{"id":1389,"date":"2018-05-07T06:23:53","date_gmt":"2018-05-07T06:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/?p=1389"},"modified":"2018-05-07T06:23:53","modified_gmt":"2018-05-07T06:23:53","slug":"extra-ordinary-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/2018\/05\/07\/extra-ordinary-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Extra ordinary learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contemplative practices are strategies used to connect your studies to your personal experiences, and to be honest, I didn\u2019t feel like I had a lot to learn from them. I try to practice mindfulness, but it doesn\u2019t drastically or viscerally impact the way I see the world. In class, when Professor Litfin was explaining why she uses contemplative practices in regard to our material, I wasn\u2019t expecting to be floored by it. And so far, I haven\u2019t been. But I think that\u2019s the point. <\/span><\/p>\n

Learning by connecting material to your own personal experiences isn\u2019t rapturous, and it isn\u2019t supposed to be in order for it to be helpful. It\u2019s more a more insidious form of learning. In class, when we connected interdependence and living systems to our breakfast, I had had eaten fig newmans. My morning routine usually consists of washing my face, moisturizing, getting dressed, grabbing breakfast, and leaving. None of that seems too out of the ordinary, but reflecting on my fig newmans complicated things. <\/span><\/p>\n

Where did your breakfast come from<\/span><\/i>? Well, probably a fig tree. <\/span>Who and what was involved in producing it<\/span><\/i>? Transportation, labor, machinery, probably. Maybe even Paul Newman himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

I spent more time contemplating my fig newmans in class than I did when I ate them running out the door, and I think this is important. Contemplative exercises haven\u2019t failed me, or even you, if we don\u2019t have psychedelic epiphanies about reading material or the food on our plates. <\/span><\/p>\n

Contemplative exercises have served their purpose not when they change your worldview. They\u2019ve served their purpose when they make you contemplate<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>even if it\u2019s about something as ordinary as how you spent more time washing your face than eating your food, or what Paul Newman would think about how little time you relegated to enjoying his fig snacks in the morning. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contemplative practices are strategies used to connect your studies to your personal experiences, and to be honest, I didn\u2019t feel like I had a lot to learn from them. I try to practice mindfulness, but it doesn\u2019t drastically or viscerally impact the way I see the world. In class, when Professor Litfin was explaining why she uses contemplative practices in… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemplative-practices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1393,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389\/revisions\/1393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}