The Contemplative Pause: Insights for Teaching Politics in Turbulent Times

Abstract

A quiet revolution is unfolding throughout higher education in the form of contemplative pedagogical practices. The mind’s ability to adopt a metaposition relative to its own contents, thereby consciously integrating somatic, emotional, and mental experience, has profound implications for learning. According to its proponents, contemplative pedagogies can enhance student attention, cognition, emotional wellbeing, and creativity, as well as reduce stress. These capacities are increasingly vital in the face of escalating world tensions, political polarization, and electronic distractibility, yet political scientists are surprisingly invisible in this quiet revolution. This essay offers a general description of and rationale for contemplative education, making the case that these practices are particularly valuable in the political science classroom and for subjects like climate change that will profoundly affect our students’ future. Attending to the “inner curriculum” can foster new skills for self-awareness, tolerating intellectual and emotional ambiguity, embracing diversity, civic discourse, and collaborative action. Some specific practices are offered, along with general guidelines for educators who might wish to experiment with contemplative practices. Finally, survey data from students in several courses suggest that they clearly find value in these practices. While these preliminary data are encouraging, they also raise many questions for a larger research agenda for assessing the value of contemplative practices in the political education.

Keywords:

• Active learning
• affective motivation
• classroom climate
• reflection
• student participation

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful for the tremendous intellectual and emotional support she has received from the faculty learning community associated with the Curriculum for the Bioregion (http://serc.carleton.edu/bioregion/activities.html). In particular, I thank Jean MacGregor for her tireless leadership in our pedagogical laboratory. I also thank Paul Wapner for his annual Contemplative Environmental Studies summer workshop, which I had the great pleasure to attend twice.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karen T. Litfin

Karen T. Litfin is Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Washington, and author of Ozone Discourses: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation (Columbia University Press, 1994) and Ecovillages: Lessons for Sustainable Community (Polity, 2014). Dr. Litfin’s university website is (https://www.polisci.washington.edu/people/karen-litfin).