The presence found for opening to the future: points for a pedagogy of resistance

Perhaps, the greatest gift of the post-pandemic period that we are living is the recovery of a presence that we used to take for granted, not exclusively mediated by the screen of our digital tools. We are gradually coming back ‘to presence’: to school, to work, to the gym, to the restaurant. However, We have to deal with what we have experienced, with the crisis that we have gone through ‘and, specifically, we have to give educational value to this ‘rediscovered’ dimension, hoping that it’s definitive. In this regard, we will focus on the opportunity, more timely than ever, to promote, in a problematic key, educational models that, like those inspired by contemplative pedagogy, work not only on the quality of the presence in the here-and-now, a time constitutively dialogic finally rediscovered, a time to be nourished with sense of life and beauty, but that they also educate, focusing on the ability to ethically resolve individual, social, collective problems, to a responsible projection towards the future.

Contemplative Pedagogy: Creating Mindful Educators and Classrooms

Purpose: This tutorial introduces communication sciences and disorders (CSD) educators to contemplative pedagogy (sometimes called mindfulness in the classroom). While contemplative pedagogy has considerable overlap with evidence-based teaching and learning, and aligns with values in the CSD discipline, there are few published reports investigating the role of contemplative pedagogy in CSD education. This tutorial outlines the potential benefits of contemplative pedagogy to CSD education and offers suggestions on how to create mindful educators and classrooms. Specific contemplative practices are described. Basic instructions, along with ideas and examples of how practices can be modified and contextualized in CSD classrooms, are provided. Conclusions: Educators can bring contemplative practices into CSD classrooms in many ways. Educators can cultivate a contemplative disposition through a personal practice that can enhance the development of self-awareness. Self-awareness can then inform critical reflection of teaching. Educators can select and design contemplative practices that integrate students' first-, second-, and third-person ways of knowing. As an addition to the pedagogical toolbox, contemplative pedagogy offers opportunities for educators and students to connect their own values and experiences with the process of teaching and learning.

Finding Sanctuary and Strength in the LIS Classroom

In the spirit of contemplative pedagogy, this panel introduces The Tree of Contemplative Practices – a graphic representation that helps educators and students to understand the main principles and seven major types of contemplative practices. Using the Tree as a framework, enthusiasts can learn contemplative practices in a systematic, secular, and bespoke manner. Sequentially, the moderator and presenters will: 1) Encapsulate their commitment to contemplative pedagogy; 2) Recount an application of The Tree of Contemplative Practices in their teaching; and 3) Demonstrate several of the Tree’s major limbs (e.g. generative) and branches (e.g. loving-kindness meditation).

‘Teaching of’ and ‘Teaching about’ Meditation

The growing interest in meditation and meditation inspired classroom practices has garnered a share of advocates and detractors. The recent critiques in Candy Gunther Brown’s Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools (2019) offer the most trenchant legal and ethical obstacles to implementing a contemplative education in American public schools. I trace the contours of Brown’s legal claims relevant to higher education and propose a pathway forward by arguing for the importance of underpinning contemplative practices with sound pedagogical theory. I offer one example of contemplative pedagogy based on metacognition as implemented in my Zen Buddhism course.