Marty Schmidt | Hong Kong International School (original) (raw)

Papers by Marty Schmidt

Written with students in mind, this paper summarizes the life and work of French paleontologist a... more Written with students in mind, this paper summarizes the life and work of French paleontologist and Catholic priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), revealing his attempt to bring scientific study and spiritual reflection into dialogue in search of answers to some of humankind's deepest human questions.

This paper describes a mini-unit on the concept of a living universe that I used with my "Service... more This paper describes a mini-unit on the concept of a living universe that I used with my "Service, Society, and the Sacred" students at Hong Kong International School.

Introduction of Centering Prayer as a spiritual practice for students in a grade 9 World Religion... more Introduction of Centering Prayer as a spiritual practice for students in a grade 9 World Religions class. Using a 10-question Q & A format, I share this contemplative modality as my preferred spiritual practice, providing the essentials to get such a practice up and running.

This paper describes a holistic approach to a key developmental task of adolescence: considering ... more This paper describes a holistic approach to a key developmental task of adolescence: considering life direction during and beyond high school. Based on the work of Episcopalian priest and mystic Cynthia Bourgeault, a specific teaching framework and associated practices are offered to assist students to address this deep question at this formative time in their lives.

This small action research project addresses the question whether student integrity is enhanced b... more This small action research project addresses the question whether student integrity is enhanced by the study of contemporary issues in a socially conscious classroom environment. Student responses suggest that the social conscience approach appears to implicitly require integrity to enable students to come to an understanding of their own worldview, which is an explicit aim of the course.

When I first started teaching I wondered: where is the power of education? Or, to frame the quest... more When I first started teaching I wondered: where is the power of education? Or, to frame the question in Christian terms that remain my most natural mode, where is the power of Christ to transform lives? Somehow it seemed to me that Christian education should always be about the business of transforming people and changing society. But where was that power?

The partial answer that I have come to is service learning, which culminated in the creation of a new course in 2001 called "Humanities I in Action." Eventually, this course led to my research and what I call social conscience education. However, my recent study of the work of Episcopalian priest and mystic Cynthia Bourgeault has caused me to reflect more deeply on not only how Humanities I in Action came into existence, but more generally how innovation occurs. In her March, 2014 keynote presentation at Earlham School of Religion entitled "Harnessing the Law of Three," based on her 2013 book The Holy Trinity, Cynthia makes an audacious, universal claim how all new phenomena arise in the universe.

This blog entry recalls how Humanities I in Action was created through what Cynthia terms a "Law of Three" process. This serves as a springboard to consider Cynthia's provocative assertion that the Law of Three is not only "Christianity's hidden driveshaft"(Holy Trinity, 3), but a general law that gives rise to transformation.

This is the first entry of a two-part series about the roles that teachers play in facilitating ... more This is the first entry of a two-part series about the roles that teachers play in facilitating development of students’ social conscience. Both come directly from my dissertation. The first entry is an excerpt from the literature review, while the second describes my research findings. While I considered attempting to merge the two into a “definitive” statement, I believe that both the review and the findings accurately describe aspects of my own teaching practice and those that I interviewed for my research. I also feel it is best to include both entries as excerpts from my dissertation rather than risking over-simplification in pursuit of some imagined larger synthesis. Rather, additional research is needed to further refine these ideas.

For years I have wrestled with how to teach religion at a Christian school that teaches a relativ... more For years I have wrestled with how to teach religion at a Christian school that teaches a relatively secularized student body in a multi-cultural and multi-religious environment, yet at the same time speaks to the deeply personal and spiritual needs of students. In recent years Hong Kong International School has developed statements that seem to thread this needle, and in a way that seems to works for my students. This blog entry shares these perspectives, and then shows how I apply this middle way approach to the teaching of my grade 9 World Religions class through the use of spiritual practices.

A holistic educational approach necessitates challenging the basic modern paradigm about the purp... more A holistic educational approach necessitates challenging the basic modern paradigm about the purpose of education. Rather than pursuing personal success as defined by conventional society, holistic education understands the essential unity of life on earth and intuits a quasi-spiritual coherent intelligence permeating the cosmos. Interconnectedness, meaning and transformation are the key words of this paradigm. Student in the Humanities I in Action class would agree that the course places these concepts at the center of the curriculum.

However, there is a fuller dimension of holistic education that spiritual teachers such as Cynthia Bourgeault and Chris Bache point towards that I am calling a pedagogy of spiritual activation. By comparison to the descriptors of holistic education, it first requires less technical, visible changes but instead develops a deeper, more pervasive inner growth of the heart. Secondly, it seems to necessitate a stable connection with the same energy source that sustains the world. Bache writes, "Pragmatically, spiritual practices is about systematically engaging the constrictions within one's heart, mind, and body that keep awareness trapped within the narrow, repetitive cycles that constitute the primary self and allowing one's being to relax into its deeper currents and its innate purity, eventually opening to the crystalline clarity that is the ever-present context and source of all experience" (25). The easier-than-it-sounds nature of this pedagogy allows the practitioner the freedom and space to open up and receives what is given. It becomes a moment-by-moment living in grace.

This is a summary and analysis of the first day of Humanities I in Action, a high school class ai... more This is a summary and analysis of the first day of Humanities I in Action, a high school class aimed at developing students' social conscience. In this 80-minute lesson, students are introduced to the concepts of free trade and fair trade chocolate, and are forced to make an ethical decision by the end of the period. What students find deeply impactful about the class - multiple perspectives, decision-oriented, paradigm-challenging, and grounded in a class community - are present in this paradigmatic first lesson of the year.

Drafts by Marty Schmidt

in this piece I explain that how the same spiritual power evident in the work of Iranian calligra... more in this piece I explain that how the same spiritual power evident in the work of Iranian calligrapher and painter Golnaz Fathi is also seen - in embrynic form - in the work of my high school students who choose are as their spiritual practice.

At 4:30 in the morning my sleep was broken and I awoke to a pitch dark room. My flashlight had st... more At 4:30 in the morning my sleep was broken and I awoke to a pitch dark room. My flashlight had stopped functioning the first evening, so there was nothing to do but endure the darkness and wait to fall back to sleep before the 6:30 wake-up bell. And it was then that I felt it . . . fear. Alone . . . in the dark . . . with fear. A slow panic dawned in me. As I recalled in my journal the next morning, "I woke up last night in deep blackness in a casket-like bed, fearing my death. Fearing the entering into that blackness when the light of all I know, all I take joy and sorrow in, and all that I can control is shut out like the closing and sealing of an incinerator door. I am afraid to die - afraid to enter into the darkness."

Having now studied Cynthia Bourgeault's work in the context of the Wisdom Tradition in some dept... more Having now studied Cynthia Bourgeault's work in the context of the Wisdom Tradition in some depth, this blog entry attempts to summarize in big-picture terms her response to the question how compassionate action can be purified of its inherently self-referential elements. Presented in summary form, the modest aim of this entry is to illuminate her response to this question in broad strokes, explaining her vision of the original human condition, how and why humans fail to live in accordance with this inspiring ideal, the solution to this fundamental problem, and the end result of empathic action in society.

Most simply, Bourgeault's philosophy assumes that all action springs out of a self that lies beneath our thoughts and emotions. The only truly efficacious act, then, emerges from a purified self, the source of all subconscious motivations as well as conscious thoughts and emotions. However, if students act primarily out of self-centered thinking or a divided heart, the ordinary human condition, they are likely to perpetuate rather than resolve social injustice. Her preferred path towards a purified consciousness is the spiritual practice of Centering Prayer.