Mindful Practice for Social Justice

A Guide for Educators and Professional Learning Communities

Raquel Ríos

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429581380
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book is designed to help you bring mindfulness and social justice to the forefront of your education practice, so you can work toward self-actualization and social transformation. Author Raquel Ríos offers instructional practices, coaching strategies and implementation tools to help you activate mind, body and spirit on your journey to making real changes toward equity in your school or classroom.

What's Inside:

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• Chapter 1 explains the importance of realizing one's powers and how power increases when we discover its purpose and utility in society.

• Chapter 2 introduces you to the three domains of Peak Learning Experience (Personal, Social and Transpersonal) that lead to the targeted practices of Authentic Presence, Freedom and Emergence and discusses how bias can limit our ability to see the truth in people and situations.

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• Chapters 3–5 delve into each domain, offering strategies, activities, reflection questions and application to practice tools.

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• Chapter 6 discusses the importance of building the right team and the need to change how we recruit talent if we want to innovate our profession.

With the powerful reflection tools and activities in this book, you and your teams will feel more equipped and supported on your path toward mindfulness, social justice and change in education.

1

You are Either Magical, Or You Are Not

Insight into a child’s power furnishes the material and becomes the starting point for all education.¹

John Dewey

In spite of progress and advancements in technology and science, we feel more uncertain now than ever before. Many of us question whether it is possible to live and work together across cultural and ideological differences peacefully and constructively. Information travels at a rapid speed, and life can feel exhilarating, yet we long to slow down, to discover something deeper. Mostly, we want to feel like our life matters. In many ways, we are ripe for a new way of being, a new model for society. This requires a new education.

Over the last few decades, there has been an outpouring of information and research on how we are evolving as human beings. Important discoveries about human development, cognition and brain functioning are influencing every field. Social scientists have expanded our understanding of the nature of relationships, society and the impact of inequality on our overall well-being, our ability to trust, life expectancy, education performance and social mobility.² When we stop to observe what is happening, we see two major trends driving our future. The first is the move toward contemplative practices, and the second is the desire for a more egalitarian society.

Teachers and practitioners have enormous influence, individually and collectively. We have wisdom and practical knowledge about human development, transformation and learning that is often left out of text books. Each of us has an important perspective, a wealth of information, a special talent and purpose. What John Dewey says is true—the natural starting point for education is insight into our power, which also sets the highest expectation for ourselves.

Not long ago, I asked one of my precocious teenage students, “What is your superpower?” She replied, “I don’t have a superpower.” “Really?” I asked. I could hardly hold back a smile. I knew this girl was a talented poet. “Come on,” I pushed, “think about it. What is your power?” When she came up blank again, I asked, “Why didn’t you say writing?” “Writing? Writing is not a superpower,” she replied matter-of-factly, “writing is easy.”

Naturally, we associate power with something out of the ordinary, something supernatural or that requires great effort. We also have a tendency to think power comes from somewhere out there. The truth is, our real source of power comes from the natural resources we are given at birth—our talent, our predispositions, and our innate gifts. Some powers are easy to notice, like Mozart’s gift for music. Others take time to surface. Parents can usually spot their child’s power very early on.

A superpower is a seed, an innate talent that leads us to experience joy and fulfillment. It can be cultivated and recognized by others with discipline and practice. You can have a natural talent for singing, for example, but if you don’t practice and cultivate it, it will never be realized to the level of mastery. When you dedicate your life to cultivating and mastering your natural talent or superpower, you are choosing a life of happiness and satisfaction.

What is Your Power?

Many adults have superpowers that lie dormant. Layers of life experience can pull us away from our greatest resource. The following questions can help us rediscover or affirm our power:

♦ What are you naturally good at?

♦ What do you enjoy that gives you a sense of satisfaction?

♦ What do you spend time fine-tuning and perfecting?

♦ What would improve the world?

When I posed these questions to a group of education practitioners, I got an amazing assortment of answers. Here are a few:

Teacher #1

1. What are you naturally good at? Helping others
2. What do you enjoy that gives you a sense of satisfaction? Teaching my students how to read
3. What do you spend time fine-tuning and perfecting? Preparing better lessons using hands-on experiences
4. What would improve the world? Having more compassionate people

Professor

1. What are you naturally good at? Making complicated concepts easy to understand
2. What do you enjoy that gives you a sense of satisfaction? Interacting with students
3. What do you spend time fine-tuning and perfecting? Making learning fun
4. What would improve the world? Being enthusiastic and passionate

Consultant/Specialist

1. What are you naturally good at? Sports
2. What do you enjoy that gives you a sense of satisfaction? Teaching mindfulness
3. What do you spend time fine-tuning and perfecting? Photography
4. What would improve the world? Peace and loving-kindness

Mentor/Coach

1. What are you naturally good at? Having deep conversations and thinking about solutions to problems
2. What do you enjoy that gives you a sense of satisfaction? Traveling and meeting new people
3. What do you spend time fine-tuning and perfecting? Understanding race and other social constructs
4. What would improve the world? Learning how to work together across race and difference

Leader

1. What are you naturally good at? Listening and being with children
2. What do you enjoy that gives you a sense of satisfaction? Helping teachers, parents and students
3. What do you spend time fine-tuning and perfecting? Life balance and mental health
4. What would improve the world? Inner peace and acceptance of differences

As you review these answers, you can begin to see how Questions 1 and 2 combine to reveal a Power, and the remaining two questions refer to the “how,” which is our Practice, and the “why,” which is our Purpose. Playing around with these questions to come up with a Power to Purpose statement helps you align your power to your life’s work. Our power increases when we realize its utility. Coming up with a Power to Purpose statement is the first step in understanding how all self-actualization leads to something of value in society.

Consider this framing: “This is who I am and what I love and this is how I can be useful to the world.”

Here are some example Power to Purpose statements from the sample group.

Teacher: I help others engage in reading by creating hands-on experiences so that through reading, they learn compassion and understanding of others.

Professor: I make complicated concepts easy to understand by building relationships with students and making learning fun so that they will experience enthusiasm and passion for life.

Consultant/Specialist: I teach about the importance of mindfulness in sports by displaying and analyzing photographs of athletes interacting with each other in training and on the field

Mentor/Coach: I organize opportunities for people to come together to solve problems and reflect on how we can better work together across race and other differences.

Leader: I listen carefully to children in order to gain insight into how we can create school communities that promote well-being, inner peace and acceptance.

Activity

Power to Purpose

Purpose: To determine your superpower and articulate a Power to Purpose statement so that learning starts from this premise

♦ Read the four questions, and contemplate them in silence for 5 min before writing anything down.

• What are you naturally good at?
• What do you enjoy that gives you a sense of satisfaction?
• What do you spend time fine-tuning and perfecting?
• What would improve the world?

♦ After you write your answers, come up with a Power to Purpose Statement.

• Question 1 + 2 = Power.
• Question 3 = The “how” or the Practice.
• Question 4 = The “why” or the Purpose.

♦ If you are working with a partner, consider exchanging your answers to the four questions, and let your partner come up with a Power to Purpose statement...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Meet the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 You are Either Magical, Or You Are Not
• 2 Three Domains for Peak Learning Experience
• 3 Authentic Presence: Personal Awareness and Self-Mastery
• 4 Freedom: Social Awareness and Adaptability
• 5 Emergence: Transpersonal Awareness and Agency
• 6 The Unicorn Point
• Afterword