Embodied Presence: Contemplative Teacher Education

Abstract

Teachers become contemplatives with the aspiration that their approach to teaching students will have depth and meaning, and genuinely reflect who they are. The fruition of our program, contemplative teaching, can be said to be the embodied presence of the teacher fully engaging with students in academic pursuits in the broadest sense of that term. Teachers communicate their presence and begin to transform their learning community from the inside-out. Doing so cultivates improvisational, intuitive teaching— embracing teachable moments and letting go of the 'agenda' if it is not working. No two teachers in our program take their Naropa education into their classrooms in the same way. It is at the core of our approach to provide the space and opportunity—indeed the encouragement—for each teacher to let the heart and mind find its unique manifestation in each particular learning environment. This recent graduate, a primary-school teacher, recalled a poignant moment of inner-awareness-to-outer-manifestation as she was seated on the floor one day with her young students clustered around. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)