One of the exquisite possibilities of engaging an integral approach in our teaching practice is that at every moment, with every subject, we have the opportunity to engage the whole universe. The ‘subject’ we teach, be it music, history, language, painting, literature or science, becomes a vehicle for deeper insights that include and embrace the intricacy and detail inherent in that discipline while at the same time transcending it and engaging higher dimensions of truth, goodness and beauty. One of the classes I teach this year is a senior seminar in botany. We have spent considerable time examining the relatedness and relationships among flowering plant families; much of that exploration was taken up in the field and garden, walking among fall blooms of autumn crocus or eating the spinach-like leaves of lambsquarters, Chenopodium alba. This week, in the middle of winter’s cold and ice, we are steeped in broccoli. After engaging an AQAL four-quadrant approach to GMOs in food, we are examining for a moment the connectedness between what we want, what we eat and what exists in the world. Part of this exercise is designed to come to a fuller understanding of the relationships between the seasonality of food crops, the globalization of food trade, and the complex pathways that might connect our purchase of an item of fresh produce in a supermarket to a Mayan farmer in Guatemala. But ultimately the time and energy invested here is also an exercise in realizing that the conditions that exist in other parts of the world, the lives, aspirations, creativity and consciousness of others on the planet, and the very fabric of being, is not separate from our own selves at this moment. When we touch broccoli, or chocolate, or a rose, or plant a seed, we can realize and appreciate this kind of connectedness. Just as I am photographing mid-winter ice crystals hanging from the edge of an 18th century millrace in Pennsylvania, my friend Sue writes us of picking and tasting raspberries in mid-summer Tasmania. Integral education increases our circles of awareness to become more inclusive, holding more of the big picture, and stepping ever outward into greater spaciousness to reflect on our own meaning making. I would love to hear about others’ experiences of engaging an integral approach with other subjects – what arises for you and your students in this undertaking? How does it change the structure or the outcomes of the learning experience? 
Monthly Archive for January, 2009
light in flow
“Here came the thought that passes beyond Thought,
Here the still Voice which our listening cannot hear,
The Knowledge by which the knower is the known,
The Love in which Beloved and Lover are one.”
Sri Aurobindo, Savitri; The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds; The Kingdoms of the Greater Knowledge
Possibility
Right where we are, in this moment, there is possibility for realization. As educators, we practice in a ground so rich with possibility, so full of promise and hope, that it can be nearly overwhelming. What do we do next? What do we offer? We want to awaken the hearts and minds of our students, our colleagues, and continue in our own process of realization and awakening, and yet there is somewhere in the back of our minds, somewhere the recognition that we are indeed hoping to teach the unteachable. And we also know that there is some teaching practice, some upaya, that will serve the place where we find ourselves.
Knowing Our Selves
Before we can reach our highest potential as educators, as teachers, we need to come to know ourselves as fully and deeply as possible. We need to recognize our unique gifts and talents, and also come to understand our own shadow selves. As educators, we show up completely as ourselves and will find again and again that our practice of teaching is really one of teaching oneself. The more we can understand the depths and heights of the Self, and the more we can deepen our own personal practices, the more fully we can step into the possibilities of our roles as educators.
Creating Space / Holding Space
In a learning space, one of the most significant roles we can play as teachers is that of creating space for insight, for awareness and for creativity. When we are fully present and teaching from a space that is grounded and centered, we can give our attention to all the subtle acts and energy that create space and hold space for learning and realization. The ways we receive questions, the ways we encourage and offer inquiry, the seeds we plant that might lead to discovery, the tools we offer for creative invention, and the high expectations we hold for what can be accomplished – all of these support a space where meaningful learning may emerge. Our own enthusiasm and energy, our skill and discipline, are also present as sources of inspiration, examples of engagement. Whatever the field of study or practice, when we approach it with care and genuine interest, it becomes a true reflection of the realms of understanding beauty in the universe.