Current Research Proposal (Submitted to 2010-2011 SSHRC Competition)

I am a second year doctoral student in the Curriculum Theory and Implementation Program in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University, presently completing the required coursework. In response to the growing concerns about student wellbeing and engagement, my research conceives of a model of holistic education that aims at the creation of a responsive and responsible humanity capable of living resiliently in balance with the natural and social world. In addition to my scholarship in contemplative education, my professional and vocational experience as a community educator, undergraduate instructor, and teacher of mindfulness-based stress reduction provides me with a strong scholarly and experiential background for my research. I will take my doctoral comprehensive examination in the spring of 2012 and commence research and writing my thesis thereafter.

Research Problem: A growing segment of students in North American public education are experiencing a range of social and emotional problems that are negatively impacting interpersonal relationships, academic achievement and the development of capacities for becoming resilient and productive adults (e.g. Greenberg et al, 2001). Approximately one in five children and adolescents are experiencing mental health problems severe enough to qualify their need for mental health services (Romano et al, 2001).  In response to these problems the development of social and emotional literacy has become an important focus in educational research in recent years (Napoli et al, 2005).  Skills aimed at reducing stress and developing emotional regulation and empathy are supported by empirical evidence that these skills can be taught through classroom interventions (e.g. Riggs et al, 2006). I myself taught these skills to my undergraduate students who were struggling to cope with an increasing amount of stress in their academic and personal lives. However, I have come to see that this effort at equipping students to cope and perform better is only half the story.

The other half–the more serious one for educators—is examining how our education system as part of the master narrative of late modernity contributes to creating a world of stress and distress, perpetuating inequity, individual greed and competitiveness, and relentless material progress detrimental to the environment. Mainstream education is complicit. A systemic examination needs to be at the heart of any education we undertake. Moreover, we need to involve our students–the agents of change for a more sustainable future–in authentic inquiries into how the education they receive could be a means of cultivating capacities crucial for personal, social and ecological resilience.

Such inquiries tend to generate complicated and even painful conversations (Pinar, 2004; Boler, 1999). I have been part of such conversations within the context of classes I taught at the undergraduate level.  This complication is connected to the fact that we are trying to educate students to go beyond the current failing system, while simultaneously trapping them in the system (Gatto, 2003; Noddings, 2003; Orr, 1996). I locate my research in this very terrain of complication, and aim at creating a philosophy of education, replete with practices, that are capable of helping our students to not only skillfully navigate the rough terrain but also to transform it.

Theoretical Framework: Mainstream education has compromised human resilience factors by neglecting the development of capacities and intelligences that lie outside the techno-rational paradigm wherein human learners are typically viewed as knowledge producers (Osberg et al, 2008). Fuller and richer development of subjectivity vis-à-vis emotion, empathy, creativity, imagination, intuition, and body-awareness is largely left out of mainstream education that emphasizes objectivity of facts and quantities in the service of industrialized world. The result is a limited and fragmented human intelligence less than fully capable of facing complex challenges.

Many argue that education must develop and integrate the full range of different intelligences or consciousnesses if we are to bring our fullest potential to resiliently responding to personal, social and environmental distress (Bai, 2009; O’Sullivan and Taylor, 2004). I agree. Currently there is a model of scholarship that researches such an integration in teaching and learning, namely integral education research (Esbjörn-Hargens et al, 2010; Gunnlaugson, 2005), and this will be the largest theoretical framework for my thesis. These integral education theorists conceptualize integration of human consciousness and intelligence in terms of three forms of knowledge or knowing: 1st person (subjective), 2nd person (intersubjective) & 3rd person (objective). To note, in the prevailing conception of education, the 1st (e.g. subjective knowledge of one’s emotions) and 2nd forms of knowing (e.g. interpersonal relational knowledge) are typically neglected, while the emphasis is excessively put on the 3rd form (e.g. objective or factual knowledge). A holistic model of education would need to address this imbalance by bringing equal emphasis to both the 1st and the 2nd.

I will add, to each of the three forms of knowing, perspectives and materials drawn from contemplative inquiry (Zajonc, 2009; Hart, 2008), dialogue practice (Kramer, 2007) and movement (Snowber & Cancienne 2003), and neuroscience (Siegel, 2010), respectively representing the 1st, 2nd and 3rd form. Amongst the various practices listed here, of particular interest and service to me is contemplative inquiry and practice because of my long-term personal cultivation and professional application in this mode of knowing. The ultimate goal of my research is to develop a holistic curriculum and pedagogy that can help teachers to balance and integrate the full range of human capacity for intelligence in all three forms of knowing.

Timeline and Methodology: The first phase (current to 2011) of my research will include the completion of coursework and literature review of the framework outlined above.  The second phase (2011-2012) will be devoted to helping to design and offer, in support of the teaching faculty in my home institution, a two-part curriculum to educators interested in holistic-contemplative education. The first part will be an introductory 8-week professional development course in ‘Contemplative Education’ that draws trans-traditionally from a range of methods for building the 1st and the 2nd forms of knowing (e.g., awareness training, dialogue, etc.), and also the 3rd form using texts and articles.  The second part is a practicum for educators who desire to form a community of practice to look more closely at how contemplative practices and research connect to pedagogy, teaching content, and relationships with students.  I will take an integral mixed methods (Esbjörn-Hargens, 2006) approach by using methodologies appropriate to studying the subjective, intersubjective, and objective dimensions of the above curriculum.

Guided by embodied autoethnography (Spry, 2001) and phenomenology (Moustakas, 1994; van Manen, 1990), my lived experience of designing and facilitating this curriculum will be captured by written reflections and narratives to illustrate how thoughts, bodily awareness, emotions, and intuitions arise in conscious awareness.  As a tool for shaping experience and promoting reflection on one’s practice, narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, 1996) will be used with participants to create thick descriptions of the contexts and dialogical landscapes of how teaching and learning are impacted by contemplative practices, as well as to offer a mapping of the development of the community.  Using video recordings, a comparative pre/post assessment of participant’s performance during a collaborative exercise will be analyzed to examine how participants changed over the course with respect to a defined ‘contemplative skill set’.  I will complete my thesis writing by Fall 2013.

Contribution and Dissemination: My work will contribute to the fields of philosophy of education, curriculum theory, transformative learning, and teacher education.  My intention is to write a ‘manuscript’ style dissertation whereby each chapter will be written as a publishable journal article and book chapter. Throughout my doctoral studies I will present my work to local school boards and at such conferences as the American Education Research Association and the Canadian Society of Studies in Education. My doctoral research is supervised by Dr. Heesoon Bai in Philosophy of Education, and my supervisory committee is in the process of being formed.

Works Cited:

Bai, H. (2009). Re-animating the universe: Environmental education and philosophical animism. In M. McKenzie, H. Bai, P. Hart, & B. J. (Eds.), Fields of green: Restorying Culture, Environment, and Education. New Jersey: Hampton Press.

Boler, M. (1999).  Feeling Power: Emotions and Education.  New York: Routledge.

Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (1996). Teachers’ professional knowledge landscapes. Educational Researcher, 25(3), 24–30.

Esbjörn-Hargens, S., Reams, J., & Gunnlaugson, O. (2010). Integral Education: New Directions for Higher Learning.  Albany: SUNY Press.

Esbjörn-Hargens, S. (2006).  Integral Research: A multi-method approach to investigating phenomena. Constructivism in the Human Sciences, 11(1), 79-107.

Gatto, J.T. (2003).  The Underground History of American Education.  Oxford: Oxford Village Press.

Greenberg, M. T., Domitrovich, C., & Bumbarger, B. (2001). The prevention of mental disorders in school-aged children: current state of the field. Prevention & Treatment, 4, 1–62.

Gunnlaugson, O. (2005). Toward Integrally Informed Theories of Transformative Learning. Journal of Transformative Education, 3(4), 331-353

Hart, T. (2008). Interiorty and Education. Journal of Transformative Education, 6 (4), 235-250.

Kramer, G. (2007).  Insight Dialogue.  Boston: Shambhala.

Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Napoli, M., Kretch, P., & Holley, L. (2005). Mindfulness Training for Elementary School Students: The Attention Academy. Journal of Applied School Psychology, 21(1), 14-22.

Noddings, N. (2003). Happiness and Education. Cambridge: University of Cambridge.

Orr, D. (1996). Earth in mind: On education, environment, and the human prospect. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Osberb, D., Biesta, G. & Cilliers, P. (2008).  From Representation to Emergence:  Complexity’s challenge to the epistemology of schooling.  Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(1), 213-227.

O’Sullivan, E. V. and Taylor, M. M. (Eds) (2004). Learning Toward an Ecological Consciousness: Selected Transformative Practices. NY: Palgrave MacMillan.

Pinar, W. (2004).  What is Curriculum Theory? New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Riggs, N. R., Greenberg, M. T., Kushe, C. A., & Pentz, M. (2006). The mediational role of neurocognition in behavioral outcomes of a social–emotional prevention program in elementary school students: effects of the PATHS curriculum. Prevention Science, 7, 91–102.

Romano, E., Tremblay, R. E., Vitaro, F., Zoccolillo, M., & Pagani, L. (2001). Prevalence of psychiatric diagnosis and the role of perceived impairment: findings from an adolescent community sample. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 451– 461.

Snowber, C.N. & Cancienne, M.B. (2003). Writing rhythm: Movement as method. Qualitative Inquiry, 9(2), 237-253.

Siegel, D. (2010).  Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation.  New York: Bantam.

Spry, T. (2001). Performing Autoethnography: An Embodied Methodological Praxis. Qualitative Inquiry, 7(6), 706-732.

van Manen, M. (1990). Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy. London, ON: University of Western Ontario.

Zajonc, A. (2009). Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love. Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Books.

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