On behalf of those of us at Metropolitan Community College-Longview you met on Friday, thank you! Each person was intrigued, impressed, and inspired by your words and your work. I am still bubbling about some of the creative experiential processes you described (e.g., the “4 photos of a window” method, movement/awareness exercises)!
Jim
Hello Stephanie,
I hope all is well in your world! Ever since the week at Smith College, I have wanted to just contact you to thank you for all that you offered and shared during the week there. I am still so inspired by everyone I met, and everything that I experienced with such wonderful people. I wanted to tell you that I was inspired by you to try a couple of exercises with a class of mine on Monday night. It was similar to your exercise where you had people picture somebody in their life and take on their posture and in vivid detail picture what they look like, what their hair was like, what they were wearing, what their voice was etc. I had my students picture someone who had been influential in them in their music careers that helped them to get to where they were today. I used this as a gratitude exercise where they connected to a very real sense of gratitude towards this person for all they had contributed to their life. One of the goals of this exercise was to give the students a more vivid and real sense of gratitude for the opportunity to come back to another year at this university. Anyway, I wanted you to know that you were an inspiration to me, and it emboldened me to try this with my students, and I'm so glad that I did, as the feedback has been nothing but extraordinary!
Next up: "Show up. Pay attention to what has heart and meaning"
Thank you Stephanie and sending you my best wishes,
Tim
You should know that everyone appreciated your time at TIDES very much. Our wrap up was all about how life changing this experience has been for them. One guy said he thought he was coming to learn how to teach, he didn't realize he had to do all of this [personal work] first but was glad he now knows.
Kelly, AAC&U
Thanks for initiating such an important addition to our culture at CCBC. I think sometimes in any work environment so focused on outcomes we might lose site of ourselves and then pass on this culture of speed to our students. I am reading a book called "The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy", which talks about how sometimes we get so caught in producing, moving up the ladder, and logging hours, that we forget to take "timeless time" for mindfulness, play, serenity, etc. Often the latter things are what truly contribute to productivity anyway. It was beautiful to me that you encouraged us to build our own practice before trying to incorporate it in our classrooms. It made me feel safer and capable to take my time with the practice. I think because we are used to a culture of speed, we might bight off more than we can chew wanting to be hyper productive even within a meditation circle, which could be counter-intuitive to developing our own practices. I so much appreciate that you encouraged us to leave every other part of our identities outside and ry to be okay with being without forcing homework, school-wide initiatives, and the like. Though there may of course be space for pursuing those things in our circle, I just really appreciated that you encouraged us to be in the present moment.
Looking forward to continuing to practice. But mainly, I am just grateful that you have encouraged this type of practice at CCBC.
Amy
Jim
Hello Stephanie,
I hope all is well in your world! Ever since the week at Smith College, I have wanted to just contact you to thank you for all that you offered and shared during the week there. I am still so inspired by everyone I met, and everything that I experienced with such wonderful people. I wanted to tell you that I was inspired by you to try a couple of exercises with a class of mine on Monday night. It was similar to your exercise where you had people picture somebody in their life and take on their posture and in vivid detail picture what they look like, what their hair was like, what they were wearing, what their voice was etc. I had my students picture someone who had been influential in them in their music careers that helped them to get to where they were today. I used this as a gratitude exercise where they connected to a very real sense of gratitude towards this person for all they had contributed to their life. One of the goals of this exercise was to give the students a more vivid and real sense of gratitude for the opportunity to come back to another year at this university. Anyway, I wanted you to know that you were an inspiration to me, and it emboldened me to try this with my students, and I'm so glad that I did, as the feedback has been nothing but extraordinary!
Next up: "Show up. Pay attention to what has heart and meaning"
Thank you Stephanie and sending you my best wishes,
Tim
You should know that everyone appreciated your time at TIDES very much. Our wrap up was all about how life changing this experience has been for them. One guy said he thought he was coming to learn how to teach, he didn't realize he had to do all of this [personal work] first but was glad he now knows.
Kelly, AAC&U
Thanks for initiating such an important addition to our culture at CCBC. I think sometimes in any work environment so focused on outcomes we might lose site of ourselves and then pass on this culture of speed to our students. I am reading a book called "The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy", which talks about how sometimes we get so caught in producing, moving up the ladder, and logging hours, that we forget to take "timeless time" for mindfulness, play, serenity, etc. Often the latter things are what truly contribute to productivity anyway. It was beautiful to me that you encouraged us to build our own practice before trying to incorporate it in our classrooms. It made me feel safer and capable to take my time with the practice. I think because we are used to a culture of speed, we might bight off more than we can chew wanting to be hyper productive even within a meditation circle, which could be counter-intuitive to developing our own practices. I so much appreciate that you encouraged us to leave every other part of our identities outside and ry to be okay with being without forcing homework, school-wide initiatives, and the like. Though there may of course be space for pursuing those things in our circle, I just really appreciated that you encouraged us to be in the present moment.
Looking forward to continuing to practice. But mainly, I am just grateful that you have encouraged this type of practice at CCBC.
Amy
