In the modern day, it is understood that the role of the teacher comprises aspects of therapy directed towards the child. But to what extent should this relationship be developed, and what are its concomitant responsibilities? This book offers a challenging philosophical approach to the inherent problems and tensions involved with these issues.

pt. 1. A critique of current educational aims.--pt. 2. Reason.--pt. 3. Education and reason.

This paper explores the adult mindfulness landscape, secular and Buddhist, in order to inform an approach to the teaching of mindfulness in secondary schools. The Introduction explains the background to the project and the significant overlap between secular and Buddhist practices. I explain what mindfulness is and highlight a number of important practical differences between the teaching of mindfulness in the adult world and in schools. ‘Balancing Calm and Insight’ looks at mindfulness through a lens infrequently explored in the therapeutic (...) literature, and suggests that a slight shift in the centre of gravity towards Calm might be appropriate. ‘Defining Objectives’ considers how difficult it is to clearly articulate the objective of mindfulness in schools given a new context in which it functions as neither clinical application nor spiritual practice. A range of alternatives is considered. ‘Building a Scaffolding’ explains the importance of context in both Buddhist and secular practice. To succeed, mindfulness should be nested within a broader framework of understanding, or what Kabat-Zinn calls a ‘scaffolding’. I suggest that perhaps the best ‘scaffolding’ for mindfulness in schools is its sense of possibility. ‘Ethics and Community’ describes how ethics are more important in secular mindfulness than they at first appear. The shape ethics might take in a school context is considered, then an assessment of the role of the teacher and what equivalent there might be for what Buddhists call sa?gha, or Community. (shrink)

Note is taken of the requirement (expressed in the British Educational Reform Act 1988 and other documents) that the curriculum should contribute to the spiritual development of pupils in the school and of society. Declining to reject the term as vacuous, the paper explores various suggested meanings: induction into a particular religion, consideration of fundamental questions, a sense of self, certain largely inexpressible states of mind, and pupils' non–material well–being. All of these, with the possible exception of the first in (...) the context of a multicultural public educational system, are shown to have some possible validity, subject to the need for further explication. Sincere concern with any profound notion of spiritual development is, however, held to be difficult to reconcile with current officially sanctioned conceptions of education. (shrink)

Reviewing this volume presents two particular problems. Firstly, in discussing spirituality we are, as Charles Bailey pointed out more than 20 years ago, confronted by an ‘over-abundance of meanings’ (1984, p. 73); or, as Iris Yob more graphically suggests, it is one of those words that might be described as ‘promiscuous’ (p. 112). Certainly the term ‘spirituality’ provokes mixed, and often visceral, responses. Some would like it to represent a chaste adherence to a particular tradition, whilst others rejoice in the (...) rich variety on offer, a spiritual ‘pick ‘n’ mix’; others still would cast it out of respectable academic vocabulary as a wanton distraction from rigorous ethical or epistemological debate. The second problem is that we have here fifteen different perspectives on the subject and it is tempting to write fifteen reviews rather than the one required! (shrink)

A case is made here for a secular interpretation of spirituality to place against more orthodox religious versions which are currently gaining ground in English education as part of the government policy designed to encourage schools to apply for ‘academy’ status independent of local authority control. Given the rise of faith-based ‘free’ schools, it is important to provide a secular alternative as a foundation for morality and spirituality in the interests of maintaining state-funded institutions characterised by rationality and autonomy rather (...) than a commitment to nurturing specific religious beliefs. After considering arguments against faith-based education, I go on to suggest a secular approach to spirituality founded on mindfulness theory and practice originating in Buddhist traditions. (shrink)

The Buddhist construct of mindfulness is a central element of mindfulness-based interventions and derives from a systematic phenomenological programme developed over several millennia to investigate subjective experience. Enthusiasm for ?mindfulness? in Western psychological and other science has resulted in proliferation of definitions, operationalizations and self-report inventories that purport to measure mindful awareness as a trait. This paper addresses a number of seemingly intractable issues regarding current attempts to characterize mindfulness and also highlights a number of vulnerabilities in this domain that (...) may lead to denaturing, distortion, dilution or reification of Buddhist constructs related to mindfulness. Enriching positivist Western psychological paradigms with a detailed and complex Buddhist phenomenology of the mind may require greater study and long-term direct practice of insight meditation than is currently common among psychologists and other scientists. Pursuit of such an approach would seem a necessary precondition for attempts to characterize and quantify mindfulness. (shrink)

The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed a growing interest in Buddhism, and it continues to capture the imagination of many in the West who see it as either an alternative or a supplement to their own religious beliefs. Numerous introductory books have appeared in recent years to cater to this growing interest, but almost none devotes attention to the specifically ethical dimensions of the tradition. For various complex cultural and historical reasons, ethics has not received as much attention (...) in traditional Buddhist thought as it has in the West. Written by Damien Keown, one of the few experts worldwide who specializes in the area, Buddhist Ethics illustrates how Buddhism might approach a range of contemporary morals ranging from abortion to euthanasia, sexuality to cloning, and even war and economics. (shrink)

The result is a one-dimensional, economistic and bleakly utilitarian conception of the educational task.In Mindfulness and Learning: Celebrating the Affective Dimension of Education, Terry Hyland advances the thesis that education stands in ...

Bestselling author Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith-that a moral system cannot be based on science.