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Full-Text Articles in Education

“A Word For Nature”: A Reflection On A Contemplative Teacher-Training Course In The Desert, Netta Baryosef-Paz, Nirit Assaf Oct 2023

“A Word For Nature”: A Reflection On A Contemplative Teacher-Training Course In The Desert, Netta Baryosef-Paz, Nirit Assaf

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This paper reflects on an interdisciplinary, environmental, and contemplative course the authors taught at Kibbutzim College of Education in Tel Aviv. Entitled “I am in Nature,” the course was co-taught by an ecologist and a literary scholar. It included a two-day base camping and hiking experience in the Negev Desert and three on-campus meetings. The students read Nature Writing and Ecopoetry, practiced guided mindfulness meditations in the field, and kept contemplative-writing journals. In this community voices piece, we offer an innovative pedagogy for higher education that centers on the integration of the learner’s mind, body, and heart through interdisciplinary, contemplative, …


Knowing The Unknowable: Visions Of Troubled Lands, Estella C. Kuchta Sep 2023

Knowing The Unknowable: Visions Of Troubled Lands, Estella C. Kuchta

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This paper describes the author’s clairvoyant visions of war and personal experiences of transrational knowledges. It is an account of one Westerner coming to know outside of and despite Western episteme. Transrational knowing was modelled by companion dogs in the author’s childhood and literary figures in early adulthood, and was experienced as a means of self-protection. Western culture fosters skepticism about transrational knowledges, such as psychic visions and telepathic connections. This paper asserts that transrational knowing—whether between humans, other species, or humans and other species—is a valid and readily available form of knowing that exists outside of and in spite …


Philosophical Counselling Through Meditative Inquiry: Insights For Holistic And Contemplative Educators And Practitioners, Ashwani Kumar Sep 2023

Philosophical Counselling Through Meditative Inquiry: Insights For Holistic And Contemplative Educators And Practitioners, Ashwani Kumar

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This paper explores how meditative inquiry can contribute to philosophical counselling, and how these two perspectives together can inform the work of holistic and contemplative educators and practitioners. After outlining the definition, goals, and practices related to meditative inquiry and pointing to its transformative potential, the author draws attention to how meditative inquiry and philosophical counselling share similar goals, such as engagement in authentic inner exploration of questions of deep existential significance, and highlights the benefits of processes related to meditative inquiry, such as developing attentive listening and observation, engaging in creative and aesthetic exploration, and connecting with nature. Rather …


Giving And Taking Care During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Secondary Teachers’ Experiences Of Social Emotional Learning, Janna Jobel, Rebecca J. Lloyd Jun 2023

Giving And Taking Care During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Secondary Teachers’ Experiences Of Social Emotional Learning, Janna Jobel, Rebecca J. Lloyd

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) has been primarily researched in elementary schools, and within this context, SEL curriculum is often presented as an isolated, preplanned curriculum, with a list of curricular objectives to be delivered. A phenomenological inquiry was conducted to better understand the ways in which SEL and SEL curriculum are understood and experienced in a high school context. Data gathered from close phenomenological observations and interviews with three high school teachers in mathematics and physical education afforded the opportunity to orient, interpret, and describe the phenomenon of SEL-in-action. Rich descriptions of SEL as it is lived were generated and …


Editorial Introduction: Contemplative And Holistic Education As Inside-Out Work For Healing, Peace, Justice, And Equity, Heesoon Bai, Charles Scott, Cary L. Campbell, Jwalin Patel May 2023

Editorial Introduction: Contemplative And Holistic Education As Inside-Out Work For Healing, Peace, Justice, And Equity, Heesoon Bai, Charles Scott, Cary L. Campbell, Jwalin Patel

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Inaugural Special Issue: EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION


Meeting The Jche Team: A Reconstructed Interview, Heesoon Bai, Charles Scott, Cary L. Campbell, Jwalin Patel, Yifan Sun, Jing Lin, Hyeyoung Bang, Sachi Edwards, Deepa Srikantaiah, Yishin Khoo, Denise L. Mchugh May 2023

Meeting The Jche Team: A Reconstructed Interview, Heesoon Bai, Charles Scott, Cary L. Campbell, Jwalin Patel, Yifan Sun, Jing Lin, Hyeyoung Bang, Sachi Edwards, Deepa Srikantaiah, Yishin Khoo, Denise L. Mchugh

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This “reconstructed interview-conversation” involves the entire editorial team of the Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education (JCHE). Together, the team dialogues around the shared visions, aspirations, motivations, and aims we have in creating this new journal platform. With this sharing, the team sends out a welcoming invitation to colleagues from around the world to get to know our new journal and to join our work to support and promote contemplative and holistic education. We at JCHE are committed to the ideal of education as transformative integration of mind-body-heart-spirit, which we ultimately understand as a decolonizing project. Through this interview, various …


Inner Work: Foundational To Contemplative And Holistic Education, Avraham Cohen, Thomas Falkenberg May 2023

Inner Work: Foundational To Contemplative And Holistic Education, Avraham Cohen, Thomas Falkenberg

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

In this interview (conducted by Heesoon Bai), Avraham Cohen and Thomas Falkenberg speak about the origin and practice of their respective inner work and about the need for and ways of bringing more inner work into the world.


From Without To Within: Inner Transformation As A Pedagogy For Social Activism, Jinting Wu May 2023

From Without To Within: Inner Transformation As A Pedagogy For Social Activism, Jinting Wu

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Change has become the urgency of our time, as the harrowing Anthropocene and ongoing socio-political crises are challenging the future of humanity and our planet. While systemic structural forces are often (and rightfully so) the target to blame, social activism is as much about our own path of inner change as it is about attempting to create a better world externally. This aspect of social activism can easily become misunderstood as inertia, while more traditional forms of resistance aimed at subverting macro-structures are favored. In this essay, I draw from literature on spirituality and consciousness, new biology, quantum sciences, as …


From Factory Schooling To Nai Taleem: A Paradigm Shift In Education, Manish Jain May 2023

From Factory Schooling To Nai Taleem: A Paradigm Shift In Education, Manish Jain

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

The article invites readers to question and reflect on the purpose of modern education and narratives of a good life, success and happiness. Modern, capitalistic, industrialized, urbanized and colonial (and colonizing) ways of living and being have created numerous global challenges. In light of these challenges, we need to re-examine our educational systems. I explore the potential of nai taleem as a philosophy of learning, living, and being; one that decolonizes education, our monoculture mindsets, and our notions of a good life. In an increasingly globalized, albeit disconnected, world I call for nai taleem as a means for building meaningful …


Holistic Learning Theory: More Than A Philosophy, Andrew Johnson May 2023

Holistic Learning Theory: More Than A Philosophy, Andrew Johnson

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Abstract. An educational philosophy identifies and clarifies a set of values and understandings with respect to education that are based on a set of beliefs. A theory is a way to explain a set of facts and understand phenomena. Philosophies are conceptual. Theories are practical. Holistic education is a philosophy of education; however, it is also a robust theory of learning that should be included with the other theories of learning. This article describes holistic education as an educational theory.


Becoming The Imperfect Friend: Sḵwx̱Wú7mesh And Contemplative Pathways To Healing And Reconciliation In Higher Education, Denise Marie Findlay Apr 2023

Becoming The Imperfect Friend: Sḵwx̱Wú7mesh And Contemplative Pathways To Healing And Reconciliation In Higher Education, Denise Marie Findlay

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Throughout this reflective essay I explore Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Indigenous philosophy and contemplative education as ethical pathways to healing and reconciliation in higher education. I put forth the idea of becoming the imperfect friend in a world ethos of death by a thousand cuts as a response to the violence of colonialism perpetuated in academia. I reflect on the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh values of eslhélha7kwhiws and stélmexw as contemplative dispositions that lend themselves to the process of becoming the imperfect friend. I conclude by describing a Sḵwx̱wú7mesh -led program hosted by Simon Fraser University (SFU) in 2022-2023, named Moving Together In The Ways …