The Roots and Stems of Community

• In Event: Pedagogies of the Interior: Building Bridges From the Inside Out

Abstract

What do we mean by pedagogies of the interior and how do we cultivate, sustain and support these pedagogies? Pedagogies of the interior are contemplative pedagogies, pedagogies that value the whole person (body, mind, heart, soul) and promote educational praxis towards the development of the whole person. The development of the whole person stretches all the way back to the ancient Greek and monastic schools. For the ancient Greeks, education was rooted in the concept of paideia, which referred to holistic care, nurture, and education. For Plato, paideia was a method that led the student to a place of essential being. Heidegger (1998), reflecting on the ancient Greek notion of paideia sees it as a turning, a turning around of the whole human being and accustoming us to another realm in which beings appear.
For Plato and Heidegger, paideia required turning and guiding the students’ inwards towards a deeper way of being. Education was not about receiving information that took the students outside of themselves; it was about their formation, a turning inwards to guide the students into a deeper beingness, which could then be lived within community. All throughout the world, there are pedagogies of the interior. In the Western monastic schools of the early and medieval periods, the monks used lectio divina as the pedagogical method in the formation of students (Keator, 2018). Whereas in the Hindu and Buddhist yogic schools, the pedagogical method was yoga (yug, meaning to yoke, unite). Through a holistic approach to yoga (raja, jnana, bhakti, karma), an integrated student developed and emerged.
I practice and teach using the interior pedagogies of both lectio divina and yoga at a small state university in western Massachusetts and have written on these methods as pedagogies of awakening to a deeper sense of self as well as a deeper sense of community. I have been practicing and teaching yoga for over twenty-five years and lectio divina for fifteen years. Lectio divina and yoga are the pedagogies that unite my body, mind and heart to my soul and keep me whole. These two practices turn me inwards and guide to my inner wellspring where I can be nourished and sustained; they inspire me to unite deeper to Self, to evolve, to create and to share.
For many years, I have felt alone at my university in terms of my contemplative ways, pedagogies and practices. There is little funding, support and awareness of the positive impact of contemplative pedagogies at my university, which can lead to feelings of isolation and dismissal. However, one unexpected day I received an e-mail inviting me to contribute a chapter to a book on lectio divina. I accepted the offer and wrote a chapter titled “Writing about Yoga: Lectio Divina and the Awakening of the Soul.” In the process, one of the editors invited me to edit her chapter and present lectio divina at her university. Together with her invitation and my acceptance, we began bridging our inner subjective worlds to an evolving, purposeful, sustainable, supportive collective community.

Author

• Mary Keator, Westfield State University