My primary interest, of course, was not so much about how to be successful but how to be sanctified. And, as sanctification is so much concerned with changing habits as well as hearts , I wondered if this book might help advance personal sanctification? In my early Christian life, I remember going on a solo camping trip in the middle of Hungary with the plan to read the whole Bible in five days.
I think I gave up after one hour. I was deeply disappointed for a time. We can apply this to many areas of Christian service, such as preaching a sermon or even writing a blog post. Can this not be applied to sanctification? There seems to be little difference on any given day, but these small changes deliver huge impact over the long run. The 7 Most Significant Religious Freedom Victories of This is an encouraging report after years of discouragement on this front:.
In ADF was at the forefront of a number of important legal cases.
- An Introduction to Clinical Research (Success in Medicine).
- Head, hands and heart.
- Article has been deleted.!
- Navigation Menu: Social Icons.
- About the Author.
- Main navigation;
Here are their most significant victories for religious freedom for the year: The Darkest Night of the Soul Suicide Podcast on one of the most difficult subjects in pastoral ministry. The Case for the 6-Hour Workday One to give to your boss: The shorter workday forced the team to prioritize effectively, limit interruptions, and operate at a much more deliberate level for the first few hours of the day. The team maintained, and in some cases increased, its quantity and quality of work, with people reporting an improved mental state, and that they had more time for rest, family, friends, and other endeavors.
We often affirm them in other ways, but for whatever reason, no one in the church has ever addressed this lack. Can We Trust the Gospels? Learning for children is not solely developmental in nature. There are transformational qualities involved in the maturation process that can be fostered and enhanced to make successful life transitions. Adult education is most often voluntary and tends to be authentic, more problem or project-based which gives the learning meaning and purpose.
Children also need a spark of authenticity; for this engagement will lead to greater depth and meaning. The same factors that motivate adult learner engagement also motivate younger learners. Meaningful education focuses on transforming individuals regardless of age Bracey, So it appears that transformational learning is a human process, not just an adult learning process.
Looking toward the future of building just and sustainable societies, we need to include the next generation. Puge and Girod propose that science has the same potential as art to enrich and vitalize everyday experience and provide aesthetic satisfaction that could lead to transformation of our everyday experience.
Our Say – Heart. Head. Hands.
A more engaging context such as a natural setting might be more effective in generating transformational experiences. He claims that such an approach not only integrates disciplines, but also intellect, emotion and body. Orr claims education should go beyond content or formal knowledge to include application and disposition of how to create meaning and value. In the Sipos et al. Hands refer to the enactment of the psychomotor domain for learning practical skill development and physical work such as building, planting, painting etc.
Heart refers to enablement of the affective domain in forming values and attitudes that are translated into behaviors Sipos et al. Figure one shows the HHH model. The blending of transformative learning and education for sustainability is a natural partnership because sustainability and transformative learning requires a change in perception, a change in values and active engagement. The model reflects that transformation is a multi-dimensional process and that changing sustainability values and environmental paradigms require more than a logical argument or an emotional appeal.
Experience and reflection along with awareness and caring are needed to initiate a true transformational event. Active engagement requires application of eco-friendly behaviors. Place offers a stimulating, authentic context for meaningful educational experiences that hold potential for personal growth for learners beyond academics. Places are invested with meaning and shape our consciousness, social identities, attitudes and behavior Hutchison, Place provides a context, an internal and external landscape, that frames, organizes and anchors experience which is needed to extract meaning and construct knowledge.
Education for sustainability, indigenous education and the planetary perspective of transformative education are related by a fundamental view of an intimate knowing of and belonging to place. In addition to serving as an authentic context for transformative experiences that offers personally meaningful learning, there are many benefits to spending time in nature Louv, ; Sobel, There is a large amount of evidence from studies in the area of biophilia supporting the notion that humans have a natural affinity to engage with nature and living organisms Kahn, ; Kellert, ; ; Shepard, Literally, the term biophilia means love of life or living process.
Learning in authentic or natural settings is a multi-sensory immersion, an immediate experience, that is compelling and often a novel experience. Natural environments not only draw students into deep and sustained engagement, nature also offers an enriching complex experience that benefits the well-being of people and even the well-being of the environment.
Through deep engagement, reflection and relational understandings, students find personal meaning and relevance in learning locally that adds purpose to their education. Relationship with place inspires pro-environmental behaviors and sustainability values. If education began with efforts to learn about processes and places close to home, it could lead to a different understanding of ecological stewardship and sustainable community. Weaving curriculum into the community allows students to fully participate in their own world with head, heart and hands which is stimulating and engaging.
A key element of ecological awareness is an intimate relationship and sacred orientation to a place Cajete, Place also provides an experiential background for shared experience and reflection. The function of reflection is to create meaning from experience by drawing connections and relations to previous experience, knowledge and ideas Dewey, ; , Kolb, ; Roberts, It is this connection to previous experience and knowledge that gives continuity and allows students to see the significance of their educational experience Dewey, ; Although both Dewey and Kolb argue that experience is the basis for learning, they also both claim that learning cannot take place without reflection ERIC, Reflection is also an essential element of transformational experiences Mezirow, ; Taylor, Critical reflection can lead to self-awareness which is necessary for change because without reflection one cannot: This inward contemplation is a part of identity formation and underlies the values and beliefs that support the views individuals hold and the behaviors they express Cornu, There are many barriers to reflection in most classroom settings.
Providing time necessary for reflection is difficult because most state curricula are a mile wide and an inch deep, which leaves little space for deep, meaningful learning AAAS, Some practitioners may not see the value of reflection if they themselves are not reflective and some may assume that students are reflecting on their own.
In addition, most teachers are not trained to prepare or guide students for reflective practices. Experiential programs in outdoor education, adventure education, restoration education and place-based education programs consider group and individual reflection of participants an essential component of the experiential learning cycle. Reflection often occurs through interaction with others; learners process experience with place through expression to others with shared experience Dewey, ; Roberts, The places we encounter and the people we share experience and thoughts with are mirrors and sounding boards for our own reflection.
Re-evaluating our beliefs and values stems from critical reflections which are constructed by our place in the world and the relationships we build with others. The Lakota people have a saying often used in ceremony, mitakuye oyasin , which means to all my relations and recognizes all living organisms as relatives. In this worldview, people are connected to all aspects of the natural world and related to all living creatures.
Change Management: You have to appeal to all 3 (Head, Heart, Hand)
All people are part of social and biological systems whose lives are framed by relationships and interactions within these systems Riley-Taylor, Our survival and quality of life are dependent upon relations with healthy environments, communities and personal bonds. The gateway to perception is a relation, an interconnection, between our senses and the world beyond Blenkinsop, Relational knowing can be defined as awareness of the relationships shared with community and the natural world, which seeks to overcome the dualistic separation underlying Western culture Riley-Taylor, Alternative ways of knowing are often overlooked within Western societies which value reductionist, rational ways of knowing.
From an indigenous perspective, Cajete recognizes four categories of ways of knowing: There are many ways to be smart yet there is a rank value attributed to them. The rational forms of intelligence, logical and linguistic, are valued over other ways of knowing such as emotional intelligence or intuition. Dualistic conceptions of existence that separate mind and body can be traced to Aristotle and more recently, Descartes, and have profoundly affected Western thought Gutek, This dualistic separation of the human mind and the sensory world allows people to rationalize the objectification and alienation of what is perceived as not rational.
This includes the sensory world of nature, women, and indigenous people Martusewicz, It is easier exploit a commodity than a community and to exclude the other from ethical codes attributed and granted exclusively to civilized people. This dualistic way or thinking sets humans against the larger community of life and relational knowing Riley-Taylor, It is community relationships that transform pointless lives into directed, meaningful experiences Shapiro, Through service and common goals, individuals bind together and receive relational support Blenkinsop, Because self-awareness and identity formation occurs through continuing relationship, knowledge of self becomes distinguished as we embrace diversity, yet social and economic privilege often leads to exclusionary practices Blenkinsop, ; Martusewicz, Globalization has contributed to creation of a monoculture.
In the same way that human activity alters biologically diverse land communities into monocultures, lack of deep community ties atomizes people into social monocultures. There is little connection to the life systems that sustain us. People have important relations with stuff and attach identity to the value of material accumulations rather than the quality of relationships with other people and with place.
Love is associated with the affective domain. A significant emotional event is often the impetus to change, to transform. Connection of emotion to self-knowledge is an empowering resource for willingness and acceptance of the need for critical reflection and changing behaviors Zembylas, Critical reflection, essential for transformative learning experiences, is a cognitive process, but what motivates a person to look within? One needs to be emotionally invested to engage in self-examination and transformation. Love of place fuels this emotional investment.
From a sustainability education point of view, this would result in an outcome of sustainability practices as a part of daily life.
Sponsors & Resources
Being physically present in a place, building relationship with that place, critically reflecting on the values one puts on a place can transform perspectives, change behaviors and increase engagement in sustainable community practices. Holistic involvement, body, mind, heart and place is deeply moving and deeply engaging.
To be engaged is to actively participate, to be involved and invested. Engaged learners exhibit characteristics of being attracted to their task, persistence in their task despite obstacles or challenges and take visible joy in accomplishing their task Schlechty, Educational research on engagement is framed in terms of categories, measures, precursors and outcomes in a meta-analysis by Fredricks, Blumenfeld and Paris.
Research tends to be divided into three areas: The area of behavior includes conduct, on-task behaviors, participation in extracurricular activities and attendance. Diminishing engagement is included in this area and often examines dropping out. Generally, behavior approaches focus on external efforts of students.
Investigations in the cognitive area focuses on motivation self-regulated learning, self-efficacy, meta-cognition and intellectual endeavors. These investigations examine internal efforts and personal qualities of students. In the area of affect, investigators look at attitudes, interests, belonging and relationships. Strong, Silver and Robinson identified four goals and related needs that motivate engagement which are: Curiosity in a topic is related to the value and relevance of that topic personally to the learner Strong et al.
Originality and self expression are associated with autonomy and choice. People have an inner drive toward interpersonal involvement so relationships and belonging are motivating to individuals Strong et al.
Other factors that affect engagement are related to complex, enriching learning environments. Influences outside the realm of school such as family, culture and community affect engagement. But educational context, along with teacher and peer support, also have a great influence on engagement.
Ross and Olsen define an enriching environment as a stimulating setting which is alive with resources and reflective of real life. They prefer rational ideas and structure. Pure intellect is held as the sharpest skill and any problem is simply a case of insufficient data or understanding. Head people learn by thinking. They typically theorize first about something and then try it out later, with a 'think-try-think' approach. When something happens that they did not expect, they are surprised and immediately start to work out what happened. They use logical language and expect the world around them to be rational and behave in predictable ways.
Thinkers may look down on doers as unintelligent or lacking the wisdom of forethought. Putting ideas into action may be feared, as it can threaten the clean and rational idea, obstructing it with messy reality. Cognitive people may have a low threshold of emotional overload and hence fear emotion. They may also have high control needs and fear the loss of control that emotion brings. Paradoxically, they may get angry when faced with emotional approaches.
People who are driven by the hands prefer to do things and then worry later about whether it was the right thing to do. At least they have got into action and have found out practically what works and what does not work.
Change Management: You have to appeal to all 3 (Head, Heart, Hand) | Consultant's Mind
Those whose response to a problem is to leap into action typically believe that the only understanding worth having is gained through direct experience. Rather than think-try-think, they will try-think-try. Doers tend to view thinkers as impractical time-wasters who do not understand the 'real world'.
They may be seen as ivory-tower academics who just like to play with unrealistic theories. This may be seen in pejorative comments such as 'That's just a theory'.