Cultivating Integral Awareness in the Classroom Presented by Kyle Good, Ph.D.

1
Cultivating Integral Awareness in the
ClassroomPresented by Kyle Good, Ph.D.

• Tiffany and Billy An Integral True Story

2
Cultivating Integral Awareness in the Classroom

• Dealing with Challenging Situations
• Creating a Holistic Learning Environment
• Creating Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving
  Anew
• Increasing Integral Awareness

3
Cultivating Integral Awareness in the
ClassroomPresented by Kyle Good, Ph.D.

• Pathways-to-Peace

4
Cultivating Integral Awareness in the Classroom

• Wisdom Storm
• Things we know about todays topic

5
Cultivating Integral Awareness in the Classroom

• Dealing with Challenging Situations
• Creating a Holistic Learning Environment
• Creating Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving
  Anew
• Increasing Integral Awareness

6
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• As a principal, what I heard most from teachers
  was, You know what I want? A classroom where the
  kids are nice to one another!"
• Teachers reported that with each passing year
  there seems to be more bickering, fighting,
  teasing, name-calling, and other acts of
  unkindness among children, which create
  challenging situations.
• But, surveys show that children overwhelmingly
  prefer to be in a classroom that is caring and
  cooperative, where they are safe physically and
  emotionally.
• Consider the polarities and shadows that John
  Kesler shared with us.
• Consider the developmental levels Susanne
  Cook-Greuter shared with us.

7
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Students want to express themselves honestly and
  to feel safe doing so, to be understood in their
  own terms, to be trusted to exercise their
  autonomy, and to be provided opportunity to
  contribute to the welfare of others.
• The more students experience satisfaction of
  these wants, the more they will display them
  willingly, with response-ability.
• For complex cultural, structural, interpersonal,
  and psychological reasons, the messages that many
  students experience contradicts these basic needs
  and wants. That is, students often feel
  intimidated, misunderstood, mistrusted, and
  manipulated. Then they act in unkind ways that
  can obscure or skew these needs and wants.

8
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• The Dalai Lama
• Meditate on loving kindness. Moisten your mental
  continuum with the water of loving-kindness and
  prepare it as you would a piece of fertile
  ground.
• When the seed of compassion is planted in such a
  mind, germanation will be swift, proper, and
  complete.
• Once you have irrigated the mindstream with
  loving-kindness, meditate on compassion.

9
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• Cultivating Compassion (reflecting on emotions
  before lashing out at someone)
• Being in the Present Moment Stress-reducing
  Techniques through Meditation (wedged throughout
  the school day)
• Breathing and Imagining Loving Kindness (gentle
  breaths and still bodies)
• Breathing and Concentrating on a Single Object
  (sound of the Tibetan singing bowl)
• Helping Children Slow Down and Think Before
  Acting (finding answers within themselves)
• Infusing Talking Yoga (less negative internal
  chatter)
• Integrating Active Meditation (sing, dance, laugh
  for a specific period followed by a period of
  sitting)

10
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• Cultivating Compassion (reflecting on emotions
  before lashing out at someone)
• The key is having students ask the simple
  questions Whats going on right now? What am I
  experiencing in this moment? Turning inside,
  they check out their experience at the inner
  level of felt bodily sensation, not the cerebral
  level of what the head says, yammering away.
• To be mindful is to be fully present in the
  moment, relinquishing the urge to control ones
  experience. Just being aware, just noticing the
  desire to be unkind, the knot unties in space.
  Children can learn to ride the waves of emotion,
  to move with them rather than struggle against
  them and act out because of them.
• Emotions are inevitable they exist to the point
  of enlightenment. Even children can learn that
  mindfulness does not involve suppressing emotions
  or overcoming them, but simply allowing them to
  flow freely through, without acting upon them and
  becoming unkind.

11
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• Being in the Present Moment Stress-reducing
  Techniques through Meditation (wedged throughout
  the school day)
• Children should find a place to go mentally in
  order to feel relaxed. The mind is a powerful
  organ. Children can literally think their way
  into calmness and relaxation.
• They should think of a relaxing place to go to in
  their minds. This is often a place where they
  have been in nature. They make this place as
  real in their minds as possible. They note
  exactly what color the sky is or what color the
  sea is. They can visualize the warmth of the sun
  and how the sand feels beneath their feet. Some
  children even put in the sound of the ocean waves
  or the calls of birds. They make this place as
  real as possible.
• While they are daydreaming in this tropical
  paradise, they take a short holiday from the
  cares of the school day. And, just like a
  holiday, they open their eyes, feeling refreshed
  and recharged, ready to be in the present
  moment.

12
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• Breathing and Imagining Loving Kindness (gentle
  breaths and still bodies)
• Breathing and Concentrating on a Single Object
  (sound of the Tibetan singing bowl)
• Photo by Theodore Rigby for The New York Times, a
  student at Piedmont Avenue Elementary in Oakland,
  Calif., practiced being mindful, using a
  technique he learned in class.

13
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• Parents and teachers tell kids 100 times a day
  to pay attention, said Philippe R. Goldin, a
  researcher. But we never teach them how.

14
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• During a five-week pilot program at Piedmont
  Avenue Elementary, Miss Megan, the mindful
  coach, visited every classroom twice a week,
  leading 15 minute sessions on how to have gentle
  breaths and still bodies. The sound of the
  Tibetan bowl reverberated at the start and finish
  of each lesson.

15
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• As students in Ms. Grahams fifth-grade class
  tried to pay attention to their breath, a calming
  technique that lasted 20 seconds, their coach
  asked them to cultivate compassion by
  reflecting on their emotions before lashing out
  at someone on the playground.

16
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• Tyran Williams defined mindfulness as not
  hitting someone in the mouth.
• He doesnt know what to do with his energy, his
  mother, Towana Thomas, said at a session for
  parents. But one day after school he told me,
  Im taking a moment. If it works in a childs
  mind with so much going on there must be
  something to it.

17
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• Asked their reactions to the sounds of the
  singing bowl, Yvette Solito, a third grader,
  wrote that it made her feel calm, like something
  on Oprah. Her classmate Corey Jackson wrote that
  it feels like when a bird cracks open its
  shell.
• Dr. Amy Saltzman, a physician in Palo Alto,
  Calif., who started the Association for
  Mindfulness in Education three years ago, thinks
  of mindfulness education as talk yoga.
  Practitioners tend to use sticky-mat buzzwords
  like being present and cultivating
  compassion, while avoiding anything spiritual.

18
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• Helping Children Slow Down and Think Before
  Acting (finding answers within themselves)

19
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• Actively encourage students to assume
  responsibility for thinking before acting in
  order to create a peaceable classroom.
• Set Standards. Engage students in establishing
  classroom standards by discussing How would you
  like to be treated in this classroom? How will
  you treat people? One way to get the ball rolling
  is to show students the painting The Peaceable
  Kingdom by Edward Hicks. (Prints are inexpensive
  and easily available. If you can't find this one,
  look for prints by Brueghel or other artists who
  depict community themes.) After explaining that
  peaceable is an old-fashioned word meaning
  peaceful, have the class identify how the
  painting illustrates the theme of peace. Ask
  What are the people and animals in the painting
  doing? How does that symbolize peace? What would
  a peaceable classroom be like? How would people
  treat one another in a peaceable classroom? Have
  students draw pictures illustrating life in a
  peaceable classroom.

20
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• RESOLVE
• As a class, get specific about the types of
  behaviors that contribute to a peaceable
  classroom.
• Complete T-charts. T-charts are widely used in
  cooperative learning to help children identify
  and learn social skills. For example, if you want
  to explore the concept of respect with your
  class, draw a T-chart on the board.
• Have children brainstorm specific behaviors for
  each side of the chart, such as shaking hands and
  saying please and thank you. You may want to make
  a second T-chart labeled "What Respect Doesn't
  Look Like" and "What Respect Doesn't Sound Like."
• Create a class compact Creating a class compact
  is different from setting up classroom rules and
  consequences, because the compact is a set of
  guidelines for how class members should treat one
  another.
• Present the following sentence starters "In this
  classroom we treat people with respect. That
  means-----." "In this classroom we care about
  each other. That means-----." "In this classroom
  we use conflict resolution. That means-----."
• Help children frame the compact in positive
  language. For example, rephrase "Don't call
  names," to "Call people what they want to be
  called." Remember to keep the compact as concrete
  as possible because children will have trouble
  sticking to it if it's too elaborate or abstract.

21
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• EVOLVE
• Establishing a caring classroom community is an
  ongoing process that you can keep alive by
  helping children assess how they're doing.
• Hold Community Meetings. Two weeks after your
  class draws up its compact, have a class meeting
  to evaluate it. Do students feel they are
  following the guidelines set forth? Are the
  guidelines adequate? Not specific enough? Should
  new ones be added? Hold these evaluation
  meetings regularly--every two weeks or
  so--throughout the year.
• Establish a Goal of the Week. If there are
  specific aspects of the compact that children are
  having difficulty following, choose one and set a
  peaceable classroom goal, making it the focus of
  a week's effort.

22
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• Infusing Talking Yoga (less negative internal
  chatter)
• Paying attention here and now with kindness and
  curiosity.
• Reconnecting students to their five senses,
  bringing them into a moment to moment awareness
  of themselves and their surroundings.
• Research shows increased attention skills,
  reduced test anxiety, and improved emotional
  regulation.

23
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• Dr. Saltzman, co-director of the mindfulness
  study at Stanford, said the initial findings
  showed increased control of attention and less
  negative internal chatter what one girl
  described as the gossip inside my head Im
  stupid, Im fat or Im going to fail math,

24
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• According to Dr. Salzman, a 4-year-old noticed
  her mother succumbing to road rage while stuck in
  traffic. She said, Mommy, mommy, you have to
  sing the breathing song.

25
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• A recent study of teenagers by Kaiser Permanente
  in San Jose, Calif., found that meditation
  techniques helped improve mood disorders,
  depression, and self-harming behaviors like
  anorexia and bulimia.

26
Dealing with Challenging Situations

• Mindfulness Techniques
• Integrating Active Meditation (sing, dance, laugh
  for a specific period followed by a period of
  sitting)
• This powerful, cathartic technique creates a
  circle of energy that results in a natural
  centering.
• www.oshoworld.com/meditation

27
Creating a Holistic Learning Environment

• Features of the Holistic Learning Design
• Significant holistic learning takes place when
  what is being taught is relevant to the personal
  interests of the learner.
• Holistic learning can capitalize on the wealth of
  experience of students.
• Students must understand the purpose and benefits
  of what theyre learning.
• Students need to be involved in the planning and
  evaluation of their learning.
• The experiences (including mistakes
  (drop-ortunities)) of holistic learners can
  provide the basis for learning activities. 
• Holistic learners are most interested in learning
  material that has immediate application to their
  lives. 
• Holistic learning is problem-centric rather than
  content-specific.

28
Creating a Holistic Learning Environment

• Features of the Holistic Learning Design
• Turn to a neighbor and choose one of the previous
  items from the list.
• Discuss how you may have seen this idea in
  action.
• Share out.

29
Creating a Holistic Learning Environment

• Features of the Holistic Learning Design
• Significant holistic learning takes place when
  what is being taught is relevant to the personal
  interests of the learner.
• Holistic learning can capitalize on the wealth of
  experience of students.
• Students must understand the purpose and benefits
  of what theyre learning.
• Students need to be involved in the planning and
  evaluation of their learning.
• The experiences (including mistakes
  (drop-ortunities)) of holistic learners can
  provide the basis for learning activities. 
• Holistic learners are most interested in learning
  material that has immediate application to their
  lives. 
• Holistic learning is problem-centric rather than
  content-specific.

30
Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving Anew

• Multiple Pathways to
• Thinking and Perceiving Anew
• Providing opportunities to learn in ways
  harmonious to the holistic learners unique ways
  of knowing
• The theory of multiple intelligences was
  developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner. It
  suggests that the traditional notion of
  intelligence, based on I.Q. testing, is far too
  limited. Instead, Dr. Gardner proposed eight
  different intelligences to account for a broader
  range of human potential in children and adults.
  These intelligences are
• Linguistic intelligence ("word smart")Logical-mat
  hematical intelligence ("number/reasoning
  smart")Spatial intelligence ("picture
  smart")Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body
  smart")Musical intelligence ("music
  smart")Interpersonal intelligence ("people
  smart")Intrapersonal intelligence ("self
  smart")Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")
• Dr. Gardner says that our schools and culture
  focus most of their attention on linguistic and
  logical-mathematical intelligence. Society tends
  to esteem the highly articulate or logical people
  of our culture.
• However, Dr. Gardner says that we should also
  place equal attention on individuals who show
  gifts in the other intelligences the artists,
  architects, musicians, naturalists, designers,
  dancers, therapists, entrepreneurs, and others
  who enrich the world in which we live.

31
Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving Anew

• Multiple Pathways to
• Thinking and Perceiving Anew
• Tapping into "higher realms of human nature,
  including descriptions of peak experiences,
  archetypal dreams, and other transpersonal
  experiences of children
• Perceiving emotions nonverbal reception and
  expression of emotions
• Using emotions to facilitate thinking and
  perceiving
• Understanding emotions and what they convey as
  patterns of possible messages
• Managing emotions in order to increase oneness to
  emotional signals as a tool for thinking and
  perceiving anew

32
Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving Anew

• Multiple Pathways to
• Thinking and Perceiving Anew
• PERCEIVING EMOTION. The initial, most basic, area
  has to do with the nonverbal reception and
  expression of emotion.
• The capacity to accurately perceive emotions in
  the voices and faces of others provides a crucial
  starting point for more advanced understanding of
  emotions.

33
Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving Anew

• Multiple Pathways to
• Thinking and Perceiving Anew
• USING EMOTIONS TO FACILITATE THOUGHT.
• The second area is every bit as basic as the
  first The capacity of the emotions to enter
  into and guide the cognitive system and promote
  thinking.
• For example, cognitive scientists point out that
  emotions prioritize thinking. In other words
  something we respond to emotionally is something
  that grabs our attention.
• Having a good system of emotional input,
  therefore, should help direct thinking toward
  matters that are truly important.
• A number of researchers have suggested that
  emotions are important for certain kinds of
  creativity to emerge. For example, mood swings
  and positive moods have been implicated in the
  capacity to carry out creative thought.

34
Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving Anew

• Multiple Pathways to
• Thinking and Perceiving Anew
• Insight Dialogue Structures
• Rapid Re-membering
• Closure/Review

35
Increasing Integral Awareness

• As the Red Queen says in
• Through the Looking Glass,
• It takes all the running you can do to keep in
  the same place.
• What HAVENT you noticed lately?
• as a tool for increasing
• integral awareness.

36
Increasing Integral Awareness

• Childrens Books on Compassion
• Show You Understand Learning about Compassion
  and Caring K-3
• Facing Change Falling Apart and Coming Together
  Again in the Teen Years
• To Walk Humbly Stories and Activities for
  Teaching Compassion and Justice Ages 10-13

37
Internet Resources

• www.intentblog.com
• www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_
• intelligences.htm
• www.unh.edu/emotional_intelligence
• www.utoronto.ca/mcluhan

38
Lets Stay in Touch

• OPENING DOORS TO ENDLESS OPPORTUNITIES
• www.DrKyle.org
• [phone]
• Email DrKyle_at_DrKyle.org