Teaching Middle... A Spiritual Practice Teaching is profound, personal, and complex- almost a spiritual practice. Using that metaphor, perhaps we can draw on inner resources which will allow us to remain balanced and compassionate even on our most difficult days. This presentation will not espouse any specific religious tenets but gently look at philosophical underpinnings common to all. Presenter: Ann Mary Roberts - Radford University - Radford, VA

1. Teaching Middle School
A Spiritual Practice
Education is a mirror - it brings about a
fundamental understanding of our own mind."
Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
North Carolina Middle Level Education
March 18th, 2014
Ann Mary Roberts
Radford University
aroberts@radford.edu

2. AGENDA
• Introduction- who am I? who are you?
Why this workshop? What do you hope to
get?
• Goals of this workshop
• Assumptions and landscape
• Defining spirituality
• Spiritual aspects of teaching middle school
• Closure and questions

3. GOALS
Why this workshop?
What would you like?
What do you need?

4. GOALS FOR THIS WORKSHOP
• To remind you of who you are and what
you know
• To provide a different framework to look
at aspects of teaching and your role
• The goal is not to tell you that there are
more things where you fall short…and
having you judge yourself as lacking

5. ASSUMPTIONS
• Everyone here believes there is something
greater than him or herself at work in the
world.
• As people of spirit we are motivated to
work on ourselves to strengthen our
connection to that which is greater than
ourselves
• KNOW THYSELF

6. Knowing others is intelligence,
Knowing yourself is true wisdom
Mastering others is strength
Mastering yourself is true power
Lao-Tzu

7. TEACHING LANDSCAPE
• TEACHING IS COMPLEX
• THERE IS MORE THAT ENTERS YOUR
CLASSROOM THAN STUDENTS
• “STUDENTS MIRROR YOUR
MAGNIFICENCE AND YOUR LIMITATIONS”
(Ann Mary Roberts)

8. Our children, from infancy to adulthood and
beyond, can be seen as perpetually
challenging live-in teachers, who provide
us with ceaseless opportunities to do the
inner work of understanding who we are
and who they are so that we can best stay
in touch with what is truly important and
give them what they most need in order to
grow and flourish.
— Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn in Everyday
Blessings

9. What is Spirituality?
• An inner sense of something greater than oneself. Recognition of a
meaning to existence that transcends one's immediate
circumstances.
• The experience of meaning and unity.
• Having to do with deep, often religious, feelings and
beliefs, including a person’s sense of peace, purpose, connection to
others, and beliefs about the meaning of life.
• concerned with or affecting the spirit or soul; "a spiritual approach
to life"; "spiritual fulfillment"; "spiritual values"; "unearthly love"

10. SPIRITUAL ASPECTS
OF TEACHING
MIDDLE SCHOOL

11. To put the world right in order,
we must first put the nation in order;
To put the nation in order,
we must first put the family in order;
To put the family in order,
we must first cultivate our personal life;
We must first set our hearts right
Confucius

12. "If I don't hold a spiritual space
within myself
then I can't invite students
to share their gifts with me. "
Parker Palmer

13. COMPASSION…CARING…
LOVE
“To feel true compassion for all beings, we must
remove any partiality from out attitude toward
them. Our normal view of others is dominated
by fluctuating and discriminating emotions….
Genuine compassion must be unconditional…
We must kead our minds skillfully, and with
patience and perseverance we shall find that our
concern for the well-being of others will grow.”
An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday
Life by the Dalai Lama

14. Compassion…. Caring….. Love…
Kindness verses caring
by Rick Smith
Consciousness Classroom Management
• Boundaries
• Consistency
• Following through
• Consequences
• Guidance

15. ACCEPTANCE
FORGIVENESS
The teacher provides a space within themselves so
they can take into themselves the uniqueness of
others so they can mirror it back."
bell hooks
“You are going to make a thousand mistakes and I
get to forgive you a thousand and one
times.”(Ann Mary Roberts)

16. Joy and
Laughter"Laughter is the sun that drives the winter from
the human face."--Victor Hugo
"The human race has but one really effective
weapon, and it is laughter." – Mark Twain
A merry heart does like good medicine, but a
downcast spirit dries up the bones" (Proverbs
17:22)

17. Chuckle, chortle
giggle, guffaw,
belly laugh, snicker, smile
Deep laughter is sort of like a mini-vacation for
our minds, which of course has everything to do
with what's going on in our bodies. From a
medical perspective, it's been proven that humor
and laughter play a vital role in expediting the
healing process. Dennis Merritt Jones
“The Art of Being: 101 Ways to Practice Purpose in
Your Life."

18. Mindfulness and Detachment
Mindfulness is to become completely alive
and live deeply each moment of your daily
life. Mindfulness helps you to touch the
wonders of life for self-nourishment and
healing.
Thich Nhat Hahn

19. Detach………
Detach……..
Detach……….
Work hard at the task….. Work hard at
continually fine tuning yourself….. Work
hard at balance……
Then let go…….

20. CONTEMPLATION
INTROSPECTION
We must look at ourselves and upon the day
fearlessly with compassion and non-
judgment
We must daily reconnect with the qualities
want to foster
Reflection can slowly bring us to wisdom.
Sogyal Rinpoche

21. BREATHE OFTEN
By freeing the breath one learns to breathe
through difficult or uncomfortable experiences
and feelings where the tendency has been to
hold one's breath. Energy from a denied
experience can be freed up and released. The
after-effects of this can be an enormous sense
of relief. Old patterns of holding begin to gently
break up and a new sense of aliveness enters as
the breath anchors one's self in the present.
http://www.breathe-mag.co.uk/

22. FAITH
SURRENDERING
Everything is unfolding as is should
We plant seeds and will never know what
comes to fruition
Teaching middle school is an act of faith

23. Questions
and
Closure
CODE:3295
Ann Mary Roberts
Radford University
aroberts@radford.edu

24. Bibliography
• Dalai Lama, (2001). An Open Heart: Practicing
Compassion in Everyday Life. Boston: Little
Brown and Company.
• Durka, Gloria, (2002). The Teachers Calling: A
Spirituality for Those Who Teach. Mahwah, NJ:
Paulist Press.
• Kurtz, Ernest and Ketcham, Katherine, (2002).
The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and
the Search for Meaning. New York: Bantam
Books.

25. Bibliography continued
• Merton, Thomas (1961). New Seeds of Contemplation.
New York: New Directions Publishing Company.
• Nagel, Greta, (1998). The Tao of Teaching: The Ageless
Wisdom of Taoism and the Art of Teaching. New York:
The Penguin Group.
• Nouwen, Henri, (2001). The Way of the Heart:
Connecting with God Through Prayer, Wisdom, and
Silence. New York: Ballentine Books.
• Palmer, Parker, (1998). The Courage to Teach:
Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.