Teaching Stillness & Silence Seminars 2010

19-26 MARCH 2010
Teaching Stillness & Silence Brochure and Booking Form
Perth (19/3), Brisbane (22/3), Sydney (23/3), Adelaide (24/3), Melbourne (25/3), Hobart (26/3)

We progress by stopping – Meister Eckhart

Almost everything that students experience today inhibits their journey inward towards stillness and silence. The world suggests the solution to this restlessness lies outside of oneself in the pursuit of a bigger and more exciting life. Students are therefore often over-stimulated, and as result, may lose a sense of their own personal wholeness and a capacity to engage fully with the world as balanced human beings. It is vital that education responds to such challenges by presenting and teaching an alternative way of being. We want you to consider a new learning and a new imagination for our students that locates the teaching of stillness and silence within each person at the heart of education.

In these practical seminars, Ernie Christie and Richard Browning offer complementary approaches to Teaching Stillness and Silence for Teachers of all Years, Teachers of Religious Education & Values and Chaplains.

SEMINAR PROGRAMME 9am-3pm

Part 1: Teaching Christian Meditation to Children – Ernie Christie

• A rationale for Stillness & Silence
• The contemplative tradition: Meditation as an inclusive, educational, spiritual practice
• A practical experience of Christian Meditation
• Fruits of Stillness & Silence

Part 2: Icons, Metaphor and Artful Play in the Classroom – Richard Browning

• Drinking in imagination: An affirmation of the childhood inclination
• A meditation on time using the Onkidoo Icon
• Spontaneous explorations of metaphor and nude drawings of the Tree of Life

Participants should expect intelligent contemplation, unhurried participation and creative reflection. The content is applicable across a wide range of student age groups and in Part 2, has its origins within a middle school demographic.

FACILITATORS

Ernie Christie is Deputy Director of the Catholic Education Office for the Diocese of Townsville with a teaching career spanning 28 years. Meeting Fr Laurence Freeman (Director of the World Community for Christian Meditation) sparked an interest in and led to a passion for a contemplative way of being in the Christian tradition. Ernie has since been a meditator for more than 12 years and is committed to teaching the practice to children. In what is a world-first, Ernie has developed and implemented a systematised practice of Christian Meditation in all 31 Catholic schools in the Diocese of Townsville. In his book, Coming Home: A Guide to Teaching Christian Meditation to Children, Ernie has provided a guide to training teachers in delivering this ancient practice in the classroom, with excellent and inspiring results.

‘Meditation is prayer of the heart’

Richard Browning is Director of Community at Radford College, Canberra where he is responsible for the development of the ethos and values culture of the school and RAS, the programme of awareness and service that provides the arena for students to be deeply involved in the issues that shape our time.  An activist of the imagination, story teller and artist, Richard’s chief work is the provocation of another’s imagination, achieved best through the art of listening.  Richard has led Retreats for Anglican School Principals and presented a remarkable workshop at the 2009 DAN Conference, after which one delegate commented, ‘Richard should be cloned and given to every school.’  Having such a large and noisy man teach stillness and silence might seem a little mischievous.  However, this unlikely model of inner stillness should encourage any teacher who recognises the link between the affective and deep, life long learning.

‘Listening is oxygen for ideas and the ground for respect.’

SEMINAR DATES AND LOCATIONS
(Detailed venue information will be advised when booking is received)

Friday 19 March 2010 – St Mary’s Anglican Girls’ School, Perth, WA
Monday 22 March 2010 – Anglican Church Grammar School, Brisbane, QLD
Tuesday 23 March 2010 – Newington College, Sydney, NSW
Wednesday 24 March 2010 – Westminster School, Adelaide, SA
Thursday 25 March 2010 – Xavier College, Melbourne, VIC
Friday 26 March 2010 – The Friend’s School, Hobart, TAS

COST (GST inclusive) includes Seminar, Morning Tea, Lunch and Teaching CD
$140/person or $120/person (for DAN members and if more than one teacher from same school attending)

TEACHING STILLNESS AND SILENCE BOOKING FORM

For Bookings and Enquiries, please contact the DAN Executive Officer