donutszenmom.com

First off, just a note re: my interest in classroom management. My background (my official, professional background, not my actually-more-real, what-I-really-love background of visual art and writing) is in educational technology.

I am interested in how people learn, which, in turn, makes me interested in how people teach. Matthew Sweeney, I was happy to find, runs a very tight ship.

If you are itching to talk about what YOU know, what YOUR theories are, forget about Matthew Sweeney’s workshop. He leaves no opportunity for hijacking of his class, no opportunity for people to make themselves out as experts, no chance for people to start establishing intra-classroom hierarchies. It is really quite remarkable, how Teflon-resistant his workshop is to hijacking.

We’ve all been in classroom situations where every concept, every sentence, is an opportunity for some participant to launch into personal commentary and expert pontification. Sigh.

Not to worry, though. MS makes it impossible for any individual to shine a spotlight on his or her self. There is absolutely no teacher’s pet opportunity, either. He just doesn’t play that.

In the afternoon sessions, he offered a ton of info on practice and adjusting (we usually ran half an hour over), and he clearly delighted in people working together during adjustment practice. But he also asked us not to go into “teacher mode” (i.e., try to teach each other as authorities).

I imagine he would be cheerful about any individual who conducted decades of personal research and decided to hit the road to share his or her experiences. But not in his classroom.

MS could often be found, during the hands-on portions of the adjustment program, standing off a bit, observing like a scientist. He had no interest whatsoever in giving out personal “strokes.”

In the Mysore room, I felt that he was rather like a classical psychoanalyst: he mirrored my practice back to me, in a way that offered means to proceed (note: I didn’t say “progress”), but he eschewed any *individual* or *public* validation. Each person was practicing. Each person was where he or she was. Each person could benefit from some direction on how to proceed. None of that had anything to do with the ego-individual or the public-individual.

Despite this rigorous classroom style, I felt a great deal of human validation from MS. Doled out in a “grand scheme” sort of way. But he utterly refused to go down the path of elevating or validating individuals or individual practices. I don’t, actually, think he refused so much as failed to imagine why he WOULD do such a thing. It all felt highly egalitarian.

Not to say that his interactions weren’t very focused and open — very present and connected. Talking to him, particularly during Mysore practice, was not unlike talking to one of the zen monks.

At first, in the lecture-heavy sessions, I could feel some people shifting about a bit, eager to share their personal ideas — eager to be seen as “special.” But there was a “special” vacuum in the room. Again, similar to the feel at the zendo. Yes, we are here; yes, we are sharing this experience; but each of us is present as part of the larger whole and as individuals who have the capacity to contain our own practices (and, consequently, our selves).

So, perhaps a bit austere for some. A few people seemed frustrated at having their desires thwarted. They wanted to share their theories/personal experiences and were not given the opportunity. No chance of “I’m special” feelings.

On the other hand, there was absolute present in-the-moment interaction in the one-on-one (Mysore) setting.

A kind of greater validation that we are in this together. And that individual idiosyncrasies fall away when you look at the bigger picture.