Each day there was an hour set aside for teachers to reflect, both on the activities that had occurred throughout the day, and on their understanding of learning as an holistic endeavor, i.e., the need to attend to the mind, body, and spirit in order to teach for learning. To assess this aspect of the workshop, we asked the participants to respond to three questions at the end of the workshop:

1. How have you managed to connect your head to your heart in order to enrich your practice?
2. How would you interpret the value of the reflective sessions?
3. Is there a need for holistic professional development? Please explain.

For the first question, virtually every participant indicated the need for compassion (heart) as well as rules, regulations, and facts in teaching. The primary thrust in the responses was to see and understand the whole child as a learner, not just an abstract body in a classroom. The following two quotations are illustrative of the individual responses:

I have managed to enrich my teaching practice through these workshops by realizing (through the art project) the frustration that students feel coming into my classroom day in and day out. My head and heart can now relate to one another.  

My head has always been focused on math, science, and engineering, itself. However, my heart has not been with engineering; it has been with students. Through this workshop, I have started to bring those two together. I have learned techniques to teach my excitement for engineering (my head) to my students (my heart). Not only will it expose them to the possible career of engineering, but it will show them true excitement and love of learning in the classroom.

The responses to the second question dealing with the reflective sessions per se, focused on two aspects: the diversity of thinking among the teachers regarding the various activities, their uses in the classroom, and ways to connect them to discussions about engineering as a career; and the variety of ways in which the activities could be adapted for use with middle school children. Interestingly, several of the teachers, during the reflection period, “caught” themselves behaving like their students, for example, complaining about the difficulty of a task, the presenter’s inability to “adequately” explain directions, or about the condition of the materials. Through dialoguing with one another, several participants acknowledged a deeper understanding of their students’ frustrations in the classes they taught and their need to think of the student and not just content. Representative of the positive comments were the following:

The reflective sessions were better than I expected. The value of sharing experiences, ideas, thoughts and questions with other teachers cannot be overstated. I also appreciated questions that made me think about my own teaching in ways that I hadn’t before.

[The reflective sessions] allowed me to contextualize experiences—How does this fit into this workshop, my teaching, etc. Session after aquarium trip gave me time and space to appreciate the value of having seen the original, natural context of the subject of my artwork.

Not all participants experienced the reflective sessions positively. Two people thought the sessions were too long and too directed, i.e., having preordained goals. Another would have preferred to have spent part of the time re-reading parts of the text, sent prior to the workshop, so that all could have participated in the discussions with an immediate recall of the author’s context of the concepts discussed.

The last question dealt with holistic education—integration of mind, body, and spirit as the basis for teaching and learning—as fundamental to an alternative way of conducting professional development. Overall, the participants believe in a need for holism in teaching and learning, and in professional development. Typical responses were

I enjoyed the direction this workshop went in. It gave me the opportunity to express myself in ways I would have never expected. I think sometimes one needs to explore the uncomfortable in order to truly find where they are supposed to be.  

Too often time is perceived as too valuable to connect heart and spirit to mind. It takes time and energy to connect—and practice. Too many teachers spend time on the details without reconnecting details to the whole. It leads to fragmentation and a sense of isolation.  

Too much professional development is focused around data, testing, and strict classroom models, that it takes the creativity and humanity out of teaching. I greatly respect any professional development that recognizes the needs of a teacher to develop in all ways and explore ideas that challenge them as people, instead of training them as robots.

As with the reflective sessions, not all participants benefited from this format. To clarify, all participants believed in holistic professional development; however, some felt that we were not successful in achieving holism.

There could be a need. It would depend upon the individual. Mind, body and spirit approach is something totally different than what was offered here at Rowan. Being able to go to the gym and getting plenty of fruits and vegetables in your diet is only part of it. Art work is fine. Except that you can’t put a time limit on it or that it must be finished in order to be used as a presentation.

(This comment was interesting because no one ever said the art work had to be finished.)

Overall, I think the reflection, encouragement to participate in physical activity and the art sessions were a good beginning to what has the potential to be better next year. The comments from the participants were most helpful, in addition to the notes and debriefing we as directors and presenters had, in serving as a guide for needed changes.