Transformative Teaching

Abstract

The pandemic has left many people in a negative habit loop that is difficult to exit. Anxiety and depression have taken international emergency proportions and are impeding learning abilities. To exacerbate the situation, we are in a fast-changing world where adaptability and self-leadership, as well as discernment and apparent cognitive capacities, have become essential skills. Education must integrate all these needs. Recent research has shown that through the Perceptual Shift Rule (PSR, Weyers-Lucci, 2020), immersive learning can cater to the depth and breadth needed in this changing paradigm. The PSR states that our perception shifts when a lived experience is embodied through a merger of interoception and exteroception. An entirely new perception not based on reactivity nor even response but rather on an altogether different viewpoint provides the basis for positive transformation, self-awareness, and adaptability. (Triple Loop Learning, Senge, 1990/2006, Scharmer, 2022). With the PSR, students can learn using their strengths. The PSR is a human-centered approach to learning focusing on flow states, whole-person education, and contemplative strategies that supports the transformation into a mature personality. This includes kinesthetic learning, which tends to be disregarded in typical modern learning models. As psychological maturity occurs and transcends the expectations and constructions of our personality patterns, it is possible to assimilate, cooperate and engage in knowledge and interpersonal dynamics in a new way. A fully embodied transformation entails integrating a sense of presence that will support a more authentic individual and increase resilience and curiosity, rather than reactivity and neurosis.