Building self-awareness through reflective and contemplative practices has allowed me to develop a better understanding of myself and the world around me. In studying world food politics, contemplative practices help me connect the information I learn in lecture to my personal experience. These practices solidify key concepts and personalize the issues we’re learning about. When our class studied hunger, for example, we turned the lights off and took time to contemplate what it meant to feel hungry. This transforms my experience as a student by challenging me to truly immerse myself into the lesson.
Weekly takeaways, too, create a space for me to identify key components and concepts from the previous week of lecture. In my time at UW a lot of my courses have involved some kind of reflective contemplative practice, such as video responses or in-class writing. To me, reflective writing is most effective contemplative practice because I can refine my description of course content and express my perspective, as if I were teaching it to someone else. The act of creating something, such as a piece of writing, and using it as a mode of reflective expression combines to form a contemplative practice that is original yet inspired by new knowledge.
Contemplative practice is the essential factor that elucidates course material and places it in a personalized context. Contemplative practice, for me, is about creating, reflecting and repeating in order to answer the questions, “How does this affect me?” and “What role can I play?”