Reflective Education: A Labour of Love

Reflective education engages students and educators in a compelling dance to uncover the truth of a situation. As truth can be multifaceted and, or described from a variety of perspectives uniquely, the dance is real and captivating. This level of engagement is effort-full and highly fulfilling. As an educator, being Self-led, or engaged from Self Energy is the essential component to remaining recharged, especially when days are long and the list of responsibilities are even longer. The impossibility of what an educator accomplishes can only be described as supernatural, yet there is a simple repeatable formula.

The Classroom as Live Theatre

Entering a room full of teenagers prepared to cover a lesson about something happening half the world a way could be daunting. Never being one for facts or memorization, I was interested in how my students could engage their own interest and think dynamically.

I loved the fiesty spirit of my students; even boredom is a substantive launching place. The truth is any state that a learner is in is the perfect place to start. All I need is to engage one learner from a reflective perspective and the rest become engaged too.

That might be due to the true interconnectedness of all humans. If one student were to engage with me in a conversation of “why should I care?” that’s all I need to begin.

“Why should I care?”

In reflective awareness, I reply “Yes! Why should you care? Any guesses…” By reflecting the student’s sentiment from a Self led place, all of the students are fascinated, yes, why should we care? The answers start to trickle then pour in…and as I am scribing their replies, they have suddenly connected themselves to the topic.

It’s clever and it works. From there, we can have a lively discussion about the political policies that affect families half way around the globe and ask the big questions about why and how our lives are similar and, or different. The topic continues to engage the students. In fact, wrapping up a topic can be bittersweet. It gives students an opportunity to apply what they have learned about themselves in exploring the past lesson to the upcoming topic.

Reflective education is brilliant and self perpetuating.

I never have any cause to venture my own opinion. We work from engagement with the topic, role playing historic scenarios with actual quotations and most of all learning that learning itself is pretty exciting.

How do I prepare for a reflective learning classroom?

My preparation involves my personal and IFS based meditation practice. I have found the IFS Corollary to hold, that as my inner parts are tended to with compassion, my the children in my outer universe, particularly the children feel anchored and safe in a Self led environment.

Working with adults can be more challenging, as it is not enough to do the inner work to check in that parts are resourced within and feeling liberated. In my inner world, I need to have supported my parts with meeting reality with as much honesty as I am able AND I need to support my parts to be integrated and empowered to meet my reality with full agency.

Honesty is paramount and substantive, especially in inner growth. Honesty allows the work to have solid footing and to be applicable in my outer world. Concepts are not lofty theories, they are practical axioms based on inner meeting of the truth. Paradoxically, the more shape that honest appraisal lends to reality, the more pliable reality becomes and the more entry points I find to engage with reality on the outside. This could sound philosophical. I’m describing my Self-led state as it continues outward beyond my intra-personal bounds.

Back to the classroom

Having understood that inner harmony is key to engagement, when a student is not engaging in the classroom, I can check in with the student to see what factors are causing a disruption to harmony. Here is where I lean on NVC.

Needs met, needs unmet

If I would like to work in more depth with a particular student to understand what its happening, I have lots of options. One way that I have addressed this in the past is to ask the student to utilize my deck of NVC Needs cards. My NVC Needs Cards are homemade and simply list many universal needs—please see the work of Manfred Max-Neef to understand how this list evolved.

I remove the needs that are specific to adult life, and then ask the student to sort the needs cards into two piles, one for needs met and one for needs unmet. Students generally start to enjoy this process, as they finally get a chance to address what is really coming up for them, rather than begin forced to assimilate into a classroom while under duress. I will check in with the student to listen to the needs sorting process and often find that they intuitively find ways to meet their unmet needs in ways they had not thought of before.

Eureka, the student feels heard, empathized with and self resourced. I find at this moment, students are generally read to take on the activity that had previously seemed so ominous. It becomes easy and engaging. It sounds deceptively simple; I have found that restoration of Self-leadership is more potent than any pedagogical models brilliance.

I have found that, given the inner spaciousness of self empathy and supportive empathy, students find that the learning is within them and they are now empowered to unlock it.

I will share in another blog how NVC, IFS and Reflective Education have worked effectively with three to six year olds in another upcoming blog.

Thanks for reading.

-Empowered Wellbeing October 20, 2019