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REVIEWS

Karen Lee Erlichman, MSS, LCSW, lives in San (202) is neither new nor revolutionary for some of us.
Francisco, California, USA, where she provides psycho- The authors explain the role of postsecondary education
therapy, spiritual direction, supervision, and mentoring. as “support in the discovery of what means most deeply
She is a cofounder of Practistry. Contact her at karen@ to students,” their values, sense of meaning, and implica-
karenerlichman.com. tions of their actions (200–01). Are the authors suggest-
ing that intentional introspection begins when children
Contemplative Practices in Higher turn eighteen and enter college? How will young adults
Education: Powerful Methods to who don’t go to university participate?
Transform Teaching and Learning Claiming the importance of spirituality in higher edu-
by Daniel P. Barbezat and Mirabai Bush cation is commendable. Advocating for contemplative
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2014 practice in an academic environment is good news for
231 pages, CAD$42.00, GBP£25.99, those who have noticed that students may be brilliant in
USD$38.00 their acquisition of intellectual skills yet develop no sense
Reviewed by Mary Campbell Wright of morality. In the book’s foreword, educator and social-
The contemplative practices described by the authors change activist Parker Palmer is powerfully convincing
in Contemplative Practices in Higher Education will be about the causes of truth, love, and justice as integral to
familiar to those who are engaged the mission of higher education:
in spiritual direction. Interestingly, “When I look at the malfeasance
the authors do not discuss spiri- of well-educated leaders in busi-
tual direction as an existing field. ness and finance, in health care
Daniel P. Barbezat is an educator and education, in politics and
and director of the Center for religion, I see too many people
Contemplative Mind in Society. whose expert knowledge—and the
Mirabai Bush is its founding direc- power that comes with it—has not
tor. The center is identified as been joined to a professional ethic,
“a nonprofit organization that a sense of communal responsibil-
encourages contemplative aware- ity, or even simple compassion”
ness in American life in order to (vii). Palmer names one culprit:
create a more just, compassion- the objectivist model of education
ate, and reflective society.” The that separates learners from what
authors are credited with bringing is learned, creating “an ethical gap
to higher education “a quiet revolu- between the educated person and
tion whose time has come” and are [the] world” (vii).
hailed as “revolutionaries” (back cover). Contemplative practices, the authors and Palmer agree,
Spiritual directors will notice an absence of God in the are vital to all major religious and spiritual traditions, his-
authors’ introduction of introspection into academia. torically had a place in intellectual inquiry, and increas-
Clearly their work is directed to secular schools and to ingly are embraced in modern post-secondary education.
state colleges and universities in which the long and Students at long last are central to their own processes of
rich tradition of spirituality has been ignored or dis- learning, and experiential learning transforms their rela-
counted by Western education in the last century. While tionship to the material being learned (6). This is what
a reintroduction of spiritual life into state education is spiritual directors already know, whether the student is
welcome, in this reader’s view it never went away from a young person asking who am I and what is my purpose?
some schools, and it seems important to acknowledge or a long-time seeker looking to discover deeper knowing
that “creating classroom environments in which students and calling.
inquire deeply into meaning, connection, purpose ...” Barbezat and Bush offer a “tree of contemplative

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