‘Teaching of’ and ‘Teaching about’ Meditation The Legal Limits and Educational Prospects of a Contemplative Pedagogy

Abstract

The growing interest in meditation and meditation inspired classroom practices has garnered a share of advocates and detractors. The recent critiques in Candy Gunther Brown’s Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools (2019) offer the most trenchant legal and ethical obstacles to implementing a contemplative education in American public schools. I trace the contours of Brown’s legal claims relevant to higher education and propose a pathway forward by arguing for the importance of underpinning contemplative practices with sound pedagogical theory. I offer one example of contemplative pedagogy based on metacognition as implemented in my Zen Buddhism course.