Dear Colleagues,
Last year, in lieu of a holiday party, my colleague Caye Caplan and I organized a mandala activity for our staff of the literacy division at World Education in Boston. We transformed one of the conference rooms by lowering the lights, covering the technology in gauzy fabric, adding plants and flowers, and covering the walls with reproductions of mandalas from various sources. The week before the event, I sent out a short email explaining the activity and adding a short article about mandalas and their purpose. Participation was entirely voluntary.Our purpose was two fold: To engage in a silent, meditative activity as a community and to honor two staff members who had recently died of cancer. (We also set up a simple "altar" in memory of these two women.)

Interested staff gathered at a specified time in the morning to listen to the directions and guidelines for the day-long activity; the guidelines were also posted on newsprint on one of the walls for those who came in later. The entire activity was done in silence. 

We arranged a simple cardboard frame on the table and drew a large circle within it. Then, using a variety of different colored dried beans and rice, which were displayed in clear cups all around the table, each participant contributed to the emergence of the mandala WITHOUT TALKING. If someone needed to talk she had to step outside the space. Participants could come in and out of this activity as they wished. We took photos of the mandala as it emerged. It was fascinating to see how each person entered into the space and how he or she chose to add to the emerging visual artifact: some worked bean by bean, very carefully composing an edge or border; others took handfuls of beans and created large opaque areas. Some added to a design that was created by others, while some went right to empty spaces. Some linked small separate areas together. Some took a look over the whole image and picked up a motif to repeat. We were indeed communicating along the way without words. Through our actions, we were asking permission, smiling, collaborating, suggesting direction, following direction, showing delight and puzzlement.  Some of the most silent members at staff meetings contributed the most visually stunning areas. In one instance, a person created an area, someone came at another time and changed it, then the original person came to turn it back to the original image. That was our only argument! When the mandala was completed, we took a photo. Then we deconstructed the mandala by turning it upside down to wipe away the design, much as Buddhist monks carry their intricate sand mandalas to the river to let their design float away, symbolising the transitory nature of our lives. Each of us took a small bag of beans as a reminder of the day. The activity did feel like a guided meditation with soothing music in the background and the freedom from having to talk and analyze. 
I think an activity like this could help teachers reflect on their own methods of communication and interaction. It is also a great stress reducer. I have adapted this activity on a smaller scale for teachers in family literacy projects as a way to end a unit on health and literacy. We used the beans and colored cereal we had preciously analyzed for nutrition content to create a mandala. I have never seen teachers so absorbed and willingly interactive...


>>> "Taylor, Jackie" <jataylor at utk.edu> 01/25/08 2:00 PM >>>

The following message is posted on behalf of Bonnita Solberg, please
read on! Best...Jackie Taylor

 

________________________________

From: Bonnita Solberg [mailto:bdsunmt at sbcglobal.net] 
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2008 1:48 PM
To: Taylor, Jackie
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1892] Re: Exercises that accessTeacher
learning styles

 

	Hi Bonnie and list members:  I am wondering if, in the absence
of a "labyrinth in reality", a "mind trip" that would take participants
on the path of a labyrinth by visualizing it, perhaps having them place
their own candles and memorials along the way, could be substituted.  At
retreats, this activity may actually fulfill what a number of teachers
would like in addition to more academic exercises--something
non-stressful, pleasant, a guided exercise, inspirational, low key,
social, etc. while filling the objective of "looking in."  

	 

	Bonnita Solberg

	ESL Teacher On Special Assignment

	Oakland Adult and Career Education (OACE)\

	Oakland Unified School District (OUSD)

	Neighborhood Centers Adult School

	750 International Blvd.

	Oakland CA 94606

	(510) 879-4020

	(510) 693-7313

	
	
	Bonnie Odiorne <bonniesophia at sbcglobal.net> wrote: 

	Dear colleagues,

	Thanks, Jackie, for the follow-up question.

	A wonderful way of provoking reflection, in any area, is a
facilitated labyrinth walk, which can easily be adapted  and
contextualized for any purpose, educational or meditative. I am certain
that it would be understandable to conference participants in the
context of multiple intelligences, learning styles, finding creativity,
motivation, purpose and intention. The labyrinth is a circular path with
one entrance, a center, and one exitis by the same circuitous paths by
which one entered. It is not a maze: just follow the path. The center
has 6 petals, which one could associate with learning styles, multiple
intelligences, or whatever categories of mindfulness the participant
decides is important. Since the turns reverse directions as one follows
the circuit, it is believed that right and left brain functions are
fully engaged by the walk. It is certainly a multisensory-multimodality
experience, involving kinesthetic (movement), auditory (optional music),
visual (the path itself, an ambience of labyrinth-related objects,
candles, flowers, scarves, whatever). It can lend itself to verbal
processing; while one doesn't want a "paper and pencil" exercise,
participants are encouraged to journal their experience after and share
it if they wish. Gardiner wished to have added a "spiritual/creative"
intelligence, (and sometimes he wishes he'd never invented the idea of
multiple intelligences!) so the meditation can contribute to that aspect
as well. I wonder if the "mindfulness" as a reflection on multiple
intelligences or learning styles would come from the teacher's own
experiential learning from the activity, as well as reflecting on the
experience of students who, as the teachers would in a labyrinth walk,
potentially experience sensory overload, as do ELLs coming to a new
language and culture, with a whole set of multiple inputs where learning
is in every daily activity: nothing can be taken for granted. 

	    I published an article in Changes (don't have the reference
offhand) on a peace walk in an elementary school adult  education/family
literacy setting, including ESL students. Participants could reflect on
the 'strangeness' of the labyrinth experience if they're not familiar
with it, associate "peace" with silence and meditation, and equate it to
the experience of new English Language Learners trying to walk a path
set out for them they've never seen before, feeling lost.... Or, in the
context of the Peace walk, which was just after 9/11, participants could
imagine alternative pathways for themselves, their students, the world.

	Warmest regards, and many thanks for presenting this fascinating
and thought-provoking process,

	Bonnie Odiorne, Ph.D.

	Adjunct Professor in English, French, and Freshman Studies

	Writing Center Director

	Post University

	Waterbury, CT