Practicing Wisdom: The Perfection of Shantideva's Bodhisattva Way

Product Information

Develop your generosity. This is never as simple as donating money from a distance. Instead, it's a moment-to-moment practice of liberality toward yourself and others. It manifests in activities such as volunteer work; donating food, clothing, medicines, and other support to practitioners of higher virtue and wisdom; and offering your care, patience, and kindness to those in need—including yourself. How to cite this article: Smith, Mark K. (2008) ‘Helping relationships’, The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education. [ www.infed.org/mobi/helping-relationships-principles-theory-and-practice/. Retrieved: insert date].

Practice wisdom: Values and interpretations — Charles Sturt

Attending and listening. In particular Culley and Bond ( ibid.: 17-8) are interested in ‘active listening’ by which they mean ‘listening with purpose and responding in such a way that clients are aware they have both been heard and understood’. We can see that this definition can apply to a counselling-client, parent-child and educator-learner relationship. In other words, Carl Rogers understood that counselling relationships, for example, were just special instances of interpersonal relationships in general ( op. cit.: 39). Furthermore, he concluded that ‘the degree to which I can create relationships which facilitate the growth of others as separate persons is a measure of the growth I have achieved in myself’ ( op. cit.: 56) These uncomfortable experiences will teach you how to be more humble and honest with yourself, and as long as you’re consistent, you can learn useful skills along the way. 2. Show Compassion & EmpathyYou can find your compassionate voice by writing a letter to yourself whenever you struggle or feel inadequate, or when you want to help motivate yourself to make a change. It can feel uncomfortable at first, but gets easier with practice. Smith, Mark K. (2004) Nel Noddings, the ethics of care and education’, The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/noddings.htm Read: Shulman, Lee S. “Practical Wisdom in the Service of Professional Practice.” Educational Researcher : A Publication of the American Educational Research Association. 36, no. 9 (2007): 560-563.

Wisdom: Existing Approaches, Continuing Challenges Measuring Wisdom: Existing Approaches, Continuing Challenges

Many other writers also use a three stage model. Put at its most simple (and probably most useful) the helping or working relationship is seen as having a beginning, middle and end (see, for example, Culley and Bond 2004). Alistair Ross (2003) provides a similar model: starting out, moving on and letting go. Truth: Actually, self-compassion provides the safety needed to admit mistakes rather than needing to blame someone else for them. Research shows self-compassionate people take greater personal responsibility for their actions and are more likely to apologize if they’ve offended someone. Rogers, C. R. (1961) On Becoming a Person. A therapist’s view of psychotherapy, Boston: Houghton Mifflin (1967 – London: Constable). Practicing mindful communication often brings us face to face with our anxieties about relationships. These anxieties are rooted in much deeper, core fears about ourselves, about our value as human beings. If we are willing to relate to these core fears, each of our relationships can be transformed into a path of self-discovery. Simply being mindful of our open and closed patterns of conversation will increase our awareness and insight. We begin to notice the effect our communication style has on other people. We start to see that our attitude toward a person can blind us to who the person really is. What Does Compassionate Listening Look Like?Access to Empirical Evidence. Another possible limitation of the EBP model is that it is heavily dependent on the degree to which empirical evidence might exist related to the practice questions at hand. This issue has several inter-connected parts. Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one’s inwardness, for better or worse. As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together…. When I do not know myself, I cannot know who my students are. I will see them through a glass darkly, in the shadows of my unexamined life – and when I cannot see them clearly, I cannot teach them well. When I do not know myself, I cannot know my subject – not at the deepest levels of embodied, personal meaning. I will know it only abstractly, from a distance, a congeries of concepts as far removed from the world as I am from personal truth. (Parker Palmer 1998: 2)