Abstract
This article introduces us to the benefits of contemplative practices integrated to the RE classroom. The author promotes contemplative practices in religious education, investigating how these can be integrated to the curriculum and the multiple modes of inquiry already present. After accounting for contemplation in the West, and especially in the Christian tradition, an analysis of contemplative practices is proposed to the reader’s attention, through various lenses: first-person inquiry, contemplation with children and of children, or in association with transmission and dialogical practices. Examples inspired by practices in higher education or stemming from the author’s own experience show how contemplation can become part of the regular work of the classroom. Just as reclaiming conversation (Turkle in Reclaiming conversation. The power of talk in a digital age, Penguin Press, New York, 2015) is an absolute necessity today in education, reclaiming contemplation is essential to religious education.
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Notes
Philo, Quis rerum div. eres, Sect. 253, and Leg. Alleg., III, Sect. 18. Here the two lists are brought together, and concern certain Hellenistic schools, namely the Stoics (Hadot 2002).
A study conducted in Quebec in 2012 among 97 teenagers shows three areas in which dialogical practices had a positive impact on the students’ relationships. First, a social aspect: the students think that they are more open-minded and respectful of others’ opinions, better listeners and less judgmental; they feel uncomfortable with plain debate where what matters is one’s ideas; they notice they can defend their ideas and positions without getting angry or upset. Second, an intellectual dimension: an increase in critical thinking and intellectual capabilities; a finer ethical judgment; an increased capacity for introspection and examination of their own biases. Third, and not the least, the students can apply what they learnt outside of a classroom environment (Gagnon et al. 2013).
For an example of these practices, see du Val d’Epremesnil (2018b), about an Indian method especially designed to this effect and applicable to the context of the classroom.
Including mindfulness meditation; structured contemplation (in two steps, holding an object of contemplation without analyzing: question, image or statement; deepening understanding by allowing a deeper awareness to emerge); writing journals after structured contemplation; journal reading in pairs, as contemplative interaction, by reading, listening and reflecting back (comparing what is read from someone else’s journal to what was written in the journal), then exchanging about it (reflective inquiry), dialogue being a “stream of meaning between participants”; finally, facilitated class discussions with the instructor and critical thinking, expanding the dialogue to the whole group (Sable 2014, pp. 4–8). Qualitative research was conducted by one-to-one interviews and audio transcripts among eight former students (p. 9), when quantitative methods examined measurable indicators for reflective dispositions using the students’ written work: the journals, term papers, anonymous questionnaires, interviews (pp. 10–11).
I refer here to a 2017 workshop conducted by a Belgian specialist of communities of inquiry (inspector for the Catholic RE course Michel Desmedt), as well as my own experiments in Gihindamuyaga monastery in Rwanda in 2018 (du Val d’Epremesnil 2018a).
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Institut Religions, Spiritualités, Cultures, Sociétés (RSCS), Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
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du Val d’Eprémesnil, D. Reclaiming contemplation: silence, introspection and the RE classroom. j. relig. educ. 68, 161–171 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40839-020-00101-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40839-020-00101-x