The Whole Person

Embodying Teaching and Learning through Lectio and Visio Divina

Jane E. Dalton; Maureen P. Hall and Catherine E. Hoyser

The Whole Person: Embodying Teaching and Learning through Lectio and Visio Divina offers readers a rich collection of voices from diverse settings that illustrates the ways in which lectio divina as a contemplative practice can transform teaching and learning.Growing from ancient roots, lectio divina as a contemplative practice and part of contemplative pedagogy, aligns with many efforts in the 21st century to investigate how whole persons can be engaged in learning and how they can develop into their best human selves.Lectio divina, a four-step process of deep reading and viewing, is aligned with the tenets of holistic education; it is an evolving tapestry of embodied learning, creating spaces that empower teachers and students to be rooted in their own meaning making and to develop as whole persons. Lectio divina holds power to help people develop agency and voice in troubling times, all the while understanding themselves as human beings in a hyper-complex world. Using lectio divina in the classroom educates the whole person evoking the mind, spirit and body in a transformative learning experience.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 130 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4758-5148-9 • Hardback • October 2019 • $70.00 • (£54.00)

978-1-4758-5149-6 • Paperback • September 2019 • $35.00 • (£30.00)

978-1-4758-5150-2 • eBook • October 2019 • $33.00 • (£25.00)

Subjects: Education / Teaching Methods & Materials / General, Education / Philosophy, Theory & Social Aspects, Education / Professional Development, Education / Arts in Education

The Whole Person

Embodying Teaching and Learning through Lectio and Visio Divina

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

The Whole Person: Embodying Teaching and Learning through Lectio and Visio Divina offers readers a rich collection of voices from diverse settings that illustrates the ways in which lectio divina as a contemplative practice can transform teaching and learning.Growing from ancient roots, lectio divina as a contemplative practice and part of contemplative pedagogy, aligns with many efforts in the 21st century to investigate how whole persons can be engaged in learning and how they can develop into their best human selves.Lectio divina, a four-step process of deep reading and viewing, is aligned with the tenets of holistic education; it is an evolving tapestry of embodied learning, creating spaces that empower teachers and students to be rooted in their own meaning making and to develop as whole persons. Lectio divina holds power to help people develop agency and voice in troubling times, all the while understanding themselves as human beings in a hyper-complex world. Using lectio divina in the classroom educates the whole person evoking the mind, spirit and body in a transformative learning experience.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 130 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4758-5148-9 • Hardback • October 2019 • $70.00 • (£54.00)

978-1-4758-5149-6 • Paperback • September 2019 • $35.00 • (£30.00)

978-1-4758-5150-2 • eBook • October 2019 • $33.00 • (£25.00)

Subjects: Education / Teaching Methods & Materials / General, Education / Philosophy, Theory & Social Aspects, Education / Professional Development, Education / Arts in Education

Author

Jane E. Dalton, Ph.D. is an associate professor of Art Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate students in K12 art education and studio art courses.

Maureen P. Hall, Ph.D. is a professor of Education at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate students in the teacher preparation program.

Catherine E. Hoyser, Ph. D. is professor of English and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford, Connecticut, where she teaches British cultural studies and gender studies.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Michael A. Franklin

Acknowledgement

Introduction

Jane E. Dalton, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, North Carolina

Maureen P. Hall, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Massachusetts

Catherine E. Hoyser, University of St. Joseph, West Hartford, Connecticut

Chapter 1- An Ancient Monastic Practice: Reviving it for a Modern World

Jane E. Dalton, University of North Carolina Charlotte at Charlotte, North Carolina

Maureen P. Hall, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Massachusetts

Catherine Hoyser, University of St. Joseph, West Hartford, Connecticut

Libby Falk Jones, Berea College, Berea, Kentucky

Chapter 2- Embodying Deep Reading: Mapping Life Experiences through Lectio Divina

Maureen P. Hall, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Massachusetts

Chapter 3- Image and Text: Toward Inner and Outer Wholeness

Jane E. Dalton, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Chapter 4- Lectio Divina and Story-to-Poem Conversion as Tools for Transformative Education

Catherine E. Hoyser, University of St. Joseph, West Hartford, Connecticut

Chapter 5- Reading the Word, the Self, the World: Lectio and Visio Divina as a Gateway to Intellectual and Personal Growth

Libby Falk Jones, Berea College, Berea, Kentucky

Chapter 6- “Writing about Yoga”: Lectio Divina and the Awakening of the Soul

Mary Keator, Westfield State University, Westfield, Massachusetts

Chapter 7- Lectio Divina as Contemplative, Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy in Social Justice Education Courses

Elizabeth Hope Dorman, Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado

Chapter 8- Embodied Justice: We Are The Divine Text

Vajra Watson, University of California, Davis, California

Chapter 9- The Restorative Power of Lectio Divina and the Arts for University Lecturers

Daphne Loads, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland

About the Editors

About the Contributors

Reviews

With essays that resonate the energy and hope of education, this wonderful book reminds us of what is still possible in a world where we seem to have lost the depth of vision and the direction of a flourishing life. The essays celebrate the awakening of the whole person, the way teaching and learning can become a transforming practice. The focus is on lectio divina, an ancient practice for modern times, a way to enhance deep reading, excite social justice, make words matter, contemplate the beauty and truth of visual images. We all need to slow down and read this interesting book.
— Robert P. Waxler, author of The Risk of Reading (Bloomsbury, 2014), and co-founder of Changing Lives through Literature (CLTL), Professor of English, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

This collection of essays represents rich, probing scholarship into the ancient practice of lectio divina, a comprehensive form of deep, contemplative reading. The first clue that this is a worthy addition to the emerging corpus of writings on the theory and application of lectio divina in education lies in the first part of the title: “The Whole Person.” Not only have the authors signaled a holistic, comprehensive approach to lectio divina, but they have also, and just as importantly, signaled what this is all about: the involvement of the whole person in this educational and spiritual endeavor and the development of the whole person as an educational and spiritual endeavor. This is a truly integral approach to incorporating lectio divina in the lives of our students. Moreover, the authors also include visio divina, contemplatively seeing and engaging with a work of art or anything else one might encounter through the eyes. These essays offer readers the scholarship of both expert theory and tested practice; they thus represent educational praxis in a very readable format. This is the perfect volume for educators who need practical guidance in integrating lectio or visio divina in their particular disciplines, considering the ‘text’ in its largest sense.
— Charles Scott, City University of Seattle and Simon Fraser University, editor of Contemplative Learning and Inquiry across Disciplines (2015)

Aligned with the principles of holistic education, The Whole Person: Embodying Teaching and Learning through Lectio and Visio Divina, provides readers with a time and space to consider transformative practices in contemporary educational curricula. Positioned as a pedagogical teaching of the whole person, the authors explore the multiple facets of embodied learning through universal and collective values of wisdom, compassion, loving kindness, joy, beauty and peacefulness. This is a must read for educators interested in attention, reflection, receptivity and transformation.
— Karen Ragoonaden, University of British Columbia, author of Mindful Teaching and Learning: Developing a Pedagogy of Well-Being (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015)

This book provides pedagogical theories based on lectio divina that are both revolutionary and timeless. The holistic education movement should welcome this contemplative practice as a transformative experience, which results in teaching the whole person. This is a much-needed approach in today's K-12 schools and universities as well.
— Laurel Campbell, Director of Art Education, Purdue University Fort Wayne, and co-editor of The Heart of Art Education: Holistic Approaches to Creativity, Integration, and Transformation

This thoughtful book offers teachers contemplative learning processes that bring harmony and balance between students’ inner and outer worlds. Teachers will benefit as well as they explore new ways to integrate mind, body, and spirit into their teaching and their lives. The book’s contents are that rare combination of sound practice and profound illumination.
— Sandra Finney PhD, author of “Strong Spirits, Kind Hearts,” coauthor of “The Way of the Teacher”