The Whole Person

The Whole Person: Embodying Teaching and Learning through Lectio and Visio Divina offers readers a rich collection of voices from diverse settings that illustrates the ways in which lectio divina as a contemplative practice can transform teaching and learning. Growing from ancient roots, lectio divina as a contemplative practice and part of contemplative pedagogy, aligns with many efforts in the 21st century to investigate how whole persons can be engaged in learning and how they can develop into their best human selves. Lectio divina, a four-step process of deep reading and viewing, is aligned with the tenets of holistic education; it is an evolving tapestry of embodied learning, creating spaces that empower teachers and students to be rooted in their own meaning making and to develop as whole persons. Lectio divina holds power to help people develop agency and voice in troubling times, all the while understanding themselves as human beings in a hyper-complex world. Using lectio divina in the classroom educates the whole person evoking the mind, spirit and body in a transformative learning experience.

Jane E. Dalton, Ph.D. is an associate professor of Art Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate students in K12 art education and studio art courses.
Maureen P. Hall, Ph.D. is a professor of Education at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate students in the teacher preparation program.
Catherine E. Hoyser, Ph. D. is professor of English and Director of Women-s and Gender Studies at the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford, Connecticut, where she teaches British cultural studies and gender studies.