Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

Consciousness-based education and governmentSelf of the student, which the student experiences during practice ofthe Transcendental Meditation technique.In this way students can always see the relation between what theyare studying and the discipline as a whole, and they can see the disciplineas an expression of their own pure consciousness. Again, thisis more than an intellectual formulation—it is the growing reality ofstudents’ experience as they develop higher states of consciousness.Another strategy is Main Point Charts. Developed by the faculty foreach lesson and posted on the classroom walls, these charts summarizein a few sentences the main points of the lesson and their relationshipto the underlying principles of consciousness. In this way studentsalways have the lesson as a whole in front of them, available at a glance.The next paradigm shiftIf higher education is fundamentally about student learning andgrowth, then Consciousness-Based education represents a major paradigmshift in the history of education. To understand this change, itis useful to reflect on the encouraging paradigm shift that has alreadybeen taking place in education over the past several decades.This shift involves a move from what many call an instruction paradigmto a learning paradigm. In the instruction paradigm, the mission ofcolleges and universities is to provide instruction; this is accomplishedthrough a transfer of knowledge from teacher to student. In the learningparadigm, the mission is to produce student learning; this missionis achieved by guiding students in the discovery and construction ofknowledge.This shift is a vitally important advance in education, leading to moresuccessful outcomes and more rewarding experiences for students andteachers alike. But a further paradigm shift remains, and we can understandit by examining a fundamental feature of human experience.Maharishi observes that every human experience consists of threefundamental components: a knower, a known, and a process of knowinglinking knower and known. We may also use the terms experiencer,object of experience, and process of experiencing, or observer,observed, and process of observation.8