Meditation and the Classroom by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 3407067
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2011-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

But how we emerge from this myth is terribly important, and as religious studies professors, we must do so responsibly, drawing on the best perspectives of our discipline.

Rather than being the dirty word that it has been in church-related colleges and universities, “pluralism” is an important, positive element in the educational environment in which contemplative pedagogy is introduced. While there are many definitions of pluralism, I have found that of Harvard's Diana Eck most helpful. She speaks of pluralism as the recognition that truth is not exclusively (or inclusively) the property of any one religious tradition, and that the myriad understandings of truth or the “ultimate” in religious traditions provide an opportunity for celebration and dialogue rather than providing obstacles to be overcome. She adds: “It does not mean giving up our commitments; rather, it means opening up those commitments to the give-and-take of mutual discovery, understanding, and, indeed, transformation.”18

This does not mean that the religious studies professor needs to “lead” with religious or spiritual identity (or nonreligious worldview, for that matter), but it does suggest that hiding it may be more dangerous and insidious than allowing it within a carefully developed context of pluralistic sensibilities. When we allow ourselves transparency in this way, we also encourage it in our students, and acknowledge the potency of identity issues into our classroom interactions.

This cannot be done well without concomitant training in the basics of dialogue skills, so that an atmosphere of respect can grow and flourish. One of the popular courses in our department is my Interreligious Dialogue class, in which students study the rapidly changing demographics of religion in America, showing (in Eck's words) “How a Christian country has become the most religiously diverse nation on earth.”19 Because such an environment needs training in pluralism, dialogue, and the dynamics and complexities of religious and spiritual identity, the course includes actual dialogue training between classmates, with guests from the faculty and the surrounding community, and with religious communities along the Colorado Front Range. In all of this, I ensure that every student, no matter whether religious, spiritual, of not, feels respected and valued for whatever interiority he or she wishes to share. For example, when a student makes a derogatory comment about Christian prayer or Muslim communalism, I ensure that we “own” our own biases and invite my Christian or Muslim students to share their responses, and how it feels to be disparaged this way. By the end of the semester, my students have developed the ability to deeply listen to religious “others” and to surface the inner dialogue that sometimes contains inherited prejudice and steteotypes.

In conclusion, if contemplative approaches to religious studies are to flourish and enrich the lives of our students, we must develop ethical guidelines and standards for how we deal with these and other issues in our classroom. Conversations about the ethical considerations of our teaching work should be part of every gathering of contemplative educators, and I look forward to the emerging body of wisdom on these issues.

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