This is a prepublished version that is close to the published paper.

For citations:
Ergas, O. (2018). A contemplative turn in education: Charting a curricular pedagogical
countermovement, Pedagogy, Culture & Society (ahead of print).

A Contemplative Turn in Education: Charting a Curricular-Pedagogical

Countermovement

Abstract

This paper explores a countermovement that is emerging within an educational climate that

highlights accountability, standardization and performativity. This countermovement has become

manifest in an exponential rise in the implementation and research of contemplative practices

(e.g., mindfulness, yoga) across educational settings. The paper explores the unfolding of this

curricular-pedagogical phenomenon, characterizes its core elements and explains why and how it

can be viewed as a 'contemplative turn in education'. Based on a conceptual review of academic

publications in the field, the paper demonstrates a progression from a pre-contemplative era to

the current contemplative turn. As part of the review three curricular domains within this turn are

described: mindfulness-based interventions, contemplative pedagogies and contemplative

inquiry. Each domain offers a different perspective on the contemplative turn and contributes to

epistemological changes in curricular-pedagogical practice. The paper also presents a critical

discourse that challenges the contemplative turn's ethics, implementations and curricular

orientations. The latter discourse has been developing alongside and as part of this turn.

Keywords: Contemplative practices, educational change, curriculum, pedagogy, mindfulness

Word count: 9965

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Introduction

The terms 'contemplation' and 'contemplative practices', such as meditation and yoga are

followed by a trail of connotations, images and interpretations. Traditionally, these terms were

associated with philosophers, mystics, monks and Himalayan yogis. However, throughout the

20th century and in contemporary times, contemplative practices and worldviews have been

migrating over the globe as practices originating in places, such as East-Asia (e.g., yoga,

meditation), have been adopted in other parts of the world and especially in Western

industrialized countries (De Michelis, 2004; Morgan, 2015). This migration, however, does not

only concern a literal movement over the globe. It is also a 'conceptual' migration in which

practices once associated with the domains of spirituality and religion, have become growingly

accepted within secular contexts such as hospitals and psychological clinics (Kabat-Zinn, 2005;

Segal, Teasdale & Williams, 2013), neuroscience labs (Davidson et al., 2012), and pubic

educational institutions (Schonert-Reichl & Roeser, 2016). These literal and conceptual

migrations have been charging 'contemplation' and 'contemplative practices' with diverse

meanings and interpretations.

The embrace of contemplative practices has become clearly manifest in a growing

incorporation of contemplative practices in secular public educational institutions. Such

initiatives have been developing as evidence of these practices’ contributions to various aspects

of students’ and teachers’ lives have been accumulating (Davidson et al, 2012; Roeser, 2014;

Shapiro, Brown & Astin, 2011). Short termed mindfulness-based interventions in which students

and/or teachers learn to practice mindfulness meditation have been shown to contribute to their

well-being, cognitive functioning, social-emotional competencies, and in some cases, to their

academic achievements (Bakosh et al, 2016; Flook et al, 2013; Jennings et al, 2017; Zenner,

3
Herrnleben-Kurz & Wallach, 2014)). In addition, contemplative practices have been integrated in

more robust ways in higher education initiatives, in order to enhance students’ critical faculties,

engender meaningful learning experiences, and contribute to their professional identities within

diverse healthcare and service professions (Barbezat & Bush, 2014; Repetti, 2010).

This growing interest in the implementation of contemplative practice in the curriculum

has become evident around the turn of the millennium (Duerr, Zajonc, & Dana, 2003), yet it

seems to have been growing ever since. Various reviews, special issues and edited volumes

published in recent years serve as testimony to this claim (e.g., Bush, 2011; Davidson et al, 2012;

Hill, 2006; Lomas et al, 2017; Palmer, Zajonc, & Scribner, 2010; Roeser, 2014; Sanders, 2013).

Some have thus been referring to this phenomenon as 'a contemplative turn' (Eppert, 2013) and a

'quiet revolution' (Zajonc, 2013).

This paper asks: what kind of turn is this contemplative turn? Is it indeed a turn, and how

can we understand it in curricular-pedagogical terms? How are we to make sense of

contemplative practices when they are positioned in a contemporary curriculum that is often

framed in rational-economic terms, which seem quite remote from these practices? The paper

analyses this novel phenomenon, reviews it, and offers possible answers to these questions. The

first part of the paper discusses difficulties concerned with the attempt to frame 'contemplative

practices' given their historical and contemporary contexts and interpretations. It then demarcates

this phenomenon based on some definitions and articulates a core that seems to characterize most

contemplative practices. The paper then positions this core within a Weberian typology of

education, which provides a possible historical context for the articulation of the contemplative

turn as a paradigmatic curricular-pedagogical change. The second part of the paper offers a

qualitative literature review that demonstrates both the growing legitimacy of these practices and

4
their spread across curricular settings. This both warrants referring to this phenomenon as a

'contemplative turn' and also enables for the demonstration of three domains in which this turn is

manifested within secular and public educational institutions: mindfulness-based interventions,

contemplative pedagogies and contemplative inquiry. The third part of the paper presents some

critical voices concerned with the contemplative turn, some of which can be considered as part of

this developing discourse. I then articulate the contemplative turn as introducing shifts in the

epistemology undergirding curricular-pedagogical practice and I outline what kind of turn this

contemplative turn is bringing forth.

Contemplative Practices: Complexities, Definitions and Broad Orientations

A Conglomerate of Interpretations

'Contemplation' can be discussed based on at least four perspectives: (a) as a state of

mind – what does it feel like to contemplate/practice contemplation? (b) As a practice – what is a

contemplative practice and how does one engage in it? (c) The aim of such practice – why

practice contemplation? What does it lead to? (d) The origins of these practices – where do these

practices come from and what do they stand for? These four characteristics are closely tied;

however, they are different perspectives on what contemplation is. All four are part of the

contemporary discourse of contemplative practices (e.g., Davidson et al., 2012; Hadot, 1995;

Olendzki, 2011; Palmer, 1983; Roth, 2008; Yates, Immergut, & Graves, 2015; Zajonc, 2009). A

discussion of all of these aspects is beyond the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, there is a need

to point, even if briefly, to the diversity of possible perspectives from which to discuss these

aspects before defining contemplation in a way that will enable us to progress with the task of

this paper.

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 Diversity here begins with the acknowledgement that when contemplative practices such

as mindfulness, yoga or compassion meditation are proposed within contemporary public

education, what we face are not merely practices, but also traditions of interpretation behind

them. These traditions are often referred to as 'wisdom traditions' (Roth, 2006), which in the case

of the above mentioned practices, originate in East-Asia (e.g., Buddhism, Taoism, Vedanta).

However, things become far more complicated, given that in the past decades the above

mentioned practices have been provided an additional point of reference that frames them in very

different terms. In the past four decades over 3700 studies have been published on mindfulness

practice and its effects alone (Black et al. 2018). If Buddhism will speak of mindfulness practice

as a meditation framed in Buddhist terms and grounded in ancient sutras (Olendzki, 2011),

scientific research will sometimes not mention these origins at all. It might refer to it as a form of

cognitive/attentional/mental training and demonstrate its effects on reductions in cortisol (i.e., the

stress hormone) and blood-pressure levels (Nelson, 2012).

Furthermore, in contemporary times the term 'wisdom traditions' does not only apply to

East-Asian traditions (Morgan, 2015; Roth, 2006). It has been applied just as much, to Greco-

Roman and Western philosophy (Hadot, 1995), monotheistic religions (Merton, 1972),

Aboriginal, Native American traditions (Roderick & Merculieff, 2013), American

Transcendentalism (Miller, 2012), and Anthroposophy (Zajonc, 2009). Practices referred to as

'contemplative' have been a part of all of these traditions and others not mentioned, and many of

them are incorporated in contemporary (mostly higher) educational institutions (Barbezat &

Bush, 2014; Lin, Oxford, & Brantmeier, 2013).

This diversity in origins, manifestations, interpretations and aims is captured in an image

presented by the Contemplative Mind in Society referred to as the 'tree of contemplative

6
practices'.1 On this tree one will find an incredibly eclectic array of practices including

calligraphy and dancing, meditation, labyrinth walking, chanting, Lectio Divina (sacred reading),

sweat lodge, yoga, Sabbath and numerous others. One should also bear in mind that terms such

as 'yoga' or 'meditation' lead in a myriad directions, lineages and traditions in and of themselves

(De Michelis, 2004; Feuerstein, 2001).

Given the above, an attempt to characterise 'contemplative practices' in contemporary

times implies facing old, new, religious, spiritual, scientific, silence-based, dialogue-based,

movement-based, stationary-based, discourse-based, embodiment-based, East-Asian, Western,

Aboriginal practices, which are all subject to human interpretation. Scholars who have attempted

to interpret the growing incorporation of contemplative practices in contemporary social settings

interpreted this phenomenon in various ways. Some suggested that this is a countermovement to

the Weberian narrative of disenchantment, which described a world that is moving toward the

iron cage of bureaucracy and rationality (Heelas & Woodhead, 2005; Wexler, 2000). Others have

been critical of this proposal suggesting that this alleged spirituality is 'a new cultural addiction

and a claimed panacea for the angst of modern living' (Carrette & King, 2005, p. 28). Similarly,

Purser and Loy (2013) critiqued the proliferation of contemporary mindfulness practices, in

coining the term 'McMindfulness' - the commodification of Buddhism, its branding and its

degradation as a consequence. Some referred to this as a post-secular phenomenon, a term that

reflects a reality that has outgrown our ability to describe it based on the secularity/religiosity

dualism (Lewin, 2017; Taylor, 2006).

If understanding 'contemplation' and/or 'contemplative practices' in contemporary times

becomes highly challenging given these diverse meanings, it becomes even more difficult to

1
https://www.google.co.il/search?q=contemplative+practices+tree&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEw
iQh4eVwcnWAhUPZ1AKHeIACe4Q_AUICigB&biw=1536&bih=760&dpr=1.25

7
understand how to treat these practices when they enter a public educational setting - in itself a

complex locus of social interpretations. In the face of this complexity, my strategy in exploring

contemplative practices in contemporary educational settings is to capture what seems to be a

core element of the practices in and of themselves and to treat their aims and their origins as

peripheral. This by no means suggests that the latter are unimportant. It only proposes a possible

interpretation of this curricular-pedagogical phenomenon; namely, that the engagement in the act

of contemplative practice can emerge from various origins and be proposed for diverse aims, but

there seem to be common denominators - core elements - to the pedagogy itself. This core tends

to remain the same wherever contemplative practices are implemented seriously. In the

following then I will provide two definitions that draw the 'ball-park' for contemplative practices,

followed by a description of their core pedagogical movement.

Some Definitions

The first definition, offered by Harold Roth (2006), head of the Brown University's

Bachelor's degree in contemplative studies, can be viewed as an anthropological one. It provides

an external perspective on this social phenomenon. Contemplative practices are 'ways that

human beings, across cultures and across time, have found to concentrate, broaden, and deepen

conscious awareness as the gateway to cultivating their full potential and to leading more

meaningful and fulfilling lives' (p. 1788).

The second definitions describes contemplative practices as

…forms of mental and behavioural training that are intended to produce alterations in

basic cognitive and emotional processes, such as attention and the regulation of certain

8
 forms of negative affect, and to enhance particular character traits that are considered

virtuous, such as honesty and kindness. (Davidson et al., 2012, pp. 147-148).

This definition, offered by a group of some of the leading neuroscientists, psychologists and

educational scholars involved in the study of contemplative practices, elucidates internal aspects

of contemplation; i.e., what one does when engaged in such practices.

Together these definitions point broadly to:

a) A variety of origins of these practices (i.e., across cultures, across time).

b) Some of their aims (e.g., fulfilling lives, virtues).

c) Some features of the actual practice (e.g., awareness, attention regulation).

As I argued, aspects (a) and (b) are crucial to the shaping of the contemplative turn and its

discourse. These, however, are the aspects that tend to be the most versatile and hardest to unify

judged by the variety of implementations of contemplative practices in the curriculum described

in part two. The paper hence suggests that (c) is the core of the contemplative turn, whereas (a)

and (b) are its peripheral aspects, which are applied in this paper as auxiliaries to the discussion

of this curricular-pedagogical phenomenon.

The Pedagogical Movement of Contemplative Practices

In accordance with the above definitions and extending them further, there seem to be at least

three inter-related common denominators that are associated with contemplative practices.

Together they define what I call 'the pedagogical movement of contemplative practices'. I apply

the term ‘pedagogy’ here as indicating: what one does when one contemplates and what this act

implies. I use the term ‘pedagogical movement’, because contemplation involves an intentional

9
mental act that can be viewed as an inner movement that one establishes within oneself. These

meanings are elaborated in the following three elements that comprise the pedagogical

movement of contemplative practices:

1. A 'spatial' turning inward: Many scholars agree that a basic foundation of all

contemplative practices concerns a turning of one's attention inward toward one's first-person

experience. In Charles Taylor's (1991) terms, it reflects the understanding of ourselves as 'beings

with inner depths' (p. 26). We tend to localize everything in the world in terms of 'inside-outside'

(Taylor, 1989, p. 111) and we can turn to our subjectivity and make it into our object of

attention. Contemplative practice in Taylor's rendition means becoming 'aware of our awareness',

'experiencing our experiencing' and 'focusing on the way the world is for us'; as he claims: '[t]his

is what I call taking a stance of radical reflexivity or adopting the first-person standpoint' (1989,

p. 130). This also corresponds with Hadot (1995), who claimed that these practices invite us 'to

establish a relationship of the self to the self' (p. 90). Arthur Zajonc (2009) renders this in

educational terms and claims that 'meditation is a schooling for experiencing life from the inside'

(p. 46).

2. A different engagement with time: Contemplative practices bring forth a different

intentional relationship with time, perhaps captured by the distinction between doing and being.

As David Loy (1996) analysed, 'time originates from our sense of lack and our projects to fill in

that lack' (p. 29). Contrasting this sense of lack, the overall attitude of contemplative practices is

that we are not obliged to do all the time. There is no rush anywhere and one is entitled to just be

and/or inquire into the nature of being. This can be reflected for example, in a radical embrace of

the here-and-now-ness of the sensed body as in renditions of yoga and mindfulness (Iyengar,

2005; Yates et al., 2015), in a philosophical orientation, which intentionally embraces slow

10
rather than rapid problem-solving thinking (Trakakis, 2017), as well as in engagement with the

Arts (Roth, 2006).

3. An intention to be aware and to attend to experience in a different way: The turning of

one's gaze inward is not arbitrary. It is a practice of and accompanied by an intention to be

present to one's experience. Such intention is antithetical to mindlessness (Yates et al., 2015). It

combines a regulation of attention (Davidson et al. 2012) and the engendering of particular

attitudes, such as non-judgement, discernment, kindness, curiosity, compassion, and acceptance

(Kabat-Zinn, 2005).

These three elements characterize the pedagogical movement of contemplative practices,

which are further discussed throughout the paper. In the following, I provide a historical

perspective that nests this more stable practical aspect of contemplation within a broader

perspective on contemplation and education.

Contemplation and Education: A Weberian Typology

Both in Western and in East-Asian conceptions, contemplation has been associated with a

distinction between two orientations toward life. I describe these two orientations in order to

further ground contemplative practices in their history. However, I will suggest that the

contemporary contemplative turn, has outgrown this traditional framework and I will hence offer

a more nuanced approach after presenting it.

In medieval times there was a distinction between vita activa – day-to-day life of work and

toil, and vita contemplativa – the life of the monk who retreats to the monastery and/or to a

solitary life and dedicates him/herself to meditation and prayer, nested within a broad framework

11
of meaning and grounded in wisdom traditions (Steel, 2012; Zajonc, 2009). These were

considered as two paths of life that did not coincide. You were either a layperson, or a monk.

A similar distinction appears throughout Indian texts, such as the Upanishads and the

Bhagavad Gita. Here the two orientations were framed in terms of worldly life of economic

functioning often associated with repetitiveness and earthly desires, versus a life of renouncing

earthly desires and dedicating oneself to liberation from them based on asceticism and

contemplative practices (Grinshpon, 2003; Zaehner, 1977).

As Philip Wexler analysed (2009), Max Weber hinted at a typology of education based on

these two orientations. Weber argued that,

Historically, the two polar opposites in the field of education ends are: to awaken

charisma, that is heroic qualities or magical gifts; and, to impart specialised expert

training. The first type corresponds to the charismatic structure of domination; the latter

type corresponds to the rational and bureaucratic (modern) type of domination. (in

Gerth & Mills, 1969, p. 426).

Hence 'charismatic education' was focused on the awakening of inner qualities through

contemplative practices and was associated with the enchantment of the world. Conversely,

'professional education' was focused on rational qualities and addressed the economic-

bureaucratic needs of the social group (Wexler, 2009). One can find these two orientations, in

Plato's Republic for example. The philosophers' curriculum culminated in contemplation,

whereas others received a curriculum that prepared them for the economic functions they were to

fulfil in their adult life.

When positioning contemporary public curricula in Western industrialised countries

within this typology, it appears to be very much oriented toward the rational-economic pole. This

12
orientation appeared clearly in early 20th century curricular thinking, which was substantially

affected by the industrial revolution and by the model of scientific thinking (Bobbitt, 1918).

Schools were hence considered responsible for ensuring the economic sustainability of society,

by emphasizing fundamental skills such as the ‘three R’s’ (i.e., reading, writing, arithmetic). In

contemporary times this orientation still holds sway as 'powerful supranational organisations,

such as the OECD and the World Bank, view education primarily as a tool for improving

economic performance' (Gilead, 2012, p. 113). Recent decades reflect this orientation in

practices of accountability, standardization, and high-stakes testing, which are associated with

the rational-bureaucratic orientation. Such orientation treats society as a bulk and measures the

quality of education based on quantitative and external constructs of performativity (Biesta,

2009; Pinar, 2005). Recently it has been demonstrated that these processes filter down all the

way to kindergartens, as ‘pre-k becomes the new first grade’, with less playtime and more formal

and structured instruction (Bassok, Latham, & Rorem, 2016).

The overall ethos of the rational-bureaucratic-economic orientation tends to reflect the

opposite of the threefold pedagogical movement of contemplation. In terms of space, it mostly

orients students and teachers away from their interior lives and toward complying with external

standards. In terms of temporality, it will emphasize the need to be doing, producing, performing

and if possible with speed and efficiency. In terms of its intention, it will stress future, specific

and often measurable goals.

However, as Hotam and Wexler (2014) discussed, there is a clear countermovement to

this contemporary geist and the growing presence of a contemplative orientation in the

curriculum may reflect this. Notwithstanding, when proposed here as a 'contemplative turn' there

is need for nuance that does not seem to be offered in the Weberian typology. As Zajonc (2009)

13
claimed: '[T]he times are different now in that those who wish to live the contemplative life must

simultaneously live the active life' (p. 14). The contemplative turn in education as articulated

here is not a full pendulum swing toward vita-contemplativa. Rather, it is a more nuanced

movement, perhaps aligned with the doing/being distinction, which reflects two states of mind

within one and the same person, at different times. Here one does not have to be a contemplative

in order to practice contemplation. Rather, within day-to-day living one can engage formally and

informally in the pedagogical movement of contemplative practices. Engaging in such practice

within the non-dualistic conception proposed here embraces a balance between these two

orientations.

The rational-economic orientation reflects an acknowledgement of economic needs and

respects education’s functional role, while the contemplative orientation acknowledges the

individual’s interiority, and his/her need for meaning and purpose beyond mere survival – a

function that Neil Postman (2011) for example, viewed as fundamental to education. To engage

in the threefold movement of turning in, engaging differently with time and having an intention

to become aware of what is happening here and now is to engage in an act that may provide the

means for introducing such balance. This is because this pedagogical movement shifts one’s

attention from the immediacy of day-to-day necessity to a broadened perspective that enables

one to explore one’s doings within a broader perspective of individual meaning (Taylor, 1989;

Zajonc, 2009). The contemplative turn is reflected in a growing incorporation of pedagogical

practices that engender this internal movement in various ways. In the following we turn to

explore this, however, first we will seek to establish whether indeed calling this a turn is

justified.

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A Conceptual Review of the Contemplative Turn in Education

A leap in research of mindfulness in education, later discussed, has been documented

(Schonert-Reichl & Roeser, 2016, p. 4) as well as a growth in implementations of contemplative

practices in higher education (e.g., Barbezat & Bush, 2014); however, are these indeed sufficient

indicators of a 'contemplative turn'? To warrant the use of this term, I sought to explore: whether

the implementation of contemplative practices in 20th and 21st century education as documented

in academic publications is a novel phenomenon? If this is the case, when did it emerge and what

are the manifestations of this transition in contemporary academic discourse? To investigate

these questions, I conducted several cross-searches in Google Scholar and ERIC applying terms

associated with 'contemplative practices' (e.g., meditation, yoga, mindfulness) and 'education'

(e.g., school, students, academia) and read many publications particularly focusing on indications

of actual implementations of these practices in educational settings. The following is a

conceptual review of this exploration. Its intention is to depict the broad contours of this turn

beginning with a description of a pre-contemplative phase and then turning to provide evidence

for the contemplative turn as manifested in three domains: 1) Mindfulness-based interventions,

2) Contemplative pedagogies, and 3) Contemplative inquiry. Each of these domains is

conceptualized and demonstrated to provide a basic orientation to the contemplative turn. I then

follow with a deeper analysis of its implications.

A Pre-Contemplative Climate

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, a theoretical discourse concerning a

contemplative orientation certainly existed within academic publications and specifically within

the field of education. Dwayne Huebner (1999) proposed a theological reading of the vocation of

15
teaching. Parker Palmer (1983) articulated education as a contemplative journey, and the

Reconceptualist movement in curriculum theory, which was active during the 1970s explored

'matters of temporality, transcendence, consciousness, and politics [and] the nature of

educational experience' (Pinar et al, 1975, Xi). Furthermore, Pinar and Grumet, two of the

leading Reconceptualists, wrote their classic toward a poor curriculum (1976) in which they

developed 'currere' as a contemplative phenomenological, autobiographical pedagogy. This

presented a theoretical account of a contemplative practice in education, however, searching for

publications on actual implementations of this method yielded very few publications prior to the

turn of the millennium but quite a few after it (e.g., Doerr, 2004). Interestingly Pinar and

Grumet's book has been republished in 2014 perhaps given a changing academic climate that I

will be depicting.

Searching for peer-reviewed publications, which clearly describe contemplative practices

implemented in secular and public educational settings (i.e., excluding institutions that have been

clearly established based on contemplative orientations; e.g., Naropa University, Waldorf

schools), only few examples were found prior to the turn of the millennium. These included John

Miller's pioneering work of teaching meditation in undergraduate courses at Toronto University

(Miller, 1994), and Robert Tremmel's (1993) application of Zen meditation as a way of

extending the discourse of reflection in education, which was becoming well-established through

the work of Donald Schon. These two examples, however; are the exception rather than the rule.

Notably, both appeared toward the end of the 20th century.

It appears that until around the turn of the millennium, though a theoretical discourse

about contemplative practice existed, very few secular public educational institutions actually

implemented such practices as part of their curricular-pedagogical approach. If individual

16
teachers/lecturers did incorporate contemplative practices in their teaching prior to this period,

then either they intentionally avoided publicising such work (perhaps preferring to keep it ‘in the

closet’), or their papers were rejected by reviewers/journal editors. Both explanations reflect a

climate that seems to have changed as will be shown.

An additional aspect of the pre-contemplative phase points to Higher Education

departments of religion given the centrality of contemplative practices to this discipline. As Roth

(2008) analysed, paradoxically, of all academic departments, religious studies tended to be the

most resistant towards having anything to do with researchers' actual engagement in

contemplative practices. It would be considered legitimate to do research about contemplatives

and analyse texts about contemplative practices but the act of contemplation itself as part of one's

methodology would be considered malpractice of science (Roth, 2008; Simmer-Brown, 2009).

Following a long standing academic mistrust of first-person experience, especially when

concerned with claims about religious experiences and mysticism (Wallace, 2000), religion

departments discussed contemplation only from a distant third-person perspective. They were

wary about actually including contemplative practices in their curriculum unless this was in a

higher education institution that was literally established for such purposes (e.g., Naropa

University (Simmer-Brown, 2009)).

The Emergence of a Contemplative Turn

A shift in the amount of publications in the field becomes apparent in the first decade after the

turn of the millennium. This shift reveals how contemplative practices have been mobilised from

being considered legitimate only in theoretical discourse and research, to a discourse in which

they seem to become legitimate practices within classrooms, lecture halls and even in laboratory

17
experiments. The following presents these changes within three distinct categories. Each

category is characterised in terms of its curricular manifestations and overall rationale.

1. Mindfulness-based interventions: a therapeutic framing

As many argued, one of the major forces in the growing interest in contemplative practices writ

large and in education in particular, has to do with the growing involvement of science in this

field (Hyland, 2017). Most notably this progression has been attributed to Jon Kabat-Zinn's work

whose modification of Buddhist meditation within mindfulness-based-stress-reduction (MBSR)

gradually gained recognition since its inception in 1979 (Boyce, 2011). Effects of MBSR - an

eight-week course in which participants learn various forms of mindfulness practices (e.g.,

mindfulness meditation, movement, eating) - included improvements in health, psychological

well-being and other domains, which raised the interest of the health-science community. A chart

documents an exponential rise in peer-reviewed studies on mindfulness rising from 0 studies in

1980, to 10 in 2000, to 692 in 2017 (Black et al, 2018).

It is only since approximately the turn of the millennium that the MBSR model has

become more noticeable in educational practice. The Handbook of Mindfulness in Education

shows a chart of peer-reviewed studies focused only on mindfulness in education. The chart

somewhat emulates the progression of the general chart discussed above, with a curve that rises

from 0 studies in 2000 to 30 in 2014 and includes 155 studies overall (Schonert-Reichl &

Roeser, 2016, p. 4). Studies in this domain document short-termed interventions (spanning

approximately 8 to 24 weekly sessions) in which students and/or teachers are taught to practice

mindfulness in diverse ways mostly in primary and secondary schools. Following the Kabat-

Zinnean rendition, these curricular interventions are often framed in therapeutic terms (e.g.,

stress-reduction, psychological well-being, occupational health), with a growing interest in these

18
practices' contribution to social-emotional skills (Schonert-Reichl & Roeser, 2016). The

broadening of this field is also manifested in reviews and meta-analyses of practical

implementations of contemplation in education, which had begun to appear in the second decade

of the 21st century. These include general reviews (Davidson et al., 2012) but also age-specific

reviews, which manifest the field's development (e.g., young children (Erwin & Robinson, 2016;

Moreno, 2017); K1 to K12 (Zenner, Hernleben-Kurz & Wallach, 2014), teachers (Lomas et al,

2017), college students (Bamber & Schneider, 2016)).

2. Contemplative pedagogy: a curricular-pedagogical framing

While prior to the turn of the millennium there were hardly any publications documenting

lecturers implementing contemplative practices in their courses, in the past decade there is a

dramatic change in this respect. This is reflected in the development of the discourse of

'contemplative pedagogies' (Barbezat & Bush, 2014; Orr, 2002, Repetti, 2010). Contemplative

pedagogies are contemplative practices, however, they are framed as serving curricular-

pedagogical purposes associated with the subject matter taught by the lecturer/teacher. These

pedagogies are often applied as ways to engender meaningful and intimate learning along with

ethical, socio-emotional and socially-engaged attitudes (Berila, 2015; Magee, 2016; Orr, 2002;

Zajonc, 2006).

This discourse seems to have been developing simultaneously as a bottom-up and a top-

down progression. The bottom-up grassroots movement is reflected in eight edited volumes

found (e.g., Barbezat & Bush, 2014; Gunnlaugson, Sarath, Scott & Bai, 2014; Lin, Oxford &

Brantmeier, 2013; Palmer et al., 2010), three special issues focused on the subject (including

approximately 10 papers each) (e.g., Hill, 2006; Sanders, 2013), and over thirty individual peer-

reviewed publications that demonstrate ways in which individual lecturers include practices such

19
as mindfulness, compassion meditation, yoga and martial arts in their course teaching (e.g.,

Lelwica, 2009; Magee, 2016). Reviews in this field have also been published in recent years

(Bush, 2011; Zajonc, 2013). The following two examples demonstrate this orientation:

a) Helberg, Heyes and Rohel (2009) described how they incorporated Hatha yoga in their

philosophy course at a Canadian University. Yoga was incorporated in this course as an attempt

to provide students with meaningful ways for exploring embodiment and thinking, moving

beyond what conventional philosophy courses enable. The course included two 90 minute

sessions per week; one fully dedicated to yoga practice and meditation and the other included

meditation and textual analysis.

b) Levy (2007) described a course designed for communication students at the University

of Washington. In this course, students practiced several contemplative practices designed to

engender their personal exploration of their habits of technology use.

Several other examples described in the above mentioned publications reflect the

diversity of this phenomenon in terms of the wisdom-traditions they draw from (e.g.,

Christianity, Buddhism, Anthroposophy), the types of practices (e.g., movement practices,

stationary practice) and the disciplines in which they are applied (Barbezat & Bush, 2014). Most

publications concerning this strand focus on higher education implementations with few cases of

implementations in younger ages (e.g., Brady, 2007).

In conjunction with this grassroots contemplative turn, broader top-down initiatives are

also described in the literature. These include organisations (e.g., Contemplative Mind in

Society, Mind and Life) that have been supporting these contemplative initiatives (Bush, 2011;

20
Morgan, 2015), as well as Universities’ initiating full programs that position contemplative

practices at their centre as the following two examples demonstrate:

a) Brown University established an undergraduate program in contemplative studies,

which began as a smaller initiative in 2005 and became a BA program in 2014. This program

combines the theoretical study of contemplation with meditation 'labs'. In these labs the actual

practice of meditation is incorporated both as indispensable to knowing the field that one is

studying, and as a first-person research method by which students can test the validity of claims

made about the effects of meditation (Roth, 2006). This orientation will shortly be discussed as a

countermovement to religion departments' historical disdain for first-person perspectives in

research.

b) In Michigan University a Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Jazz and contemplative studies

was established in 2000. In this program students study a music curriculum, which includes

courses that are common in higher education music degrees, but here they also commit to the

study and practice of contemplation. Some of their lessons combine these two activities and tie

them with an educational framework that conjoins the themes of creativity, improvisation and

consciousness (Sarath, 2015).

3. Contemplative inquiry: a scientific framing

Contemplative pedagogies and contemplative inquiry are linked, however, the former stresses a

different epistemology of teaching whereas the latter might be viewed as stressing an

epistemology of research. This is reflected in some publications on contemplative pedagogies,

which add the nuance of a scientific framing (Lin, Oxford & Culham, 2016; Roth, 2006; Zajonc,

2006). Conceptions of 'contemplation' often depict it as a form of knowing that is different from

21
discursive day-to-day reasoning. Merton (1972) referred to contemplation as 'a knowledge too

deep to be grasped in images, in words, or even in clear concepts' (p. 1). Often such knowing is

paradoxically construed as violating the 'inside-outside' distinction of day-to-day living, as in a

direct or non-linear form of knowing, which 'involves not the separation but rather the union of

knower with what is known in the act of 'seeing' (theoria)' (Steel, 2012, p. 46). Hart (2004)

described it as a non-linear 'third way of knowing that complements the rational and the sensory'

(p. 28). It arises as a consequence of a shift from 'the habitual chatter of the mind' and based on it

'our worldview, sense of self, and relationships may be powerfully transformed' (ibid.).

Some scholars involved in implementing contemplative practices, suggest that without the

incorporation of contemplative knowing the academic endeavour of serving science is

compromised. As Roth (2006) expressed this: 'We have become the masters of third-person

scientific investigation, but we are mere novices in the arts of critical first-person scientific

investigation' (p. 1787). Importantly, in 2014 the peer-reviewed Journal of Contemplative

Inquiry was established, further substantiating the academization of this domain (Barbezat &

Bergman, 2014). To date three issues were published overall including close to twenty peer-

reviewed papers.

In these publications contemplative practices are sometimes described as ways by which to

develop scientific rigor, advance knowledge, and provide students with meaningful ways to

critically assess the knowledge they are taught (Barbezat & Bush, 2014). Brown University's

'meditation labs' for example, reflect a mobilisation of the 'lab experiment' from the domain of

third-person investigation to first-person methods of investigation. A similar mobilisation of the

language of science into the domain of contemplation occurs in Zajonc's (2009) proposal of an

22
'epistemology of love', which he methodically elaborates within phases and attitudes involved in

contemplative inquiry.

A practical example is provided by Levit-Binnun and Tarrasch (2014), who described

'contemplative brain investigations' developed by Levit-Binnun as quasi-experiments through

which she taught brain theory concepts to her Undergraduate psychology students. She taught

themes such as attention networks, the brain's reward system, or the social-emotional brain

through conventional frontal lecturing, however, each theme was also experientially investigated

based on contemplative practices. For example, students were instructed to observe their bodily

reactions as they listened to various sounds in order to explore the brain's way of processing

information, or they examined bodily reactions while witnessing images of suffering people to

explore the social brain. Levit-Binnun then helped them connect between their personal findings,

the brain theory taught, and the various individual differences experienced by students.

In sum, this review demonstrates that contemplative practices have become more common in

educational settings since around the turn of the millennium and it appears that this phenomenon

is developing and expanding. This seems to propose a countermovement to the 'rational-

economic narrative'. However, there is a need to move beyond this broad overview and explore

deeper implications of the contemplative turn in education in order to ground it in a more robust

meaning.

Is this a Turn and Where is it Turning Us To?

23
Alongside the literature described in the previous section, various critical concerns have been

raised in regards to the contemplative turn focusing mostly on mindfulness-based interventions.

Some of these challenge this paper's claim that there is an actual 'turn' here. Others have to do

with questioning where this turn is leading and whether education ought to go 'there'. In the

following, I present these voices, which emerged from the literature reviewed.

1. The contemplative turn as a turn in disguise

One line of critique concerns questioning whether this 'turn' is not a turn in disguise, which only

appears to bring something different. Some argued that mindfulness based interventions might be

more of a 'pathology proofing' technology, which eventually promote the economic orientation

rather than the contemplative one (Reveley, 2016). These interventions are incorporated in

schools, workplaces, and even in the US army, toward cultivating mental stability and resilience.

However, in these contexts their aims are some times aligned with efficiency, functionality,

productivity, and standardization (O’Donnell, 2015). Paradoxically, these are the very values of a

rational-bureaucratic-rationale orientation. Indeed, it is quite common to find studies of teacher

mindfulness-based interventions measuring economic constructs such as absenteeism and

burnout and providing economic justifications for these interventions as in the following: “In the

long run, reducing teacher stress and burnout may reduce costs associated with teacher

absenteeism, turnover, and health care…” (Jennings et al., 2017, p. 17).

The critique here then is that the contemplative orientation is eventually hijacked by the

economic-rational-bureaucratic orientation. In other words, maybe during the intervention

teachers and students turn inward, engage differently with time with an intention to become

mindful, yet the ‘system’ eventually wants to see this translate into economic outcomes. Thus,

there is no real turn at stake.

24
2. The contemplative turn as too shallow or too religious

Another orientation of critique lies in the associations between contemplative practices and their

origins. On the one hand there are critics who are supportive of contemplative practices, yet they

warn against how the contemplative turn is being shaped through the agency of market-place

economy and pop-culture, which distance these practices from their origins and their ethical core

(e.g., McMindfulness (Purser & Loy, 2013)). On the other hand, there are critical accounts that

are concerned with these very Buddhist, Taoist (or other) origins. Parents become concerned

with schools' potential proselytizing of a religion to their children when yoga or mindfulness are

incorporated into the curriculum. Such concerns lead to articulating clear secular guidelines on

how to avoid such pitfalls when proposing contemplative practices in public schools (Jennings,

2016).

These two positions – calls to re-root contemplative practices within their ethical

grounds, and calls to deliver them through a secular voice that some view as depriving them of

their essence, are reflected in contemporary debates both within education and writ large

(Hyland, 2017; Purser, Forbes & Burke, 2016). Broadly, they locate the contemplative turn in

education within the question of its ethical underpinnings. What does mindfulness in schools or

contemplative pedagogy really stand for and whom does it serve? And also, is there a clear voice

that can be discerned here given the diversity of implementations in the field? If the previous

perspective questioned whether there is a contemplative turn at all, this current strand of critique

represents a concern with its being either too religious, or too shallow.

3. The contemplative turn as too 'therapeutic'

25
Some critics are concerned with the general ‘therapeutic turn’ that infiltrated into the curriculum,

which can be seen in the discourse of mindfulness-based interventions (Hyland, 2009).

Ecclestone and Hayes (2008) suggested that the therapeutic turn trades educational values of

rationality, objectivity, science and progress by a set of post-modernist relativistic values, such as

'self-esteem' and 'emotional intelligence'. Such critique hearkens back to a Platonic-Kantian,

Enlightenment-based conception of education, which values ‘liberation through reason’ (p. xiii).

Paradoxically, such ideal very much reflects a contemplative orientation, which supposedly

mindfulness practice would support. However, these critics suggest that some therapeutic

interventions achieve the opposite. They inculcate a conception of a ‘vulnerable diminished

self/learner’, supposedly are meant to boost self-esteem and ‘heal’ us, yet create a culture of

domination, in which schools and universities become sites in which we are taught to be ‘happy’,

what to feel and what not to feel. Education, they argue, ought not be confused with therapy.

These various critical voices and others can be viewed as a sub-discourse within the

'contemplative turn in education'. They raise important questions, and there is more nuance

required when discussing them. For example, there are distinctions between primary, secondary

and higher education. Most intervention studies found in the searches conducted were focussed

on primary and secondary settings, whereas contemplative pedagogy studies were found mostly

in higher education. These are different manifestations of the contemplative turn since they

emphasize different curricular aims, hence the critical voices discussed above apply to them

differently (e.g., the associations between the practices and their origins might be less of an issue

when discussed in higher education). I leave the further discussion of these aspects for future

work. Following the first part of the paper, I argue for exploring the contemplative turn based on

26
the pedagogical movement of contemplative practices. Such perspective has less to do with

questions concerned with the sources and the aims of these practices, which can be diverse (e.g.,

secular, religious, therapeutic). It also diverts the conversation from what might be very difficult

to assess: where this is all going. The curricular-pedagogical framing warrants the claim that

there is a 'contemplative turn in education'. However, it has more to do with the ways in which

the epistemology of our curriculum transforms when it includes the pedagogical movement of

contemplation: turning in, engaging differently with time, and with a particular intention in mind

– all of which seem to point to the treatment of embodied first-person experience as part of the

curriculum.

A Contemplative Turn: A View from Within

Critiques of mindfulness-based interventions as economically-situated may have some merit.

However, students practicing mindfulness, even if briefly, are still engaging in a practice that is

quite radically different from practices to which they are accustomed when studying Math,

Geography and History. Suddenly their interiority enters the curriculum in ways that are usually

not present within day-to-day pedagogical practice. Furthermore, the understanding of the

contemplative turn need not be confined to mindfulness-based interventions. As reviewed,

contemplative pedagogies and inquiry are on the rise and this brings quite a radical

transformation in two formative practices of Academe – teaching and doing research (Author,

2017). They reflect the creation, discovery and transmission of 'knowledge' and hence changes in

these practices reflect changes in our epistemology; i.e., in what we are willing to call

'knowledge' and the forms of 'knowing' we are willing to include in the social locus we call the

27
curriculum. Before outlining these changes, the following provides a brief historical excursion

into this domain.

Harbingers of the embrace of first-person knowledge appeared a hundred years ago as

William James proposed a science that 'would depend for its original material on facts of

personal experience, and would have to square itself with personal experience through all its

critical reconstructions' (1902, p. 441). Both James and Wilhelm Wundt sought to incorporate

introspection into psychological research. However, contemplative knowing was mostly shunned

in public academic circles during the 20th century (Wallace, 2000). This continued an attempt to

satisfy standards of objectivist rigor that were established by 17th and 18th century empiricists

and rationalists, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and later, Comtean positivism (Lin, Oxford &

Culham, 2016). The development of qualitative research methods, which worked to incorporate

subjectivity into the image of scientific research, counteracted this orientation (Guba & Lincoln,

2000). However, these usually did not go as far as incorporating contemplative practices in

teaching and science until recently. Toward the end of the 20th century, we find renewed

methodical efforts to resituate first-person methods within the image of knowledge (often

referencing James). Most notably, Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991) developed an elaborate

account on why the understanding of mind requires both an internal (contemplative, first-person)

and an external (third-person) methodological research approach. Nowadays, it is not rare to find

neuroscientists studying meditation based on combinations of first and third person approaches,

as they associate fMRI images with the real-time experiences reported by meditating subjects

(Brewer, 2017).

The incorporation of contemplative pedagogy and inquiry in the curriculum is significant

because the curriculum is a social locus that reflects our epistemology; i.e., what we consider to

28
be ‘knowledge’? what validation procedures we value? These questions, which stand at the

centre of the scientific endeavour, are just as fundamental to the curriculum, which is often

considered to be a social locus in which Herbert Spencer's (1911) fundamental question - 'what

knowledge is of most worth?' - is negotiated. As Eliot Eisner (1993) argued, 'what schools allow

children to think about shapes, in ways perhaps more significant than we realize, the kind of

minds they come to own. Education is a mind-making process' (p. 5). This applies to schools just

as much as it applies to higher education. Given that academia often sets the tone for secondary,

primary and even pre-k curricula (Bassok et al., 2016) higher education's interest in

contemplative pedagogies might filter down into schools in the future.

I argue that contemplative pedagogy, contemplative inquiry and even the briefer

mindfulness-based interventions in schools, reflect the broadening of the epistemology

undergirding the curriculum. There are at least four aspects to this broadening. Each reflects an

appreciation of domains that have often been neglected or nullified from the public curriculum as

I elaborate:

1. The non-discursive, sensual-emotional curriculum: activities in classrooms and lecture-

halls are often based on the medium of language, thinking, and reasoning. Contemplative

practices, however, often focus on embodied elements such as the breath, bodily

sensations and emotions (Barbezat & Bush, 2014). The absence of these elements from

the curriculum has been widely discussed (Eisner, 1993; Hargreaves, 2000). The

introduction of contemplative practices into the public curriculum can reflect a whole

person approach (Shapiro, Brown & Astin, 2011), in which sensations and emotions

become more clearly acknowledged and rooted in our epistemology.

29
 2. The private-internal curriculum: A turning in within a public educational setting proposes

that the knowledge to be studied exists/unfolds within the student, rather than only within

the public domain of the classroom. Contemplative practices reflect an acknowledgement

of 'self' as a locus of meaning and knowing hearkening back to the Delphic-Socratic

'know thyself' (Taylor, 1989). Orienting students to turn in, even if guided by a teacher,

suggests that we can learn from our own embodiment as knower and known are

internalised when 'we establish a relationship of the self to the self' (Hadot, 1995, p. 90).

3. A spontaneous curriculum: inviting contemplative experiences into the classroom strays

significantly from the conventional practice of curriculum planning (Palmer, 1998).

While with time, contemplative practices can become more familiar to those who practice

them, they tend to be more adventurous for they do not necessarily lead to predetermined

destinations often pursued in conventional teaching (Zajonc, 2009).

4. An ephemeral curriculum: contemplative experiences can be difficult to articulate,

especially for those who are new to them. This brings forth various difficulties for

teachers and students who are accustomed to the kind of 'definitiveness' to which

significant portions of public curricula orient. Here, the knowledge to be 'demonstrated' is

far more idiosyncratic and difficult to pin down as well as to test based on conventional

assessment practices (Sarath, 2015).

Responding to some critical accounts discussed above, the degree to which implementations of

contemplative practices in education reflect any of the above shifts can only be assessed on a

case by case basis. It is clear that this depends on the skill of the teacher, the experience and ages

of the students, the setting, and several other components. Nevertheless, these seem to reflect

quite a shift from conventional curricular-pedagogical practices. If they are indeed present in the

30
three curricular domains reviewed in the second part of this paper, then they certainly introduce

novel experiences into students' lives in educational institutions. These experiences counteract

some of the rather grim images that position contemporary education as initiating us into and

creating a disenchanted world. They may possibly introduce more balance into the public

curriculum as they offer the opportunity to explore more aspects of our humanness within it.

Conclusion

The contemplative turn is highly complex. It involves several voices, traditions, orientations,

interpretations and implementations. This paper, however, mostly sought to articulate some

communalities within this complex phenomenon by rendering it based on the 'pedagogical

movement of contemplative practices' – turning in, engaging differently with time and with a

deliberate intention to attend differently to experience. Based on this conception it was

demonstrated that since the turn of the millennium there has been an exponential rise in

publications, which point to a shift from a predominantly theoretical to a practice-oriented

discourse. This is reflected in three domains: mindfulness-based interventions, contemplative

pedagogies, and contemplative inquiry. Attempting to make sense of the contemplative turn in

education at a social level is surely worth further contemplation. This paper focused on

demonstrating that such turn is indeed underway, articulating its main manifestations, and

pointing to what seem to be the core pedagogical shifts it introduces into our curricula.

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