One of the first ideas that struck me during the first week of this class was the idea of time and how we interact with it in our daily lives. We live lives that are highly scheduled and parcelled. I have found that over the course of my college career, time has been a factor that I have struggled with consistency, and I know that many of my friends and fellow college students would say the same.
We rarely take the time to reflect on our lives, and more specifically I have found we do not take the time to reflect upon the information that we learn in our courses at university. This class is the first in which I have experienced contemplative practices. To truly sit still and experience the moment and connect it to the curriculum that is presented to me has been eye-opening in more that one way.
Though the first experience that we participated in may have seemed silly at the start, it allowed me to think about the issues we were discussing in a more personal way. I believe that is something that is missing at any university, the connection between education and personal reality. We use our degree as a tool to gain access to greater opportunity but rarely do we honestly think about the issues that are presented to us as those which we are able to have a real effect on.
As we have continued to do these practices during class, I have noticed myself thinking about the things I eat, do and experience in different ways. A box of mac and cheese or a bar of chocolate is suddenly a commodity chain that is taking advantage of people thousands of miles away, the burger I enjoy is suddenly associated with the slow death of global agriculture. These connections may seem over-exaggerated at first, but I am realizing more and more that this way of thinking is what is necessary for the future success of our world as a whole, and it is necessary to take the time to think about these things.
Hi Anastasia,
Your post really resonated with me and I posted something similar for my second blog post – arguing that contemplative practices are needed for creating systems-oriented politicians and professionals, even if the practice doesn’t catch on in supermarkets. As you pointed out, the contemplative practices help build a habit of systems thinking in day to day life by connecting our immediate experience with lecture concepts – often things like starvation, agricultural labor, and commodity chains that most students have not experienced first hand.
Additionally, I think other key aspects of Professor Litfin’s teaching style have encouraged contemplation and deserve mention. In our prompts for blog posts, as well as in the guidelines for our final synthesis paper, we are often encouraged to explore relationships between concepts and pay attention to our personal learning experience with phrases such as: “What most stood out to you?” and “Reflect on how your ideas have changed”.
Reflecting on the variety of meditative and contemplative tools Professor Litfin used in this course has helped me widen my options for engaging with other course material; while contemplative practices aren’t a part of every college course, we can always find some way of spurring critical thinking and building conceptual relationships.