Hinduism | Buddhism | Judaism | Christianity | Islam
1. What are the projects? What do they require?
Your education gets real when you relate ideas from class to your life. Our projects help you make those connections. Each unit (after the first) revolves around a project; and our course is thus not dominated by texts. Rather, texts serve as tools to help you in your experiments and in the writings you create.
Many students have made priceless discoveries and report fine adventures with these projects. Sometimes, of course, frustration arises in the process. Some frustration is part of the normal experience of encountering a worthy challenge. At other times, however, the frustration has a lesson to teach so that we can make the project assignment more clear and helpful. Please speak up about difficulties you encounter, ambiguities or problems that you note, so that we can all benefit from the lessons to be learned.
Each project involves the following elements:
The strategy with the projects is to focus on some teaching that satisfies two criteria: (1) the teaching should be central to the tradition we are exploring and (2) the teaching should have a broad appeal beyond the tradition in question.
No student is ever obliged to practice something that conflicts with his or her own beliefs or to experiment with something that just doesn't feel right.
For example, you do not have to work with a concept of God that is foreign to you. For example, in the project with Hinduism, if acting out of love for God is an option that makes sense to you, an ideal that you can honestly embrace, you do not need to orient your devotion in terms of the Gita's concept of God. If you are not Hindu, you may use whatever concept of God is truly yours at present.
If you atheist or agnostic, you are not obliged to experiment with the theistic dimensions included in some of the projects. For example, on the Hinduism project, you can focus on acting in harmony with whatever you conceive your true self to be. On the Judaism project, you can focus solely on the "Love your neighbor" part of the assignment. If you like, you may experiment with a concept of God as a humanly projected ideal. For example, some Buddhists regard devotion to the Buddha as devotion to an externally projected image of the self or the Buddha nature within.
In general, if there is some aspect of an assignment that you have a problem with, you do not need to try it out. Instead, live in dialogue with the belief or practice during the duration of our unit on that tradition. Imagine a person next to you, someone who represents the tradition we are studying, accompanying you throughout your day. Imagine how that person might speak up for the ideas and values of the project. When it comes time to write your paper, write about your imaginary conversation with that person.
2. A major goal of the course is to learn the ways of interreligious dialogue. We all need to get better at talking about religious matters with others, and class discussion is our first place to practice. The final project requires you to dialogue with a Muslim (if you are not Muslim). Many students find that the personal interaction makes this project more valuable to them than any other project. For every other project (with a tradition not your own), I give extra credit if you actually engage in dialogue with a member of the tradition we are learning about (up to one point on a ten point assignment). Present your results in an extra page or two at the end of your paper.
What should you say to get the dialogue rolling? There is no one right way. Remember, however, that your purpose is to understand, not to debate. Prepare some questions based on your study. You might ask, "What's it like to be a Muslim living in America today?" Experience shows that the conversation moves very nicely once you begin with this open attitude. Help the other person express his or her knowledge and experience to you.
Since this course is distributed to campuses in various parts of northeast Ohio, I realize that some of you live in areas where it is difficult to find representatives of diverse traditions with whom to interact. Ask me for help if you like. My colleague, David Odell-Scott, is a researcher with the Harvard Pluralism Project (now, locally, the Ohio Pluralism Project), and he has collected very extensive information about religious groups in our area.
I give up to half a point if you interact in cyberspace with a member of the tradition. One student found that she got the best conversation if she joined a chatroom and just waited for a while to find out which participants seemed mature and well-informed. She then sent e-mail to their individual addresses.
3. You can read dialogically by combining three dimensions of reading. First, look for the gems. The project on Buddhism launches our practice in one advanced technique of reading and writing. In many projects, you will create a discourse based on the texts we are studying. Study to discover the most useful means to help you communicate your message. Select the truth in what you find; then embellish and illuminate this truth as you create a helpful and uplifting discourse.
Second, if you find some teachings that you judge not to be helpful, consider historically how those teachings arose, what needs they express, and how those needs might better be met. If you find something that you consider to be erroneous (or limited in ways that are outdated), you are not to expose or attack flaws. Rather, your technique is to expand on the truth that you do find, trusting that it will grow in the mind of your hearers to gradually eclipse the erroneous or more limited thinking that may presently be there. Your primary quest, again, is to discover the best that is operative within the tradition being studied and to build on it in a progressive way.
Third, read with your life, not only with your mind. You best prepare your communication by becoming a credible spokesperson--by living the truths you cherish.
4. How much personal information should I share in writing the papers?
We get the most out of our education when we apply our studies to our own growth issues. You are never obliged, however, to disclose personal information to the instructor in a paper. You may find it useful to take advantage of an class assignment to write reflections on a sensitive issue; you may find sharing and interacting helpful to you. Nevertheless, always remember: Self-revelation is voluntary. You may prefer to write about an experience that is less sensitive. You may also request an alternate assignment.
5. Why does the instructor insist on well-written papers?
Think for a moment why many students graduate with a bachelor's degree without the habit of writing consistently correct English sentences or organizing their ideas in a logical way. U.S. business spends a billion dollars a year (so I read years ago) training people in basics they should have gotten from school. Tuition rises because state subsidies go down partly because legislators are not impressed with what all our investment in education is achieving. This scandal, like every other decline, gets turned around person by person, small group by small group, and this class is one where we turn it around. I growl fiercely about writing because I find that if I do not, I get far more careless writing than otherwise. Having spent years teaching English, I offer help to anyone who needs it. I also reduce grades significantly for poor writing. Writing is communication, bringing good to another person--ultimately, an act of love. The more we rely on machines for communicating, the more important it is to write graciously and well.
6. Would you welcome a wider audience for some of your writing?
Teamwork multiplies our power for good. Our class has the opportunity to cooperate by sharing selected results of our projects on our course website. How do service, ethics, spirituality, and education work together? Interest in this question is growing on local, state, national, and international levels.
Here are some of the groups with whom we are beginning to interact.
The Self-Knowledge Symposium promotes student explorations of spirituality. Their publication, The Symposium, is free to students: www.selfknowledge.org.
The Education as Transformation Project is a national movement promoting interreligious diversity and spirituality in education: http://www.wellesley.edu/RelLife/transformation/index.html
Projects integrating service and education are part of the growing service-learning movement. See the Ohio branch of one of the most prominent national organizations devoted to this frontier in education, Ohio Campus Compact: http://www.marietta.edu/~occ
The American Academy of Religion has a section of links to course syllabi: www.aarweb.org (see the section titled "Profession")
Obviously, as links proliferate, your work may increasingly be discovered by others.
The instructor may select your paper or a part of it for further use WITH YOUR PERMISSION. Beginning in October, 2000, we will gradually develop a portion of the course website to share some of our writing. If you choose to participate, you need to hand in a disk copy of your paper (or selected excerpt). If I have suggested changes in spelling, punctuation, etc., you are expected to make those revisions before submitting your disk. Please be sure your disk is free of viruses. The McAfee Virus Program is available to members of the Kent State University community: http://act.kent.edu/software/. Because of the virus problem, I will not accept submissions through e-mail.
Be sure to remember that my editorial judgment has no necessary correlation with your grade, not to mention the worth of your project.
Your feedback will help us fine-tune our way of doing these things.
7. Your rights
Kent State University insists on great care in protecting the rights of those invited to participate in sharing their writing with a wider audience. Here is the two-part consent form that has been approved by our Human Subjects Review Board. I will give you a hard copy of this form when I return your paper indicating the portions that I would like to put on the site.
Consent Form: Philosophy of Living Project
I want to do research on experiential learning. I want to do this because I many students seem to be getting results worth sharing from experiential projects I assign in some of my classes. I ask students to experiment by applying--or modifying or living in dialogue with--concepts for living that we study in class. Papers reflecting on these experiences in the light of classroom study often express concepts beautifully and tell educational and uplifting stories. Selections from student papers could make add significantly to a course website. In addition, in my speaking and writing, it would sometimes be valuable to have permission to share quotations from student writing and to retell inspiring stories. I will respect scholarly standards regarding plagiarism in my use of student writing. I would normally not use names when telling one of these good stories. Think how a student might feel who wrote a paper disclosing sensitive personal information that was woven into an inspiring story--and then saw that story with his or name in print. Good sense and the golden rule indicate a need for great discretion.
I would like you to take part in this project. If you decide to do this, you will be asked to permit me to make further use of the following paper, either in print, in speeches, or in electronic media such as a website.
Title of paper:
Date of original submission:
You should realize that there is the possibility that if your name is connected with a story that I publish, publicity may accrue to you, with some possibly unwelcome consequences. No compensation for unwelcome consequences from participating in this experiment is available.
If you take part in this project your achievements may be shared with a wider audience. Taking part in this project is entirely up to you, and no one will hold it against you if you decide not to do it. In particular, there are no consequences for your grade whether you participate or not. If you do take part, you may stop at any time, by informing me that I am to make no further use of your writing.
If you want to know more about this research project, please call me at 330-672-2315. This project has been approved by Kent State University. If you have questions about Kent State University's rules for research, please call Dr. Walter C. Adams, Interim Vice Provost and Dean, Division of Research and Graduate Studies, at 330-672-3012.
You will get a copy of this consent form.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey Wattles
Associate Professor of Philosophy
I select the following option by initialing my choice. You must be at least 18 years of age in order to participate in this phase of the project.
Mr. Wattles
_____ does not have my permission to make use of my writing
_____ may use my writing but must preserve my privacy by not using my name in connection with any writing of mine that he uses or story of mine that he publishes.
_____ may use my writing but must give credit to me by using my name in connection with any writing of mine that he uses or story of mine that he publishes.
I agree to take part in this project. I know what I will have to do and that I can stop at any time by contacting Mr. Wattles (330-672-0276; jwattles@kent.edu; Department of Philosophy, Kent State University, P.O. Box 5190, Kent, Ohio 44242-0001).
Student's name (clearly printed or typed as you would want it to appear in print)
__________________________
Student's signature_____________________________________ Date ___________
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