This book evolved from Avraham Cohen's doctoral dissertation, for which he received the 2006-2007 Ted Aoki Prize for the Outstanding Dissertation in Curriculum Studies from the University of British Columbia. Cohen, who has an extensive background as a humanistic-existential therapist and as a mindfulness meditator, believes that these two fields have much to offer in the field of education. His work in this book supplies a rich resource and shows that indeed the practice and philosophy of mindfulness and humanistic-existential practices is a gold mine waiting to be fully mined and applied in education. These ideas and practices come alive in his writings. This collection of provocative and evocative essays written for both educational theorists and classroom practitioners addresses very directly the much neglected human dimension and community development potential within classrooms. His groundbreaking work describes what most of us know intuitively to be important in classrooms, and which is rarely adequately addressed-how to be authentically and fully human, and how this pedagogy of being human is central to becoming a great educator. He points towards the practical implementation of pedagogic practices that integrate the personal inner work of the educator, classroom practice, and curriculum learning.

Teaching is a richly multifaceted endeavor. It isn't always easy to know just where we should focus our thinking and our dialogue. In Speaking of Teaching, six educators talk about their inner selves. They bring the inside out for their own self-exploration. And they bring the inside out for us to view and learn from. They also question the boundaries between the inner and the outer and whether existence can be dichotomized in this way. Gary Poole, Professor, Faculty of Medicine, The University of British Columbia, 3M Teaching Fellow. The authors of this collection explore the many ways to remain present in the midst of the trifling but perpetual swirl of events, thoughts, distractions, and how they, as they are at, what T. S. Eliot called, the still point of the turning world, find profound meaning in their work as educators. A deeply moving collection that allowed me too, while reading it, to rediscover that still point without which there would be no dance, and there is only the dance. Gerda Wever, PhD, editor and publisher, The Write Room Press