Promoting Human Development Part III

Dialogue 26|Session 25

Promoting Human Development Part III

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Overview

This session presented a number of training programs that have been developed using contemplative practices in educational and applied settings to encourage human flourishing at its highest level. Geshe Lobsang Negi discussed his work developing and teaching Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT), a secular program that seeks to enhance prosocial skills, build character, and enhance basic human capacities for compassion, connection, and forgiveness. Geshe Lobsang shared positive findings from research on the effects of CBCT on biological, psychological and behavioral processes, and will discuss implications for such trainings on individual and social levels. Dr. James Doty spoke on CCT (Compassion Cultivation Training), a standardized compassion training program developed at Stanford University, and research findings so far on its effects. Situating this initiative at Stanford University within its larger context, Jim also spoke on the implications of the current scientific research in compassion and altruism for our understanding of human behavior, education and clinical therapeutic applications. Finally, Aaron Stern presented about his work with The Academy for the Love of Learning, which promotes a model for transformative learning that facilitates the emergence of a natural, shared, secular-based moral and ethical framework for learning and human engagement. Stern discussed the Academy’s core program, Leading by Being, which is the fullest expression of this model.

  • Dialogue 26
    27 sessions
  • January 21, 2013
    Drepung Monastery, Mundgod, India
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Speakers

Aaron Stern

Aaron Stern is a composer, teacher, internationally recognized consultant on learning, and the founder of the innovative educational institution, the Academy for the Love of Learning in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He conceived the Academy with famed musician Leonard Bernstein, and serves as its President. As educational leader of the Academy, Stern designed and directs the Academy's core curriculum and foundational program, Leading by Being. He conducts consultancies and seminars throughout the United States and in Europe. The Academy for the Love of Learning was conceived in the middle 1980s and developed over the next decade. The organization was founded formally in 1998 as a non-profit “think and do tank”. The intent of the Academy has been to develop and practice transformative learning methods that reanimate the love of learning in people of all ages while awakening a secular-based moral and ethical framework for human learning and engagement. During the early 1980s Stern served as Dean of the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. It was there that he began to focus his attention on learning and educational processes, developing creative experiential curricula that won national acclaim. This early work laid the foundation for what is now the Academy for the Love of Learning.

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