Naropa to teach profs how to weave compassion into classroom

Brittany Anas

The Daily Camera

Posted: 07/08/2009 11:09:00 AM MDT

BOULDER, Colo. -

If teachers simply padded their questions with some silence - increasing the wait time before they solicited answers from students - they'd see more hands shoot up in the air and hear more complex responses.

That's the kind of technique that educators will share with one another at an upcoming seminar at Naropa University, Boulder's Buddhist-inspired school. The annual conference on contemplative education teaches teachers how to weave creativity, compassion - and sometimes a little silence - into their classrooms.

About two dozen educators from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom will attend the conference, which runs from July 28 to Aug. 1.

Richard Brown, seminar director and founder of Naropa's Contemplative Education Department, said there's a growing interest in the techniques among mainstream faculty members.

"What we're finding is that many students going away to college these days are interested in having education of deeper meaning,” he said. "Lots of college professors are responding to this need.”

Cyndi Nienhaus, an assistant professor of theology at Marian University in Fond du Lac, Wis., will attend the conference. She said today's generation of college students is "bombarded with so many noisy and distracting forms of technology” and she believes that many students would appreciate learning how to incorporate some quiet and contemplation into their hectic lifestyles.

Nienhaus said students face so many pressures - including how to pay for their tuition, how to choose a major and how to get a job once they graduate - that they forget to "listen to the quiet within their minds and hearts.”

"I hope to come away from the Contemplative Pedagogy Seminar with ways to help our university students listen to that quiet so they make decisions for their lives that will bring about good in themselves and the entire world,” she said.