I wanted to explore the idea of using a Buddhist philosophy in education and how this might impact my personal mindset, my teaching practice and my students learning. As I reflected on some of the principals in Mindful inquiry in social research (Bent & Shapiro, 1998) and on the learning theories we are studying in LRNT 501, I made some interesting connections and felt like I was starting to ‘connect the dots’.

“Through the practice of compassion and right conduct, pay attention to the suffering of sentient beings in the world, and ask yourself what kind of inquiry and action would diminish that suffering” (Bent & Shapiro, 1998, p. 52).

When I re-read this, it made me think of a project the grade 4 students did this year. It is an example of how inquiry learning, when allowed independence and openness, can lead to the diminishing of suffering. We were looking at the elements of a newspaper and, specifically, writing a newspaper article. It was early December so we decided to write winter or holiday related stories. The project took on a life of its own as the students got more and more engaged and worked hard to make their newspapers look as authentic as possible. They ended up with articles, classified ads, word searchers, weather reports and comics, to name a few. The students wanted their newspapers to reach a farther audience and to be seen by more people. They thought back to our initial discussion about newspapers and asked if they could sell their newspapers. Then, they thought about those who were not able to have a wonderful holiday season, as they were going to have, and proposed that they donate the money that they made from their newspapers to the Christmas Cheer Board, an organization that helps give holiday hampers to those in need. The students got very excited about this and put a lot of effort into selling their newspapers and making their papers as polished as they could be,

I though of this project in particular because it begins to connect the two courses that we are taking now: learning theory and introduction to research. If I were not trying to teach within a constructivist learning environment, would my students have been as likely to have thought with their hearts as well as with their heads?

“With regard to inquiry, this can be taken to imply that love and compassion are the underlying attitude that we should take toward all beings: that our knowledge should be generated from within such an attitude” Bent & Shapiro, 1998, p. 167).

I understand that the knowledge the students gained about informational writing was not generated from an attitude of love and compassion but I would argue that teaching within a constructivist model allowed students higher level thinking and they thought about the process they were going through, without just thinking about the end result. And because the end result was open ended, students were given the flexibility to construct their own knowledge of what the purpose of the newspaper would be and what type of article they would write. In the end, in a small way, they did elevate the suffering of others and used their love and compassion for others to drive their learning.

Bent,V.M., & Shapiro, J. J. (1998). Mindful Inquiry in Social Research. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.