Classroom as a Sacred Space and Presence as Radical Respect

Summary

In this episode we speak to EWP PhD graduate and EWP and ITP adjunct faculty Holly Adler from her classroom in Oakland, CA. As a teacher of underprivileged and marginalized youth, Holly discusses alternative approaches to education beyond the mythos and narratives of neoliberal normativity, which aims to help students critically engage with culturally constructed values systems based on commercial production and consumption. Holly shares her approach to an experimental pedagogy based on cultivating the classroom as a sacred space, and she considers experiences of how conscious and engaged presence in their lives can create structures of unconditional support and radical respect, an essential factor in empowering students to reconstruct themselves in their own image based on their own goals of becoming. Our discussion addresses contemporary problems of cultural disillusionment, the role of technology, and the importance of spiritual self-transcendence in overcoming hegemonic regimes of discipline and control. The podcast ends discussing how music can offer alternative models of individual and collective becoming.

Connect with EWP: WebsiteYoutubeFacebookEWP Podcast Website

Music at the end of the episode titled The Architect, from Monsoon’s Arrival by the band Monsoon, released on Monsoon-Music Record Label

Related Topics

Your Host

Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay

Stephen Julich has worked as an adjunct instructor in History and Anthropology at the City College of New York, as a lecturer in Jungian Studies at the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles, and as an adjunct instructor at the California Institute of Integral Studies where he has taught classes on ensouled writing and Western Esotericism.

Jonathan Kay is a professional musician, and is currently a PhD student in the department of East-West Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco under the mentorship of Dr. Debashish Banerji.

View Profile