This qualitative self-study explores my teaching practice. Three months of on-going daily critical reflections on past and present experiences related to my teaching resulted in 26 written documents illuminating memories, thoughts, feelings, insights, and epiphanies. Data collection strategies included narrative writing, dialogue with a mentor, and engagement in contemplative practices, such as Yoga, meditation, and mindfulness. The main purpose of this study was to explore, learn, and develop a core teacher identity and teaching practice while addressing two main research questions: how am I authentic in my teaching practice; and how might engaging in self-study contribute to my authenticity as a teacher? I used Cranton and Carusetta’s research, specifically referring to “Authenticity in Teaching” (2004a) and “Developing Authenticity as a Transformative Process” (2004b) to guide this study and analyze my findings. Results revealed the various ways in which I practice authenticity in my teaching and that my engagement in on-going critical reflection through self-study contributed to my authenticity as a teacher. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2012-08-20 21:01:28.498

In this thesis I explore writers and their writing practices as embodied, contingent, and affected by aesthetic environments and contemplative practices. I discuss contemplative practices as techniques for recognizing the co-dependent origination of the self/world, and as tools for disrupting the trifurcation of body, mind and word. I explore the written word’s role in the continuous production of new meaning, and as part of the continuous production of new “selves” for writers, and readers. I use narrative auto-ethnography to situate myself as a researcher, sensory ethnography and interviews to profile four practicing writers, and arts-informed Research-creation to document my own writing and contemplative practices. I also consider whether a post-pedagogy view of educational research might produce/allow space for more creative approaches to educational theorizing.

This dissertation uses a Zen koan as a foundation for discussing teacher training and development. It suggests that teacher training attends to issues of theory, pedagogy, and technology, and it contends that teacher training and development does not adequately attend to the intrapersonal aspect of teaching. In spite of the use of reflective techniques in teacher education, teachers are not trained in a significant way to navigate, negotiate, or manage the issues of identity, the issues of self-belief, the patterns of thought, and/or the emotional patterns, which affect their teaching and their classrooms. This work looks at research regarding the importance of the intrapersonal aspect of teaching in relation to teacher effectiveness and classroom climate; it considers current practices in pre-service and in-service teacher training; and it reviews research related to the efficacy of mindfulness and contemplative practices, such as meditation. It argues that the intrapersonal aspect of teaching is relevant to teacher effectiveness and classroom climate; that contemplative and mindfulness practices may offer systems that support and sustain teachers as they navigate, negotiate, and manage the intrapersonal aspect of teaching; and that pre-service and in-service professional development may provide vehicles to deliver this training.

In this thesis I explore writers and their writing practices as embodied, contingent, and affected by aesthetic environments and contemplative practices. I discuss contemplative practices as techniques for recognizing the co-dependent origination of the self/world, and as tools for disrupting the trifurcation of body, mind and word. I explore the written word’s role in the continuous production of new meaning, and as part of the continuous production of new “selves” for writers, and readers. I use narrative auto-ethnography to situate myself as a researcher, sensory ethnography and interviews to profile four practicing writers, and arts-informed Research-creation to document my own writing and contemplative practices. I also consider whether a post-pedagogy view of educational research might produce/allow space for more creative approaches to educational theorizing.

"'Thinking Things Together': What Contemplative Practice Can Offer Academic Writing Instruction," calls for the inclusion of contemplative practices (e.g., mindfulness meditation, visualization, deep listening, reflective journaling, etc.) in the instruction of writing, due to their potential to foster more self-efficacy in the writing process. Because recent research has linked contemplative practices to improved cognition, they are especially well-suited to facilitate writing, which is-at least in part-a cognitive act. In other words, the common denominator of composition studies and contemplative practice is cognition. However, composition studies has failed to make this connection because the field has been largely dismissive of cognitivist writing research, and has neglected to stay abreast of recent research on cognition and writing. By presenting recent research on the cognitive processes involved in the production of text, as well as recent research on the effects of meditation on the brain (pioneered in the emerging field of contemplative neuroscience), this transdisciplinary project highlights the points at which these two bodies of research converge. Two systematic literature reviews (SLRs) of these-seemingly disparate-areas of research reveal that they share interests in the cognitive processes of executive function, working memory, attention, motivation, and self-regulation. Furthermore, a meta-synthesis of the research conducted on these cognitive processes illustrates how contemplative neuroscience can inform-and improve-the theory and practice of teaching writing. Specifically, I provide readers with classroom activities and assignments that implement contemplative practices in the writing classroom in empirically-informed and effective ways.

This dissertation represents my heuristic response to cultural and ecological historian, Thomas Berry’s (1988, 1999, 2006) multi-dimensional call for connection to the Earth. The term, Heuristic, defined as “enabling a person to discover or learn something for [oneself]” (www. Oxforddictionary.com) describes a journey of learning undertaken out of a desire to live more justly and sustainably on this planet. My inquiry began with a search for the foundational meanings underlying Berry’s statement: Humans must undertake a radical shift in consciousness in order to come to the realization that the Earth is a Communion of Subjects and not a Collection of Objects (www.thomasberry.org). It led to a holistic exploration of academic study and lived experience in the realms of evolutionary science, quantum theory, depth psychology, Indigenous wisdom, and contemplative practice. It resulted in a shift in consciousness that strengthened my connections to human and other-than-human inhabitants of the Earth, added depth to my own story, and provided understandings about the inseparability of all life from a number of perspectives. This work will contribute to the body of educational literature that explores the integration of qualitative Place-based, Arts-based, Narrative, and Contemplative ways of knowing with rigorous scholarly research. I intend to apply the holistic learning gleaned from the integration of the scholarly and participatory components of this research to the development of future pedagogy that enhances the understanding that human beings are inseparably connected not only to our human ancestors, but to the other species, and to the ancient energies of the Earth as well.

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