Saturday, September 13, 2008

Contemplative Practices

Hi everyone,
I had an experience this summer that might be of interest to AEPL members--I attended a week-long workshop sponsored by the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society:  http://www.contemplativemind.org.  It's a wonderful organization that is devoted to infusing "contemplative practices" into classrooms and into the world.  They have a social justice arm and an academic arm--I was at their annual summer workshop for academics, which focused on specific techniques for infusing our classes with contemplative practices.  I learned about and experienced everything from Lectio Divina-style reading practices to various meditation/contemplation exercises.  I'll be sharing some of what I learned at coming AEPL events, in particular our summer 09 conference at Estes Park, and probably at future AEPL NCTE and CCCC panels and workshops.   In the meantime, you might be interested in joining the Contemplative Mind in Higher Education association--info at http://www.acmhe.org. Love to all,  Irene Papoulis

3 comments:

brd said...

Sounds really interesting. Can you define Lectio Divina-style reading practices for us? Meanwhile, I'll check out that site.

FYS217 said...

Religious people will know much more about this; it was new to me this summer. It has to do with praying with scripture. But at the Center for Contemplative Mind it was loosely defined and adapted in all kinds of instances, from having a large group read a piece by going around and having each person slowly read one sentence aloud at a time, with time to contemplate in between, to having one person read the text aloud slowly with others jumping in with reflections, etc. We tend to read things so quickly; it's really nice to sit slowly with a text. I've practiced slower reading with students (which can even include an assignment to go home and reread after the class has discussed a text) and I love it.

brd said...

Thanks for the defn. Yes. I have prayed that way and know others who do that often. Your ideas for using that form are great.