As I continue to ponder Finkel's "Teaching With Your Mouth Shut", I keep returning to his initial question, "When have you learned something of value that you can apply to your life?" Contrary to his prediction, each learning experience I reflected on did actually happen in a classroom. The fact that the classroom was filled with sweaty students in leotards, sweats and bare feet might not have been his definition of a classroom, but I was nonetheless at a university pursuing my master's degree.
In Ken Bain's "What the Best College Teachers Do", he defines deep learning as "building new mental models of reality." As I was remembering a learning experience that changed the way I viewed the world, I remember being in George Pinney's movement class at Indiana University. George was leading us through a very simple Feldenkrias exercise where we 1) gauged our potential for movement, 2)repeated several small movements that allowed us to move beyond our initial physical boundaries, and 3) IMAGINED repeating the small movements on the opposite side which also allowed us to move beyond our initial physical boundaries. One of Feldenkrais' major philosophies is that our physical limitations are mental. Having seen such a tremdous shift in my physical body after having simply imagined it, opened up new posibilities for me physically and mentally.
I found a very similar exercise on-line that is very effective. Try for yourself and let me know what you think:
http://www.somatic.com/lesson.html#top
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