Source: Formless Mountain (by Steve Self) Credits: Ken Wilber, Don Beck.
Towards an Integral Curriculum for General Education:
A Brainstorm of Ideas for an Epistemologically Plural CurriculumRecently at Peninsula College there has been some discussion of "whole education" and discussion of promoting and modeling "diversity" and "pluralism." The following are some thoughts on epistemological pluralism as related to the Peninsula College Mission.
The Peninsula College Mission states as a goal for students:
Peninsula College provides educational opportunities in the areas of academic transfer, professional/technical, basic skills, and continuing education. The College also contributes to the cultural and economic enrichment of Clallam and Jefferson Counties.
In the document, "50 Hours: A Core Curriculum for College Students" (1989), Lynne Cheney references the injunction to "Know thyself," which, I believe, is important to the definition of student success. Self-recognition permits self-value and reaching of one's potential.
Education means realizing the potential we have inside, to make manifest our capacity to know the world. The word “educate” comes from the Latin “educere” meaning “to bring out”. The task of educators is to provide learning opportunities to enable students to realize all dimensions of their being.
According to the perennial philosophy (Huxley, 1945) human beings have at least three dimensions: body, mind and spirit, what has traditionally been called the “great chain of being.” (Lovejoy, 1936). We have the potential to realize what each aspect of our being offers because each level of being has its own cognitive instrument appropriate to the data of its level. To use the terminology of St. Bonaventure, we investigate the sensorimotor world with the eye of flesh, the rational world with the eye of mind and the spiritual world with the eye of contemplation (Wilber, 1998). The sensorimotor world offers the exquisite beauty of natural data and the pleasure of physical movement and health. The rational world offers the enjoyment of thinking and learning, of reading and sharing the knowledge of an author we have never met. The spiritual world offers us the pure delight of a silent mind, the peace and sublime ecstasy that comes with being in harmony with the universe, and the wisdom that is the fruition of self-knowledge.
We realize our highest potential by knowing how to utilize each of our cognitive instruments to explore what each level of being offers. Realization of student potential mandates us to teach the means to explore and enjoy each aspect of being. In the sensorimotor world students learn to care for the ecology and care for their own bodies, thereby enjoying a pleasant environment and good health. In the rational world students analyze and resolve problems, learn and enjoy through reading, thereby experiencing the pleasures of the mind. In the spiritual world students discover silence and bliss, the hidden treasures of their own inner world.
The exploration of each level of being with the appropriate cognitive instrument is epistemological pluralism. Educators should promote epistemological pluralism to realize plenitude of being. We now offer the opportunity to develop the body and mind, but we do not offer spiritual science. We should integrate spiritual exploration into the curriculum, using the eye of contemplation. We need to include practical exercises for exploration of our inner world, to fulfill the injunction: "Know thyself."
Besides the satisfaction that comes from personal growth, epistemological pluralism results in increased tolerance and a broader integral vision, indispensable elements for the resolution of the global problems we face in the 21st century. To solve our problems we need more than just brain-power: we need intelligence infused with love. Love and compassion are the fruit of spiritual realization.
Our curriculum (although a bit Eurocentric) is doing a good job of addressing the physical and rational worlds. These curricular notes I offer try to be more inclusive, addressing the neglected spiritual world. What follows is a brainstorm of ideas that does not pretend to be exhaustive. This curriculum is not dogmatic or ideological, nor is it a “new age” curriculum. My intent is to present a more balanced approach that rescues traditional knowledge and is oriented toward the development of a rich spiritual life. I believe our curriculum should take advantage of the legacy of wealth that humanity has left us from centuries of experimentation in the spiritual world. I include the Judeo-Christian tradition as well as other non-Christian sources of inspiration.
An integral, pluralistic curriculum directed toward development of the whole being, including the spiritual level, might include the following:
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
• Teaching of sports that can be practiced all your life, instead of sports like softball that are not played all your life and are only played after long periods of inactivity.
• Movement education where students explore the movement processes involved in throwing, stretching, jumping and running with the focus on the joy of movement.
• Centering activities that utilize fantasy, relaxation, active meditation and body awareness. For example, the active meditations of Osho, or traditional movement meditations like Tai Chi, plus martial arts like Aikido, or the stretching of Hatha Yoga.
THE SCIENCES (biology, chemistry, physics)
• Research activities to teach the scientific method inside and outside the laboratory.
MATHEMATICS
• All kinds of mathematics including logic and the study of the lives of famous mathematicians.
ART
• Presentation of art of the soul that serves as a support for contemplation, for example the traditional Tibetan “thangka”, painting that represents the potential we have in the spiritual world. Art that brings transcendence.
MUSIC
• Study of the different musical traditions that support the eye of contemplation, the history of transpersonal music, sacred sound, divine singing in various religious traditions, for example the “zikr” of the Sufis.
FOREIGN LANGUAGES
• Every student should become functionally bilingual through the study of at least one language other than English. Learning other languages provides a window into other cultures, facilitating communication with, and learning from, other another culture.
LITERATURE
Should include works from western and eastern traditions related to mystical experience. The curriculum already includes western titles and titles from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Titles from other traditions could be added. For example, here are some titles from the orient:
• CHINA: The Book of Changes, Chang Tzu, Tao Te King.
• INDIA: Hymns of the Rig Veda, Dhammapada, Vedanta Sutras, Patanjali Sutras, Osho, Bhagavad Gita, biographies of Indian mystics.
• JAPAN: Haiku Poetry, Basho, Zen literature, etc.
• ISLAM: The Koran, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi, and many more!
Study of works from the "Eastern canon" (Sardar, 2004) including, for example, these 20 books:
The Conference of the Birds / Farid ud-Din Attar (1177)
India / Al-Beruni (c. 1030)
The Analects / Confucius (c. 400 BCE)
An Autobiography / Mohandas Gandhi (1927)
Deliverance from Error / Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (c. 1100)
The Secrets of the Self / Muhammad Iqbal (1915)
The Tale of the Heike / Kakuichi (1371)
The Recognition of Sakuntala (c. 300?)
An Introduction to History / Ibn Khaldun (1377)
The Dao De Jing / Lao Tzu (c. 400 BCE)
The Lotus Sutra (290)
The Mahabharata (400? BCE)
The Book of Mencius / Mencius (c. 330 BCE)
The Tale of Genji / Murasaki Shikibu (c. 1000)
The Masnavi / Jalaluddin Rumi (c. 1250)
The Incoherence of the Incoherence / Ibn Rushd (c. 1150)
The Pillow Book / Sei Shonagon (c. 966)
The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (850)
The Upanishads (1600? BCE)
Essays in Idleness / Yoshida Kenko (c. 1300)
PHILOSOPHY
Study of the perennial philosophy, The Great Chain of Being, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Rene Guenon, Fritjof Shuon, Nicholas Berdyaev, Michael Murphy, Roger Walsh, Seyyed Nasr, Lex Hixon, Kant, Paul Davies, Plotinus, Aurobindo, Plato, Padmasambhava, Lady Tsogyal, Osho, Asanga, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Shankara, Chih-I, C.G. Jung, Ken Wilber and many more.
HISTORY
Too often the study of Western civilization assumes it has been responsible for its own development and does not acknowledge its debt to previous Eastern and Islamic civilizations, for example, printing (China, 1040), movable-type press (Korea, 1403), liberal humanism and institutions of higher learning (from the Muslim world), the industrial revolution (which began in China), etc. We need to include contributions and recognize influences from other parts of the world: Russia, Turkey, Scandanavia, as well as Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania, departing from the dominant view (from Toynbee to Huntington) that civilizations are internally coherent and self-enclosed entities. Books that challenge the traditional story of Europe should be studied, for example, Kenneth Pomeranz's The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy; J. M. Hobson's The Eastern Origin of Civilisation, and C. A. Bayly's The Birth of the Modern World. (Haberman & Shubert, 2005).
RELIGION
Study of the beliefs and history of Christianity, the life of Jesus, Christian saints and mystics like Thomas Merton, Saint Teresa de Avila, Jacob Boehme, Meister Eckhart, Brother Lawrence, Julian de Norwich, Catherine of Siena, San Agustine, Origen, Hildegaard, Saint Francis of Asis, Juan de la Cruz and many more.
Study of other religious traditions and philosophers such as Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Hasidim, Kabbalah, Vedas, Shankara, Ramana Maharishi, Osho, Plato, Plotinus, Vedanta, meditative Taoism, Neo-Confucianism, Sufi meditation, Zen Buddhism, al-Hallaj, Gautama Buddha, Rumi, Bal Shem Tov, Ken Wilber, and many more.
Practice of direct spiritual experience through Christian contemplation, Tai Chi, active meditations of Osho, martial arts, the 112 traditional Hindu meditations, divine singing from various traditions, sacred sounds, transpersonal dance, breathing, yoga, etc.
SOCIAL STUDIES
Pre-modern, modern and post-modern movements and their cultural implications for social and cultural development. The study of political leaders who showed a mystical consciousness, such as Mahatma Gandhi or Ashoka (265 - 238 BCE). If a significant number of persons reach levels of personal development higher than the norm in the society, how would that affect the democratic institutions, educational policies, our economies? How would it affect the practice of medicine, law, government, politics?
BIBLIOGRAPHYCHENEY, LYNNE V. 50 Hours: A Core Curriculum for College Students. Washington, D.C. : National Endowment for the Humanities
HABERMAN, ARTHUR & SHUBERT, ADRIAN. The Teaching of European History: The Next Task. American Historical Association Perspectives, October 2005.
HOBSON, JOHN. Eastern Origins of Western Civilization. London: Cambridge, 2004.
John Hobson challenges the ethnocentric bias of mainstream accounts of the Rise of the West. It is often assumed that since Ancient Greek times Europeans have pioneered their own development, and that the East has been a passive by-stander in the story of progressive world history. Hobson argues that there were two processes that enabled the Rise of the ‘Oriental West’. First, each major developmental turning point in Europe was informed in large part by the assimilation of Eastern inventions (e.g. ideas, technologies and institutions) which diffused from the more advanced East across the Eastern-led global economy between 500–1800. Second, the construction of European identity after 1453 led to imperialism, through which Europeans appropriated many Eastern resources (land, labour and markets). Hobson’s book thus propels the hitherto marginalised Eastern peoples to the forefront of the story of progress in world history.
• Provides a fresh non-racist account of the Rise of the West
• Rethinks the essential categories, concepts and assumptions of world history
• This is the first book to explore the role of identity in world historical development
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521547245
HUXLEY, ALDOUS. The Perennial Philosophy. 2nd ed. New York: Harper, 1945.
LOVEJOY, ARTHUR. The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936.
SARDAR, ZIAUDDIN. Written Out of History. New Statesman, Nov. 8, 2004.
WILBER, KEN. The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion. New York: Random House, 1998.
Photo credit, with some rights reserved through a Creative Commons license, "Dead Sea newspaper" by inju
