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How to Connect with Your Students: An Integral Approach to Higher Education

This article explores why focusing on the subject matter alone in the student/teacher relationship is a restrictive and non-comprehensive approach to higher education. Such a narrowly focused relationship seems to impede the overall health and development of both the teacher and student. The process of avoiding so much of our lives “to teach” leaves many dissatisfied and thirsting for something deeper and more whole.

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The Edge of the Future: Education, Civilization, and the Metacrisis

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Educator, author, philosopher, and futurist Zachary Stein gives a startling account of the effects the digital age already has on education and where this is headed. Zak sees education in a deeply philosophical sense as fundamental to the sustainability of our civilization, with implications for each component of the metacrisis. Who will be driving the technology stack that actually leads to a viable civilization? Can we maintain our psychological sovereignty in a sea of digital propaganda and know the truth?

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An Example of Integral Pedagogy

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Based on Integral Theory, the practice of Integral Education is emerging as a viable and practical discipline. This article demonstrates how an instructor can begin to operate within the AQAL framework by first focusing on the quadrants. Detailed examples of using the quadrants as a pedagogical tool are provided in the context of a senior high school sociology course. In addition, the role of an Integral educator is explored in the context of Integral practices they might employ based on the four quadrants. Although the article presents an application of the AQAL framework within a high school curriculum, the Integral principles in use are instructive for other educational settings using an Integral approach.

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How to Teach Kids About Sex and Gender

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What exactly are “developmentally appropriate, age-appropriate” ways to teach kids about sex, gender, and identity, not only for kids in kindergarten through third grade, but throughout the rest of childhood and adolescence? Which aspects are more appropriate to teach at home, and which are appropriate to teach at school? Watch as Dr. Keith and Corey share their thoughts.

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What’s Wrong With Education (And How Can We Fix It?)

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Broken education produces broken people. How can integral perspectives and practices help our education systems generate more happy, healthy, and wholesome kids? Watch as Mark and Corey take a close look at the many dysfunctions, injustices, and failures we see in our education system — both within the system (how and what kids are being taught) as well as surrounding the system (access to education, funding, etc.).

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An Integral Approach to Affective Education

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The author uses twelve AQAL dimensions of education as described by Sean Esbjörn-Hargens to approximate a “report card” for evaluating any curriculum with an affective focus. This completeness is not just an academic exercise but shows the practicality and advantage of an Integral approach in the real world. Four affective educational models will also be examined using Integral perspectives. The features of these programs will be measured using an example of an Integral assessment of their strengths, foci, and weaknesses.

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Using Integral Theory in the Classroom

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The first part of this article discusses the need for the application of Integral Theory, a postdisciplinary model, to university and academic culture. The second section examines the need for and current status of character education. It uses the AQAL framework to outline an Integral Character Education, which not only includes inculcating values in an individual but also the requisite behaviors associated with those values, as well as the need to anchor them in social interaction and a common ethos.

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Spirituality, Purpose, and Meaning in Higher Education

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Alexander and Helen Astin are the some of the most widely-quoted authorities in the field of higher education—as Ken alludes early in the dialogue, whenever these two talk it’s generally a good idea to pay attention. Listen as Ken, Alexander, and Helen discuss the complex role of spirituality among college students, the important differences between religion and spiritual life, and the effects religion, spirituality, and academics have upon our worldviews and political ideologies.

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Integral Education Reform

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To begin the dialogue on how to create healthy, wise human beings capable of development, we need a map of that child’s potential. The AQAL model is just such a map. It is a comprehensive index of all the things that can go well or poorly in child development. Yet many challenges lie ahead. In this video, Ken Wilber, discusses those challenges. If you work in the field of education, or are merely interested in it, Ken can help you understand what you’re up against.