PROF. KAREN LITFIN

POLITICAL SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

LITFIN@UW.EDU

Assessing the Value of Contemplative Education

Centre for Teaching and Learning Yale-NUS College

5 March 2018

Becoming Planetary

Social imaginaries at the dawn of the Anthropocene

Can we feel what we know, know what we feel, and act accordingly?

Adapted from James Zull, The Art of Changing the Brain. Stylus, 2002.

Attention is the foundation of education.

Rooted and Reaching

Our Breathing Planet

8

How can we protect the thin blue line that protects us all?

Seeds of inspiration

AgencyIntersubjectivityDemocratic deliberationBring it to the polisLearning and feedback

Study Action Groups

Respite: Fostering laziness or creativity?Thankfully, contemplative practices at the beginning of class help me slow down and think. While I don’t usually have amazing revelations, my mind is refreshed and in a learning space post-practice. I’ve also noticed a change in my peers; the classroom is usually quieter and more focused.Imagine if Congress held contemplative practices before passing or creating legislation. Would better laws be made? Although I do not have the answer to that question, I do believe the atmosphere would be much less contentious if everyone was in a calmer headspace. ~John, HONR 392

My group for the action project had productive days and not so productive days. It seems that when we felt a resounding response to the contemplative exercises, those days were our most productive.~Simone, HONR 392

“The biggest obstacle to creativity is being too busy.”

~Emma Seppala, Stanford University

Organic intersubjectivity: Enacting planetary social imaginaries

Resources

Association for the Contemplative Mind in Society(and Higher Education)http://www.contemplativemind.org/programs/acmhe

Curriculum for the Bioregion (search for ‘contemplative’) https://serc.carleton.edu/index.html

Oren Ergas, Reconstructing 'Education' through Mindful Attention: Positioning the Mind at the Center of Curriculum and Pedagogy (Palgrave, 2017).

Karen Litfin, “Person/Planet Politics: Contemplative Pedagogies for a New Earth” in New Earth Politics (MIT Press, 2016).

Karen Litfinlitfin@uw.edu

https://www.polisci.washington.edu/people/karen-litfin

www.ecovillagebook.org