chapter1 relationship（chapter1关系）.docVIP

Chapter 1: Relationship with Body At school we were taught mathematics, reading, and the geography of the world, but few of us were taught much about the geographical mapping of the home we live in—our bodies. –D. Farhi, pg. xv It is the first day of class. You are the “teacher”—expectant, a bit nervous, hopeful that all will go well this year. You hear a rustling in the hallway. The time has come. In a moment your classroom will be filled. But filled with what exactly? What is about to walk through the door? Pause for a moment. Take this question seriously. It is a question about perception—what you “see” walking through the door will determine, in large measure, what is possible in your classroom this year. For many years what I perceived that what entered my classroom were beings that seemed, for the most part, withdrawn, afraid, and resigned. I was seeing in them what also lived in me—fear, anxiety, resignation—and this kept me from being present to them, limiting possibilities for genuine learning. Caught in this perception, it was easier to participate in the charade—to play the game of “let’s pretend” that so often passes for education—than to be real, alive, present. That is changing. These days I see that what enters my classroom are people, each unique, each filled with hopes, fears, values, beliefs—each with fantastic possibility—each on a journey to awareness. A good starting point for this “journey to awareness” is to be awake to the fact that we, each of us, experiences the world in something physical called a “body” and that this body is connected to the entire universe. Indeed, as Nisker (2001; pg. 12) points out: “Science is showing us our oneness with all things. The physicists have found evidence that we are sub-atomically joined at the hip to absolutely everything else in creation. The chemists and biologists have named the common molecules that make us co-existent with the atmosphere, the earth, and all other living