Contemplative Practices Part 3 (Engineering and Science Higher Ed)

Last weekend, we had a wonderful conference at Virginia Tech, 'Contemplative Practices for a Technological Society'. Here is summary of my notes that pertain to including contemplative practices in higher ed (engineering and science only) from that conference:

(Note: I am in process of writing down all my notes from this conference in a separate blog and will share it here in this post, in this space, as soon as it is ready. This conference was indeed an overload of wisdom, precious tools and experiences!  Bliss!)

In Engineering Curricula:

1. Dr. David Levy, Univ. of Washington, of  "You're distracted! This professor can help" fame was one of the invited speakers and panelist for this conference. He is incorporating mindfulness in his students by helping them be more aware of their behaviour and efficiency as they multi-task through a course that he offers.

( Fellow GEDIs, remember the test that Dr. SF made us do in our GEDI class on multi-tasking? 'write series of unusual numbers {subtract 7 from 100 and so on...} and answer questions based on what she was reading at the same time?)

Well, when Dr. Levy realized the subtlety of multi-tasking and task-switching, he plunged into researching ways to increase productivity and wellness as we continue to switch tasks rapidly. He found his answer in using techniques like meditation, being mindful, having more self-awareness. 

He shared his story that when he left his thinking-intensive job and came over to academia, he realized that he was not really thinking deeply, (the way he did in his previous job.) Thereupon, started his journey onto finding task-switching as a challenge and mindfulness as a tool. 

He designed and conducted a study (snapshot on left) that showed subjects were more efficient/productive, less stressed, happier at doing a secretary-sort of high-stress work, which was designed to demand intense task-switching, when they were trained in mindfulness.

Here was a scientific proof for what many people already preached and practiced  Dr. Levy then went ahead and devised a course for helping students become more mindful of their activities. (More about this course, and its story here. It is definitely worth reading + I am ensuring that I do not reiterate what has already been written there, despite being talked about at the coference.) They observed that when people are mindful, they are less likely to be distracted by interrupting emails, focus longer, are happier with their work, and more productive.

2. Dr. Roop Mahajan, Virginia Tech, held out a visionary challenge to engineering education

system. He emphasized on the role that contemplative practices play talked about completely transforming engineering education by offering degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Mindfulness, or XYZ engineering and Mindfulness. He took the example of Mechanical Engineering and laid out a curricula for Mechanical Engineering that was actually in compliance with ABET and was flexible to accomodate each student's interest. Wooh! Imagine Department of Civil Engineering and Mindfulness!

He emphasized how companies too realize that there productivity depends a lot on how focussed and well their employees are. He justified that such an engineering degree would be a cutting edge sword for any university that takes the lead and starts offering them.

The discussion then went onto stress that Univs offer experience that MOOCs dont. And, it is high time that mindfulness is added that experience!! 

3. Diann Brei, Design Science, Univ of Michigan: Dr. Diann started with admission that she wears too many hats and believes that she does not practice mindfulness. However, she is convinced that Tree of Contemplative Practices and practice it.
mindfulness is important and has the potential to be very useful for her students, and so she does introduce her students to contemplative practices and infact, one of the assignments they have is to pick one activity from the tree and practice it.

As Program Chair of Design Science centre at University of Michigan, she ensures that mindfulness is practiced in there. 

One extremely striking practice that she talked about and is proud of is bringing in liberal arts and science together. She talked about how every science/engr. based research group under the wing of Design Science has at least one 'arts' graduate student. This has to her experience blown off the perceived limits of creativity and has enriched the experience of everyone in Design Science!

This is all for now! In Part 2, I will share my notes of contemplative practices in higher ed that are not limited to science and engineering!

Namaste!

Wish we had a shout-out forum~

Twitter style or FB style for our PFP class!

Here is a conference/workshop thingy that I found and I want to share with our awesome PFP and GEDI classmates! (Following our energy-filled discussion in last PFP class.)
This workshop also introduces the full-of-mind techniques into and for higher-ed and other professions.

http://www.cpe.vt.edu/cpts/schedule.html

Disclaimer: This is not a blog entry. It is just me shouting-out from my isolated (and connected) satellite tower. The view from here is beautiful btw! (Wherefrom is it not?)

On Midwives and Wisdom of Unconscious~

Teaching, to me, is an art. And like some other art forms, I associate tremendous sanctity with it. It is a profession of practicing ethics, discipline, and love, while facilitating students to discover knowledge/concepts. 

There is a theory in 'Karma Yoga' that has also been believed in by some psychologists/psychiatrists like M. Scott Peck, Carl Jung - "wisdom of unconscious".

The theory goes on like this for me:

Our un/sub-conscious is all knowing, supremely fast and efficient in perceiving, calculating and predicting. All the knowledge and wisdom that we can gain at any instance already resides within us. 

Like the baby that is inherently present inside the womb of the pregnant female! She can not birth a baby that is not inside her womb already!

And, so is with knowledge:  At a given instance (x,y,z,t,...) one can not learn what one's un/sub-conscious does not know already.

Learning then becomes the process of allowing the subconscious to rearrange its knowledge in a way that is comprehensible to our loud, chattering conscious minds. 

(And learning is often tough, just like birthing a baby. For both involve bringing out what is inside in dark out onto the loud chattering perceivable/thinkable existence. )

Midwives can only facilitate the process of birthing. They can not make a baby out of this air. She is not the source. 

And, teachers can only facilitate the process of learning. They can not impart any knowledge to students. 

They can only help students to discover themselves, their wisdom, and their knowledge - through their words, engagement, or any other tool that they can employ. 

In the Classroom: 

Somethings that we heard in our GEDI class and elsewhere (I am heavily paraphrasing it):

1) Some students are just not ready and engaged no matter what we do. 

2) Teaching is a two way process- both students and teachers have to be ready.

3) Sometimes it has to click. We might 'know' (have memorized by rote) something, but the knowledge has to 'click' to actually 'know'.

Some stuff we might have experienced in a classroom setting:

1) The moments in which learning really happens- whether it is during brief moments in a class, or a homework that is due in 20 minutes. Those moments are so like Csikszentmihalyi's flow experience. Silent.

2) The 'aha' moment!  As if we always knew the truth (the knowledge), but did not know that we knew! Or, never thought of it that way!

To me these are multiple lines of evidence that we only learn what we already have in our shadows and   quiet shelves of our brain. We can only learn what we are ready to learn. 

And, then to me, the teacher is no more than a mid-wife - a facilitator. That is it! 

A very important facilitator though :=)

Emphasis, Directive, Apathy, and Hope

In our last class, we travelled over to three utterly different and beautiful countries: El Salvador, Ecuador, and China.

What a beautiful trip it was!

El Salvador has a remarkable UN
Development Index  record for South America

What strikes me most is how the government emphasizes so well on primary education in El Salvador! Wow! Hopefully soon they will have their citizens well-equipped to accept and find information and knowledge. Government ensures that students are well cared for at least until the 'highschool' equivalent exam.

 The Biodiverse Ecuador!

I continued with amazement how Ecuador's government is so eager for stepping up to provide world-class vocational and college education. Their emphasis on training teachers and researchers from abroad, providing free college education based on merit- blew my mind away!!

The key phrase that is on my mind for these two beautiful nations are: Emphasis on Education on Primary and College/Vocational Level. They are doing their best in providing the facilities for their citizens to make use of opportunities and even create new opportunities.

 And, then we travelled off to China. China the majestic with a long standing history! Image of an extremely competitive and fiercely directed education system came on my mind as our colleague (Juan Ma) described the education system in China.
The state decides when students sleep, the states decides how many students go into engineering and how many into other streams. The key phrase for me was: State Directed Education.

and the Formidable economic giant of China!

The state perhaps takes on a very active and important role in imparting higher education! I am amazed at how involved the state is! With such a huge country, I can only try to imagine what humongous infrastructure they must have built to make such state directed education a reality! Woah! Woah!

 Golden Temple, India: A much complicated system

Today, hopefully, Sabithulla and I, (me/myself/mine??) will take the class for a tour to India and our educational system.
What scares me most is talking about what I have experienced, through me, my friends, people whose stories I have heard, read, and google! Apathy! Goverment apathy when it comes to emphasizing adequately on universal education. Apathy when it comes to directing education and enforcing standards. Apathy when it comes to the future of our youth!

Yet, on paper we are an amazing educational system! We have a vast net of very accessible universities, and free universal education for kids. I do not have answers to questions I ask myself about our education system. It is extremely daunting for me to face the class today as I present our highly divided (economically, regionally, socially) education system.



Yet, within this painful disparity, I have often found hope! Like islands in vast lost ocean ride! Like oasis in desert- a mirage come real- in form of students from extremely poor background (poverty beyond what words can do justice to) in one of our internationally esteemed technical colleges, with merit-cum-means scholarships.
Hope in form, of those multiple holes-in-the-walls that are busy allowing children to educate themselves. And, stories these students tell when they have done beyond everyone's (anyone's) wildest dreams:

Hope, the sweetest of all~

Dancing Science and My Experiment with it ~

Ever since the 'communicating science' class in PFP course, I have been trying really hard to write blogs for communicating the science we do in our lab at VT.

I found some super-creative, engaging, and insightful instances of science well communicated:

Computational approaches in high-throughput proteomics data analysis

My Experiment with Dancing:

Here is my attempt to explain the major stuff we do in our lab group: 

Whenever we do any of these things- drink, eat, sleep + everything else that we do in between drinking, eating, and sleeping,  we affect ourselves and our planet. 

In our lab, we try to measure the effects of our actions on our environment. We hope that we will be able to catch a potentially detrimental action much before the damage is irreparable.

Years ago, a man-made chemical called CFC was promoted as the coolest invention ever. It actually was used in refrigerators to help keep them cool. We were very excited for using and exploiting its benefits!

In fact, we were so excited that we forgot to breathe, step back, and enquire if this new chemical CFC is damaging our environment. 

Eventually, we did realize that we were fast losing a protective layer in our atmosphere. This protective layer (also known as ozone layer) is the layer that blocks sun's harmful rays and saves higher life forms from damage. We did find out that CFC, our awesome man-made chemical was responsible for depletion of this beautifully protecting and natural layer in our atmosphere.

Sadly, it is almost too late for us to repair the ozone layer within our life-time. 

So, we in Pruden lab at Virginia Tech, very carefully monitor man-made chemicals that include anti-biotics, and their effect on environment. We hope we will not make an avoidable CFC-type mistake again.