Teaching Empathy in a Science Classroom Through an Eastern Contemplative Paradigm (Poster 40): SIG-Spirituality and Education, 10:36 AM

• In Event: e-Lightening Ed-Talk Session 16

Abstract

As racial inequities and crises like mental health and climate haunt the student generation, it is imperative that the framework through which we teach science responds to the reality of youth (Emdin, 2016). Unfortunately, science classrooms often teach inquiry as a linear, non-deviated approach to problems about self and the world. It thus ceases to become a vehicle for wellbeing, as Kuhn called it, and a medium of holistic transformation (Lee & Brown, 2018). Through this study, I included a pedagogy, as informed by spiritual traditions like Yoga, Vedanta, and Buddhist mindfulness, into my own physics classroom and determined whether it influenced student application and understanding of empathy – the true dismantler of injustice.

Author

• Raaghav Pandya, City University of New York