Be Still and Know: Contemplative Practices for Christian Schools and Educators

Discover how the Christian contemplative tradition can enhance teaching and learning The goal of Christian education is distinctive: to help students develop into well-integrated human beings and faithful disciples. Yet Christian schools are beset by many of the same challenges that plague virtually all schools today--a culture of distraction and deteriorating mental health, the erosion of community and social bonds, not to mention widespread disaffiliation from traditional religious institutions. Drawing upon current research in psychology, neuroscience, education, and spirituality, Be Still and Know presents the contemplative Christian tradition as an untapped resource for addressing these challenges and helping Christian schools to better fulfill their mission. In these pages, veteran educator Patrick Manning guides readers through a school day where they experience people, time, space, and school activities in a more contemplative manner. He invites readers to engage in Christian contemplative practices for themselves through a series of meditations. He also comes alongside them to assess the significant challenges of working in education today, and to develop practical responses grounded in the wisdom of the Christian contemplative tradition as well as current research. Educators will come away from this book personally renewed and professionally equipped with new strategies for teaching, researching, working with others, building community, playing, and ordering time in their classrooms and schools. Wise, timely, and transformative, Be Still and Know is a vital resource for teachers and administrators in Christian schools.

About the Author :
Patrick R. Manning is associate professor of pastoral theology and director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Seton Hall University. In his teaching, writing, and work with faith communities, he focuses on making sense of human beings and how we can live life more abundantly together. He is the author of Converting the Imagination: Teaching to Recover Jesus' Vision for Fullness of Life.

Review :
"As a Christian educator, I have witnessed the unrelenting demands of curriculum and standardization. Patrick Manning invites us into a necessary countercultural rhythm--a scholarly retreat into the proposed 'desert' of the classroom. With the precision of a theologian and the pedagogical acuity of a seasoned instructor, Manning synthesizes centuries of monastic insight with contemporary research on contemplative learning, demonstrating that true epistemic growth flourishes in those intentional pauses of reflection. His work charts a clear course for integrating ancient practices of lectio divina, prayerful silence, and communal stillness within modern classrooms, thereby cultivating not only intellectual rigor but spiritual wisdom. Be Still and Know is indispensable reading for any educator who believes that formation of the whole person--mind, heart, and spirit--must be at the heart of our academic enterprise." --Greg Bottaro, CatholicPsych Institute "Who among us doesn't yearn for wisdom, peace, order, and love? Patrick Manning's Be Still and Know offers a practical framework for reimagining and gently restructuring our frenzied days to reap those things. He offers sustainable practices that help readers lean into creating lives that are richly full, but never frantically busy. Reading this book the first time was a soothing, robust conversation with great hearts, minds, and spirits from many centuries and regions, presented in humane, manageable segments of time. I will be revisiting this book often, striving to become a modern contemplative and practicing until I get it right." --Karen Eifler, Collegium "Our capacity to learn depends on our ability to attend to what puzzles and perplexes us. That is why distraction's diminishment of attention is so disastrous for education. In this timely book, Manning reintroduces us to pedagogical treasures buried in ancient disciplines of contemplation. At once visionary and concrete, this book does something remarkable: it speaks to an urgent need by inviting us to non-anxious rest as the fount of learning." --James K. A. Smith, Calvin University "Patrick Manning's Be Still and Know: Contemplative Practices for Christian Schools and Educators fills an important gap in literature related to contemplation and education. Drawing from the richness of Christian tradition, Manning presents a holistic vision of contemplative life as related to the very places and spaces of the educational setting: from classroom to various departmental meetings. Manning's presentation is accompanied by exercises intended to facilitate appropriation of a contemplative disposition into one's teaching. This book would be a great read for any educator, from primary to collegiate, interested in leading a contemplative revolution in the school." --Timothy P. O'Malley, University of Notre Dame "Drawing from the wisdom of the Christian tradition, Patrick Manning reminds us of the one thing needful in education--the love of God. He offers simple practices, gestures, and habits by which to cull distraction and attend instead to God and our learning community. I recommend this book as essential reading for faculty and teachers at the beginning of the school year." --Jessica Hooten Wilson, Pepperdine University