This video has been prepared for The Collaborative for Spirituality in Education, Teachers College of Columbia U. in NYC (Oct. 2022)
Intended audience: Teachers interested in rejuvenation, student transformation, spiritual healing.
Instructor: John Bickart, Ph.D.
Prerequisites: none
Web Page: https://www.bickart.org/
Recommended Reading: The Next Version of You, Bickart's Just-in-Time Fables, 20 Opportunities to Transform Yourself While Teaching
Workshop Abstract:
Four interactive exercises that reawaken your love of teaching. Do you constantly love teaching? Or are you like the rest of us - falling in and out of love? We teachers need forgiveness, accolades, compassion, and understanding. How will we get this? By looking through the eyes of our students!
Workshop Proposal:
I don't know about you, but I went to the school of hard knocks. When I was very young, everything looked good. As I got older, not so much. I guess the hard knocks got to me. Life brought difficulties, responsibilities, good days, and hard ones, too. Then, I started teaching. The youth I taught have given me a fresh start! If I consciously use their eyes to perceive the world, I have a window into the beautiful and the good. Yes, I have to make the effort, but it works. I believe that it works because the world is inherently good and the youth are innately wise enough to know this. They have a spiritual knowing that is true. They KNOW that the world is good. So, when I need to reawaken my love of teaching, I look into their eyes and through their eyes ... and there it is - the knowing that I had temporarily forgotten.
The interactive exercises we will do to reawaken this spiritual knowing are:
Instructor: John Bickart, Ph.D.
Prerequisites: none
Web Page: https://www.bickart.org/
Recommended Reading: The Next Version of You, Bickart's Just-in-Time Fables, 20 Opportunities to Transform Yourself While Teaching
Workshop Abstract:
Four interactive exercises that reawaken your love of teaching. Do you constantly love teaching? Or are you like the rest of us - falling in and out of love? We teachers need forgiveness, accolades, compassion, and understanding. How will we get this? By looking through the eyes of our students!
Workshop Proposal:
I don't know about you, but I went to the school of hard knocks. When I was very young, everything looked good. As I got older, not so much. I guess the hard knocks got to me. Life brought difficulties, responsibilities, good days, and hard ones, too. Then, I started teaching. The youth I taught have given me a fresh start! If I consciously use their eyes to perceive the world, I have a window into the beautiful and the good. Yes, I have to make the effort, but it works. I believe that it works because the world is inherently good and the youth are innately wise enough to know this. They have a spiritual knowing that is true. They KNOW that the world is good. So, when I need to reawaken my love of teaching, I look into their eyes and through their eyes ... and there it is - the knowing that I had temporarily forgotten.
The interactive exercises we will do to reawaken this spiritual knowing are:
- Exercise #1: Entertaining other Points of View by appreciating without needing to agree.
- Exercise #2: Achieve enough Vulnerability to put yourself in your students' hands.
- Exercise #3: Searching for The Unseen world of ideas to find one you may have had all of your life.
- Exercise #4: Giving yourself permission to have Fun - the deep sense of joy you deserve.
- Wisdom Teaching and Practical Exercises (Laozi, 2005/circa 500 BC)
- Childhood & Spirituality (Hart, 2001, 2010, 2014a, 2014b; L. Miller, 2015; L. W. E. S. Miller, 2021)
- Awareness and Mindsight (Siegel, 2010, 2018)
- Mindfulness and Nondual Awareness (Chopra, 2021; Chopra, Ford, & Williamson, 2010; Lantieri, 2008; Palmer, 1993, 1998, 2004; Palmer, Zajonc, & Scribner, 2010)
- Emotional and Social Intelligence, Presence (Goleman & Boutsikaris, 2006; Goleman & Senge, 2007; Goleman & Whitener, 2005; Senge, 2000, 2008)
- Belief (Dispenza, 2017; Dispenza & Boyce, 2016; Dispenza, Knight, & Encephalon, 2005; B. H. Lipton, 2005, 2006, 2014; B. H. Lipton, Bhaerman, S., 2009)
- Left Brain Dominance (McGilchrist, 2009)
- Early Opposition to the Mechanical View of Humans (Dewey, 1910, 1916/2005)
- Historically Assumed Separateness (Kuhn, 2004)
- Reduced Importance of Childhood (Piaget, 1929/2007, 1950, 1959, 1965, 1973, 1976; Piaget & Inhelder, 1969; Piaget & Valsiner, 1927/2001)
- Excessive Testing (Darling-Hammond, 2010; González & Darling-Hammond, 1997; Gurwitz, Darling-Hammond, Pease, Education., & Corporation., 1981; Haggstrom, Darling-Hammond, Grissmer, & Center for the Study of the Teaching Profession (Rand Corporation), 1988; Koppich, Merseth, Darling-Hammond, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education., & National Commission on Teaching & America's Future (U.S.), 2000; Millman & Darling-Hammond, 1990; Wise, Darling-Hammond, Berry, Profession., & Education, 1987; Wise, Darling-Hammond, & Klein, 1986; Zeichner et al., 2000)
- Education: Students-only, Community-centered, Right Answers, Restricted Resources, Not tests, Not algebra, Not control, Not norms, Brick & Mortar Schools, Integrated Disciplines, Inspirational Content (Dintersmith, 2018; Hart, 2001)
- 1800s Factory Model (Skinner, 1953; Thorndike, 1913/2010)