Words from the Heart

Honoring the teachers of America. National education association; 1857-1957. United States postage, 3 cents (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Over the last few months, several school systems have been in the news due to protests over unfair contracts, standardize testing and teachers being asked to compromise the quality of their teaching for the quantity of students being graduated.  As an educator, I find this greatly disturbing!    Thing is, this isn't just a problem in the US.  Teachers around the world are under fire from school boards, government agencies and the media.  Just a few examples to consider: Danish Teachers Locked Out! Chilean Students Protest for Education Reform  Montreal Students Protest Tuition Hikes University Students in Spain Protest Education Cuts   What is happening in our world?  Why are teachers being undermined?  Why are students being persecuted?  Why are parents being lied to? I don't know the an...

Image by eekim via Flickr Out of the mouths of babes!  In Sunday school, yesterday, I was talking to the kids about gratitude.  I challenged them to find uncommon ways to give thanks.  One of the older students (I have a multi-level class.) said, "So you want us to have "An Attitude of Gratitude," right?" Now, she may have heard it some place else, but it just blew me away.  "An Attitude of Gratitude!"  The poet in me loves the alliteration - the rhyme.  Her little comment inspired me to continue my postings on Gratitude. (I had planned to go on to other things this month.) Living in gratitude is all about our attitude.  In order to be thankful, we must be mindful of the fact that every second, every encounter, every trial and tribulation is a gift.  Finding ways to show we are grateful becomes a natural part of our lives, when we mindfully live in gratitude. In my seminary course, I read a passage of Buddhist text that stated that the ungra...

Several times over the past few months, I have had various inquiries into just what Contemplative Education meant. It is actually much easier to understand than most people think. Contemplative Education is the art of teaching mindfully. It means being aware fully of your class, each child, the content of what you are teaching and its relationship to the world around you. It is looking at any subject through the lens of mindfulness or contemplation. It doesn't mean that you need to sit on a cushion and chant. While this is a contemplative practice, it is not the only contemplative practice offered. At the Center for the Contemplative Mind in Society, they have a wonderful graphic that explains the fact that contemplation has many forms. ( Click this link to view. http://www.contemplativemind.org/practices/tree.html Living life fully aware and mindful can be elusive. So much in our society works to crowd our minds with needless trivia. We are deluged with sights, sounds, smells, an...