Contemplation, Interbeing and transformation
16-June-2006
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PedagogyEquity ]
"engaged pedagogy"
According to Hanh (1991), in order for reflection to lead to transformation, one needs to engage in the practice of mindful contemplation which requires one to look deeply at/into the issues that one confronts. By doing so, you are able to see how self and other "inter-are". Hanh points out that "Roses and garbage inter-are"...read the following pharasing........
"If we look more deeply we will see that in just five or six days, the roses will become part of the garbage. We do not need to wait five days to see it. If we look at the rose, and we look deeply, we can see it now. And if we look at the garbage can, we see that in a few month its contents can be transformed into a lovely vegetables, and even a rose. If you are a good organic gardener, looking at a rose you can see the garbage, and looking at the garbage you can see a rose." (1991, p.97)
Thich Nhat Hanh is a Buddhist monk. The difference between Freire and Hanh, noted by Hook (1994) is that while Freire speaks mostly to the mind, Hanh's vision of pedagogy emphasizes "wholeness, a union of mind, body and spirit". Therefore an "engaged pedagody" is a process of healing the splits, of developing integrity of interbeing between theory and practice, intellect and spirit, teacher and student, and embarking on a process of transformation in which being-in-the classroom is recognized as part of being-in-the-world and vice versa.
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