to consider: "Although this course fulfills a requirement, I can make it my own by_____________________?"
• Noting Berry's (pg. 37) observation that "community cannot survive under the rule of competition" (as is the case for present economic systems [this could be a reflection quote for any class as well!]), the classroom is a sangha and needs spiritual healing.  I plan to use metta (loving kindness meditation) to help support/heal individuals and our classroom community (pg. 36).  We will direct happiness and peace to ourselves and to all beings faced with the difficult subject matter we will address.
• We will try to remember solutions are not dualistic though society presents them this way and will instead focus on questioning and pondering the multiplicity of solutions available beyond the limiting, dualistic options.  We will remember that "listening is loving" (according to "Hector...and the Search for Happiness").
• We will study (again, possibly as early as the first week of class) the limits of all dualistic or fixed labels in society.  The problems of socially constructed 'divide and conquer' identities will be a recurring theme.
• The syllabus and assignments will leave many things independent and unstructured to reflect our fluidity (pg. 84-85).  We will have specific discussions about the anxiety this might generate and talk about how to address this.  Likewise, we will talk about any anxiety concerning the 'sit beside' rather than 'stand over' model of education and challenges to assumptions about a 'sole source of learning.'

• Building on the work of Palmer and Fox, we will explore education as a means to find your life's path in a way that is spiritually rewarding as well as remunerative.  We will ask "what am I meant for" and "how can I be for myself and also for others" (pg. 103, CTL).  Since our subject is sociology which relates to all aspects of life in community including vocation, we will be exploring our subject matter as also an issue of vocatio that will fulfill students as they age rather than leaving them at age 40 wondering about their life's purpose (see pg. 238, 255-7, and 316-7 of NHS).  This level of reflection is one of the predicating tenets of Nature and the Human Soul (NHS) [quotes below are from NHS).

NHS (as well as CTL on pg. 107) also advocates strongly for the return to nature (and an 'ecocentric' orientation) as a balance to the 'culture-centric' model in modern society (pg. 4-5).  [To this end, I will camp!  Just like with the spirit, if you want to return to nature, you have to have an experience in nature.  D'uh.]  We can use lectio divina on various passages from NHS including those that argue we suffer from our alienation from the natural world (these also sound a bit like Marx and can be used with free association on capitalism, communism, and socialism) (pg. 6-7).  According to NHS, a truly actualized society is not necessarily a "developed" society (use pg. 7, 46-47, 210 (and globalization here), 448-9, 452-4 for in-class reflections on this) but rather one that learns to balance culture with the realities of our interbeing/dependence with the natural.

• A course inspired by NHS will be "soulcentric" in the sense that it is "designed to assist all members in discovering and living from their deepest and most fulfilling potentials in this way contributing their most life-nourishing gifts to their community and environment."  More broadly, then, "a society that is soulcentric is necessarily ecocentric" since the individual's place is always "granted and revealed by nature.  In so doing, the society roots itself in the natural world.  the greater Earth community is accurately understood as the locus of every person's first membership...[with] interconnectedness with everything else."  Thus, "to say that a culture is ecocentric is to say that its customs, traditions, and practices are rooted in an awareness of radical interdependence with all beings." (pg. 45).  This is in contrast with the typical, egocentric models on which we can also reflect (pg. 224-5).  We can use the passages on pg. 124 and 126-7 to explore the social construction of such things as ADHD within the 'nature-deficit' model proposed.  We can wonder how a mind orientation (rather than nature) might be harming our (and our children's) ability to care about life (pg. 126-7).  We can reflect on the importance of identifying with place and with how this allows us to be our fully integrated selves rather than just consumers convinced of our fundamental separation from "nature" (pg. 144-145, 155-7, AND 261 [re: consumption of material resources] passages for lectio divina).
• Relatedly, we can try the exercises on pg. 158-160 in all classes to see how we might reestablish a connection to our environment rather than remaining separate and isolated from it.
• We can try the exercises on pg. 195 and 196 also to try to learn more about our connection in terms of the plants, animals, and food sources around us.
• Additionally, we might investigate pg. 205 to see what we think of the divisions of 'masculine' and 'feminine.'  [Eh hem.]
• Contemplation via reflection (lectio divina) and meditation (metta, mindfulness as a means to awareness and a "pause" in the action before reacting) also helps us to practice questioning, curiosity, beginner's mind, and innocence (child's mind) in our pursuits.  We will be better apt to be equanimous rather than reactive as a result of our awareness of sensation, thought, and interconnection (pg. 106).
• For quote on syllabus?:  "Not all those who wander are lost" (J.R.R. Tolkien).  Related to this (pg. 285), NHS advocates for experiencing (pg. 402-3) above all else and abandoning the preoccupation with self (or the "I, me, mine") in favor of seeing the interdependence of all.  We need to provide experiential, service learning, and volunteer activities for students with mentorship.  Students need 'employable skills,' but also the lived experiences that will allow them to take their place in an integrated, soul/eco-centric (rather than ego-) society (pg. 212).  Through ecocentric and soulcentric ways of being, we will arrive at service work that creates new and hopeful social institutions (pg. 292).  As a result of our experiences, we will act out our truth as part of nature (pg. 326).
• For those who think we have lost our minds focusing on our fundamental interdependence, we can remember Einstein's words (pg. 402) that "We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest- a kind of optical delusion of consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us.  Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."