Waldorf News

The Making of Abiding Heart Education: Beyond Contemplative Education

By Dr. Meyrav Mor

Introduction
In 2000, a nascent Abiding Heart Education began its journey with the establishment of my first school in Nepal, Tashi Waldorf School, which integrated Waldorf methodology with Himalayan cultural heritage. Tibetan Buddhism was central to the school’s curriculum due to the primary importance of supporting and nurturing the connection between displaced Tibetan and high Himalayan students and their linguistic and cultural heritage.

At Tashi Waldorf school I also developed a Tibetan Buddhist curriculum that encompassed meditation, Buddhist morning prayers and offerings, Buddhist education, Buddhist festivals and also featured Tibetan language, music, folklore and drama.

My first pupils at Tashi Waldorf School- Kindergarten, Kathmandu Nepal 2000

A Buddhist Children’s Pedagogy
A Buddhist children’s pedagogy needs to be transformative, experiential, and developmentally appropriate to nourish children’s beings towards freedom. I identified the Waldorf transformative educational approach as providing such a pedagogy, with it’s deeply holistic understanding of child development, and integrated this with the Buddhist contemplative and meditative (experiential) approach. This synthesis became a new educational approach, termed ‘Abiding Heart Transformative Experiential Buddhist Education’.

One master, Mingyur Rinpoche, listened deeply and asked many questions about such pedagogies. I described the nesting system of confirmative, progressive and transformational education systems, and the placement of both Waldorf and Buddhist education in the transformational. Both aim, in their individual ways, towards inner freedom– enlightenment. Everything in Abiding Heart Education becomes part of the path towards inner freedom.

I propose that the Waldorf approach is capable of delivering an immersive, transformative Buddhist education for children while also teaching a comprehensive children’s curriculum.

Intrigued by my work, Mingyur Rinpoche shared that he was planning to set up a school in Kathmandu and that such a curriculum would be of great benefit to his schools. I was able to offer educational expertise in relation to his monastic schools in Nepal and India.

The Pillars of Abiding Heart Education
Abiding Heart Education comprises four foundational components:

1. Experiential Buddhist Foundation Studies;
2. Buddhist and developmental science-based Child Development from Birth to Rebirth;
3. Learning theories: Buddhist learning methodology, Steiner pedagogy and other contemporary learning theories and methodologies leading to the Abiding Heart Education learning and teaching approach;
4. Abiding Heart’s transformative experiential curriculum for kindergarten through to class 8.

The first pillar of Abiding Heart Education forms the Foundation Buddhist studies course – a 16 week full time course- a full semester! The focus here is on Foundation Buddhist Thought and the inner development of the trainee teacher. Trainees first dedicate time to understanding, contemplating and meditating the Buddhist worldview. Experiential arts are an integral part of this course to enrich the process of learning and to enable exploration of inner landscapes and reflection on how the Buddhist view and meditation can be applied in the journey of self-transformation.

The combination of daily philosophy classes together with meditation and transformative and expressive arts, modelling, Himalayan arts and crafts and movement, are a fantastic way of applying the Foundation Buddhist studies into trainees’ lives. The full training course follows the same pattern of daily lectures, meditation and artistic exercises.

The second pillar of Abiding Heart Education is child development from birth to rebirth. This is a 10 week full time course that similarly follows a daily rhythm of lectures, meditation, artistic exercises and personal development group work.

This course progresses from exploring our own inner landscape to understanding the nature of the human being and in particular the developing child. It does so from multiple perspectives; encompassing Buddhism, scientific theory and Steiner’s philosophy of education. By the second semester of our full-time two-year teacher training courses, our trainees have acquired the knowledge and understanding to enable them to explore Buddhist psychology, developmental science, psychology and neuroscience.

By the end of this course, our trainee teachers have an in-depth understanding of the developing child from birth to adulthood and how it relates to our teaching methodology and content for each year group. However, our child development course does not stop at the end of childhood, for it is anchored in Buddhist psychology and understands human development from the moment or bardo of death through the other stages of the bardos of death to conception and prenatal development.

Understanding the importance of Aiding Heart Education’s pedagogy is key to building children’s resilience and opening both heart and mind, where attention is given to supporting children’s spiritual, physical, socio-emotional and cognitive development from birth to rebirth.

The third pillar of Abiding Heart Education is our 3 week course on Learning Theories and Methodologies: Buddhist Pedagogy, the Transformative Learning Approach of Steiner and other Contemporary Learning Theories. This course provides a synthesis of the three components (Buddhist, Steiner, and contemporary learning theories) and forms the Abiding Heart Education learning and teaching approach.

Khenpo Sonam Tsewang and 2019 students

The fourth pillar of Abiding Heart Education is the curriculum content. This is introduced to trainees towards the end of year 1, when we feel they have embodied their learning into heart understanding (conceptually and experientially), and are at a stage when they can immerse themselves in learning how to teach the Abiding Heart Curriculum.

The curriculum includes an array of subjects taught in kindergartens and schools, all of which are immersed directly and indirectly in the Buddhist view and meditation, with the aim of nurturing the development of wisdom and compassion. Beyond subjects ,such as cultural studies, history, or  literacy, Contemplative education, Buddhism, prayers and rituals, are integrated into every lesson and throughout the daily, weekly and monthly rhythms of the school year. The curriculum is rich, purposefully wholesome and true to Steiner’s ideal of educating the head, heart and hand.

The course is delivered over a year and focuses on thorough training on how to teach each individual subject to each specific year group. Curriculum delivery requires trainees to learn an array of new skills in a multifaceted role; to develop confidence as speakers, writers, artists, meditators; to train in child observation, and this is all anchored in contemplative practice and the Buddhist view. I teach this course myself, with the wonderful support of Waldorf colleagues from around the world.

Abiding Heart Education currently has a team of over twenty experts who advise and teach Shamata and vipassana meditation, Buddhist philosophy and psychology and neuroscience, as well as experienced teachers of progressive and transformative pedagogies, contemplative education, experiential arts, sculpture, craft and handwork, Buddhist Himalayas dance and thangka painting, music and drama, sustainability education, science, and more.

Our teacher training courses are open to teachers and aspiring teachers from all over the world. Candidates can apply to become either a kindergarten teacher or a primary teacher (class 1-8). The training is full-time over two years. We aim to keep the tuition fees low to make it accessible to people from all backgrounds.

The training and curriculum content is designed to be adapted to any Buddhist community around the world. We also include in our training how the Buddhist content can be mostly taught in a contemplative way (secular) for non-Buddhist or mixed Buddhist and non-Buddhist school communities. This training can greatly support teachers in the context of progressive and contemplative based schools around the world; for those who teach children dharma holiday camps and in dharma centres globally as well as Buddhist monastic schools and Buddhist based lay schools in Asia.

The results of Abiding Heart teacher training courses have exceeded our expectations and beyond imagination. I have observed the trainee teachers’ growth as they become reflective practitioners and develop a deep inner relationship to each subject they teach. It is not only their confidence to teach that develops daily, but the courage to use the knowledge they have gained to develop and adapt our curriculum in relation to their own culture and Buddhist traditions (also non- Buddhist tradition for some of our trainee teachers).

I feel deep gratitude for having the good fortune to walk the path this lifetime of developing such a rich and wholesome education that can nurture and bring healing to children. May it be of benefit to all children and beings.

For more information about abiding heart education and our kindergarten teacher training, primary teacher training, Child Development Course, Understanding Children with Special Needs course, and our corner for nurturing parents in our ‘Becoming’ short courses, please go to www.abidingheart.education.

Dr Meyrav Mor can be contacted at: meyrav@abidingheart.education

Abiding Heart students past and present 2019-21