Haight 2010

Source:   RESEARCH ARTICLE

APA Citation:

Haight, R. (2010). The classroom is a sangha: Contemplative education in the community college. New Directions for Community Colleges, 151, 29-38.

Author bio:

Robert Haight teaches meditation and creative writing at Kalamazoo Valley Community College in Michigan.

Notes:

Proposals to solve problems in troubled school districts (and the corresponding lack of discussion about the strength of programs in wealthy districts) seem to ignore the simple reality that a school district will be a microcosm of the community in which it is situated. 29

The most troubled school districts in the country are located in the most disintegrated urban communities 29

The community college continues to be much discussed as the place where training workers for ‘the jobs of the future’ will offer salvation to a stagnant economy rife with high unemployment – the place where individuals dislocated from careers will be trained anew, where those who failed to make the grade in Adequate Yearly Progress will be remediated, where those who performed superlatively but without the funds to attend an elite college or university will be educated. 30

This chapter proposes that a contemplative approach to education has the potential to lessen student anxiety, increase student happiness, and prepare students to build a personal foundation. With training in contemplative practices, students will be better prepared to meet future challenges that cannot be known in the current in the present and will develop skills required to continue learning and growing as conditions continuously change. Contemplative practices can be infused into any course to help build increased attention, concentration, awareness, and compassion toward one-self and others. 31

Evaluation is a skill – one that is both important and necessary for students and their instructors. The problem in some classrooms is that evaluation has run amok. It is occurring incessantly, uncontrolled, often interfering with learning. 32

To engender an attitude of nonjudgment is not to forgo decisions or evaluations but to refrain from allowing a judgmental stance to prevent one from seeing a complete picture … a nonjudgmental attitude is a course to follow on a journey. The evaluation can occur once the journey is complete and one is resting in the harbor. 33 (his argument is that students perform better, feel more free-er to experiment when they don’t feel so stressed with assessment and a fear of failure.)

Although it would be optimal to offer a contemplative curriculum to all students, including formal meditation as a course in itself, the practice of meditation can be infused into any course for limited periods of time and can have a positive impact not only on students’ abilities to concentrate and develop awareness but also on the class climate as well. 33

The classroom atmosphere that is created when a number of students and their instructor write in silence for ten minutes is positive and defining. This is an academic space, an intelligence space, a reflective space, the activity insists. The atmosphere of silent writing encourages students to reflect honestly on their lives. 35

Freewriting in a journal at the start of class sessions offers an excellent means to infuse a reflective element into any course, regardless of subject matter. It is time well spent.

Living together in harmony and living an examined and satisfied life no longer appear to be concerns for colleges to address … if we have discarded ideas of community for the value of competing against others for a place in the world economy, an economy of fewer resources, of little or no security, then we must be prepared to provide an education that results in more factionalism and more erosion of localities in favor of a corporatocracy. 37

If we make contemplative practice an integral part of education from kindergarten through college, we may not have to decry the dissolution and decay of civil behavior in our society, and happiness may increase in a population that has moved increasingly toward despair. Our educational journey of these thousand miles begins with this one step. 38 (Lao-tzu lives on!)