Education Commons^™

Toward Pedagogies For The Future To Address The Climate Crisis, Edward J. Brantmeier

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This exploratory article offers contemplative learning exercises that foster connection and intuition in order to promote adaptive intelligence and anticipatory knowing to address the uncertain future related to climate crisis. The author provides personal snapshots and reflections regarding the impact of the climate crisis and explores hopeful paths for everyday action. In specific, the article suggests that everyday revolutionary acts such as slowing down, practicing humility, and aligning economic choices with core values can make a difference. Drawing on a critical pedagogy of place, the author suggests that connection to the ecological places we inhabit matters much in our efforts …

Room For Breathing: Mindfulness, Currere, And Contemplative Practices In Teacher Education, Hongyu Wang, Jo Flory

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This paper explores the intersections of using autobiographical (currere) writing and mindful meditations as two forms of contemplative practices in teacher education, from the perspectives of both a secondary classroom teacher and a teacher educator. An experientially-based conceptual inquiry, it is contextualized through first-person autobiographical narrations reconstructed from the authors’ currere writings and mindfulness practices, in order to draw connections between both through the theme of making room for breathing. The pedagogical contexts surrounding how students practice mindfulness and currere in teacher education are discussed, and the body, emotions, temporality, space, and relationality are analyzed as intersecting and complementary …

Well-Being In Response To Gratitude Interventions: A Student Elicitation Approach, Erin A. Hopkins

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Various methods exist to invoke gratitude, such as gratitude lists, acts directed towards others, and gratitude contemplation (Rash, Matsuba, and Prkachin, 2011). This study, through student perception elicitation, examines a gratitude list intervention in a professional development undergraduate class which tests the gratitude and enhanced well-being connection theory.

Results suggest various reasons why students perceive a connection between gratitude lists and mental and physical well-being, although there was an overall belief among participants that gratitude lists help more with mental health than physical health. Also, the gratitude and enhanced well-being connection theory was not fully supported as overall respondent sentiment …