20 Opportunities to Transform Yourself While Teaching:
Course Description
Course Description
This course is based on John Bickart's book, 20 Opportunities to Transform Yourself While Teaching, with references to Bickart's Just-in-Time Fables. Throughout the course we will dip into The Teacher's Bill of Rights, a much deserved set of permissions every teacher should hear.
The course has a series of practical, personal exercises in the form of wake up calls and anecdotal illustrations that show how to teach yourself to become your own transformational consultant on a daily basis.
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Each of the 20 opportunities will give you the chance to participate in 20 interactive examples of moments in teaching where the teacher can have a transformative experience. Each is a practical example where you experience an opportunity to model truly transformative learning for students. The activities of the workshop anticipate that you will be able to perform the stuff of miracles - the simple, yet elusive act of being happy - having fun - getting back to the childlike ability of seeing joy in situations where you might have lost yourself.
Here is a sample from the course - IntroductionÂ
Each opportunity is divided into two parts. "Part a" will be a Wake Up Call video and "Part b" will be a Story video. The "Part a" Wake Up Calls are 20 actual exercises. Each one takes about a minute. They are quite simple, but quite deep. They come from the wisdom of the ages. The "Part b" Stories are 20 vignettes that underscore the lesson in the part a. The 20 pairs of videos are divided into 5 sections of 4 opportunities. These groupings come from a series of workshops by the same names at Columbia Teachers College between November of 2021 and October of 2022. Each opportunity is accompanied by an essay that comes directly from the book, 20 Opportunities to Transform Yourself While Teaching.
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Course Topics
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​Section 1 of 5 - "Reclaiming Your Spirituality"
Opportunity #1. First, Change Yourself
Opportunity #2. The True Teacher
Opportunity #3. Intuitive Teaching
Opportunity #4. The Test of Awakening​
Section 2 of 5 - "Reawakening Your Love of Teaching"
Opportunity #5. Points of View
Opportunity #6. Vulnerability
Opportunity #7. The Unseen
Opportunity #8. Fun​
Section 3 of 5 - "Recovering Your Childhood in Adulthood"
Opportunity #9. Reawakening the child in the adult
Opportunity#10. Heart Thought
Opportunity #11. Teach Yourself
Opportunity #12. Moving Toward and Away​
Section 4 of 5 - "Revitalizing Your Ability to Lead"
Opportunity #13. Learn to Return
Opportunity #14. The Servant Leader
Opportunity #15. Language Reduces Experience
Opportunity #16. Separateness is a Subtle Deception of Physical Life​
Section 5 of 5 - "The Believing Brain: Reaffirming Your Belief in Change"
Opportunity #17. Naming, Categorizing, Labeling
Opportunity #18. The Senses as a Gateway to Observation
Opportunity #19. Holistic versus The Divided Self
Opportunity #20. The Role of Belief
