Tuning the Student Mind

Molly Beauregard

Description

How can we rethink teaching practices to include and engage the whole student? What would student experience look like if we integrated silence and feeling with empirical analysis? Tuning the Student Mind is the story of one teacher's attempt to answer these questions by creating an innovative college course that marries the spiritual and the theoretical, integrating meditation and self-reflection with more conventional academic curriculum. The book follows Molly Beauregard and her students on their intellectual and spiritual journey over the course of a semester in her class, "Consciousness, Creativity, and Identity." Interweaving personal stories, student writing, and Beauregard's responses, along with recommendations for further reading and a research appendix, it makes the case for the transformative power of consciousness-centered education. Written in a warm, engaging voice that reflects Beauregard's teaching style, Tuning the Student Mind provides an accessible, step-by-step template for other educators, while inviting readers more broadly to reconnect with the joy of learning in and beyond the classroom.
Acknowledgments
Note on the Text

Introduction: An Angel Museum

First Week
Why Do You Believe What You Believe about Yourself?

Second Week
What Types of Knowledge Do We Value?

Third Week
What Does the American Dream Look Like Today?

Fourth Week
How Do We Know Ourselves?

Fifth Week
How Does the World around Us Inform Our Sense of Self?

Sixth Week
Who Is Responsible?

Seventh Week
What Do We Really Learn in School?

Eighth Week
How Do We Know What We Know?

Ninth Week
What Roles Do You Play?

Tenth Week
How Do Labels Define Us—and Confine Us?

Eleventh Week
How Does Place Define Our Sense of Self?

Twelve Week
What Does It Mean to Be a Consumer?

Thirteenth Week
What Does It Mean to Be an Artist?

Fourteenth Week
How Do We Create a More Compassionate World?

Conclusion

Letter to the Reader
Appendix
Recommendations for Further Reading
Bibliography

Sujets

• Psychology
• Tertiary education
• Secondary school
• Sociology

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438478852
• Langue: English

Extrait

Tuning the
STUDENT MIND
Tuning the
STUDENT MIND
A Journey in Consciousness-Centered Education
Molly Beauregard
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2020 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval systemor transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Beauregard, Molly, 1965– author.
Title: Tuning the student mind : a journey in consciousness-centered education / Molly Beauregard.
Description: Albany : State University of New York, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019049130 (print) | LCCN 2019049131 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438478838 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438478845 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438478852 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Affective education—United States. | Self-consciousness (Awareness)—Study and teaching (Higher)—United States. | College students—United States—Psychology. | Education, Higher—Aims and objectives—United States.
Classification: LCC LB1072 .B48 2020 (print) | LCC LB1072 (ebook) | DDC 370.15/34—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019049130
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019049131
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Contents
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
N OTE ON THE T EXT
I NTRODUCTION
An Angel Museum
First Week
Why Do You Believe What You Believe about Yourself?
Second Week
What Types of Knowledge Do We Value?
Third Week
What Does the American Dream Look Like Today?
Fourth Week
How Do We Know Ourselves?
Fifth Week
How Does the World around Us Inform Our Sense of Self?
Sixth Week
Who Is Responsible?
Seventh Week
What Do We Really Learn in School?
Eighth Week
How Do We Know What We Know?
Ninth Week
What Roles Do You Play?
Tenth Week
How Do Labels Define Us—and Confine Us?
Eleventh Week
How Does Place Define Our Sense of Self?
Twelve Week
What Does It Mean to Be a Consumer?
Thirteenth Week
What Does It Mean to Be an Artist?
Fourteenth Week
How Do We Create a More Compassionate World?
C ONCLUSION
Letter to the Reader
A PPENDIX
R ECOMMENDATIONS FOR F URTHER R EADING
B IBLIOGRAPHY
Acknowledgments
I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to those whose teaching, friendship, and encouragement have contributed to the writing of this book. While countless individuals have influenced this work, there are a few standout, shining stars without whom this work would not have seen the light of day.
A huge, heartfelt thank you to Deborah Steinberg for helping me to transform a ragtag collection of blog posts, lecture notes, and short stories into an academic book that makes sense. I literally could not have done it without you.
Thank you to Rebecca Colesworthy and SUNY Press for taking a chance on an adjunct professor and first-time author. I am abundantly grateful for the opportunity to publish my book with you.
Warm appreciation to the College for Creative Studies for offering me the space to do my thing.
Appreciation to Elizabeth McQuillen and Emily Birchfield Shakibnia for their help with data analysis and research expertise.
Thank you to all the meditation teachers who have worked with my students over the years—most especially Jenny Barrett and Tim McMahon.
To the thousands of students who have walked through my classroom, I humbly bow to you. Thank you for showing up, for being curious, for being unique and special and crazy and wise and utterly untamable. You have brought me immeasurable pleasure, tremendous learning, and too many laughs. I am forever humbled by the honor of being your teacher.
Thank you to all the friends and colleagues who have listened to me whine, pontificate, and wax poetic about my book writing efforts. Special shout-out to my book club, Val Weiss, Ed Sarath, Mark Taylor, Mark Wiskup, Michael Stone-Richards, Caitlin Boyle, Mary Waldon, Mary McNichols, Deb Smith, and the magical, irreplaceable Gil Younger.
Thank you to my wonderfully supportive family—especially my mother, who first introduced me to Transcendental Meditation almost thirty years ago.
This book would not have happened without the support, friendship, and incredible vision of Chelsea Jackson. I am forever in your debt. Thank you.
And, finally, thank you Maddy, Cami, Charlie, and Mike—you are the great loves that sustain and inspire me every day and every way. Love you to the moon and back times infinity.
Note on the Text
The conversations recounted in this book all come from personal recollection. While these interactions are not written to reflect exactitude, I’ve done my best to adhere to the integrity of memory. In order to maintain student anonymity, I have changed the names of individual students as well other identifying features related in their work. In some cases, small edits—mostly grammatical and occasionally for the purpose of flow—have been made to student papers. My intention in sharing student writing is to showcase the powerful reflections elicited by the experience of consciousness-centered education.
In addition to a full bibliography, I include an annotated list of recommendations for further reading. These recommendations, all of which appear in the full bibliography as well, form the basis of the core curriculum for my course.
This book is story based, though I have also included a research appendix. There you will find a compilation of data and analysis from over seven years of student survey responses. My goal in offering this more academically traditional template of evidence is to shine a light on the potential impact of consciousness-centered education initiatives.
Introduction
An Angel Museum
Don’t just teach because that’s all you can do. Teach because it’s your calling. And once you realize that, you have a responsibility to the young people.
—Maya Angelou
The first story I share every semester in my sociology class, Consciousness, Creativity, and Identity, is the real-life history of the Angel Museum.
It all began in 1976, when Joyce and Lowell Berg were vacationing in Florida. They happened to stop at an antique shop, where they fell in love with an Italian bisque figurine of two angels on a seesaw. They immediately bought it and brought it back home to Beloit, Wisconsin, where it became the first cherished artifact in what would eventually become a very grand collection of angels.
With my students, I usually take some creative liberties with my story about the humble beginnings of the Angel Museum. I imagine Joyce and Lowell scouring the world for angel imagery—passionate in their obsession and abundantly inclusive. I know for a fact that they find angel imagery at rummage sales. They save plastic angels that come on the tops of cakes (with the frosting still encrusted on the bottom). They hunt down angels at craft shows and antique fairs. They look for angels in shops and in garages, and they happily embrace every angel they find.
I imagine Lowell coming home from work one day and exclaiming to Joyce, “I can’t live like this anymore! The angels are taking over our home!” There are angels on the wallpaper and on the countertop, rows of angels in special handmade cabinets, and punch-out windows with angels dangling from fishing wire. Joyce, of course, sees her cherished angels as art; she knows her collection is worthy of a great museum. She envisions herself as the caretaker of the angels. Her passion is so great and her heart so generous, she dreams of sharing her love of angels with the people of Beloit.
Joyce and Lowell begin their search for a new angel home in earnest. At first, there are some who doubt them—people who wonder if the world really needs an angel museum (especially one that includes “dollar-store special” angels stamped Made in China ). But Joyce and Lowell prevail. Eventually, they find an old church building to lease. They load up a truck, and they set up shop. The angels are reframed, cleaned, put behind glass. Bright lights highlight the shining stars, and a small gift shop graces the lobby.
I imagine the first days as quiet—Joyce in her angel costume at the front door, Lowell wringing his hands over slow ticket sales, a trickle of friends wandering about admiring the eclectic and somehow strangely inspiring collection of angels. And then, suddenly (I pause here when I am speaking for an especially dramatic punch) … Oprah! Oprah hears about the Angel Museum and donates her collection of more than six hundred Black angels. Now, busloads of visitors arrive from across the Midwest to share in Joyce and Lowell’s dream. The Angel Museum is a legitimate tourist attraction.
I share this story with my students for many reasons. On the surface, the Angel Museum story offers them an example of the infectious power of a shared dream and an allegory for how we construct meaning as a culture. It illustrates a central theme in the academic field of sociology: that meaning is crea