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Category: Teaching and Learning

Leadership, Life, Online Learning, Teaching, Teaching and Learning

Love (and Work) in a Time of Corona (Part Three)

January 7, 2021, Author: Chris Breen

I ended Part Two of this series of three Love (and Work) in a Time of Corona reflections with the following intentions for future teaching: It is time to start. I have a new determination to do this walking with a measured pace that takes time to play with the nuances of each situation. There […]

Leadership, Life, Teaching and Learning

Love (and Work) in a Time of Corona (Part Two)

September 1, 2020, Author: Chris Breen

Part One of this Love and Corona Blog described my journey from lying fallow (or paralysed by inertia) to being forced to dip my toes into the waters of ZOOM. It ended in a seemingly upbeat manner as I announced that I was ready to return to the world from my place of inner and […]

Leadership, Life, Teaching and Learning

Love (and Work) in a Time of Corona (Part One)

August 19, 2020, Author: Chris Breen

These past five months have been a really strange, disturbing and personally intense roller-coaster experience. The first thing I had to get used to was being classified as a member of the high-risk category. Not only do I fall into the aged category at 72 (well over 60!), I am also a male with ‘underlying […]

Leadership, Life, Teaching and Learning

Marriage to Self

May 31, 2020, Author: Chris Breen

But it’s all right now, I’ve learned my lesson well You see, you can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself. I’ve been meandering through old photographs, newspaper cuttings and various other memorabilia found in my cupboards during this forced Covid-19 lockdown period, with the inevitable consequence that many intentionally ‘forgotten’ memories have come […]

Leadership, Teaching, Teaching and Learning

Micro-worlds and Micro-identities: A Strategy for Lockdown and Life?

May 19, 2020, Author: Chris Breen

Francisco Varela (1946 – 2001) was Chilean theoretical biologist who, together with his mentor, Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesis to biology, and for co-founding the Mind and Life Institute to promote dialogue between science and Buddhism. Both Maturana and Varela became very important to me when, way back in […]

Hinge Moments, Leadership, Life, Teaching and Learning

I Raised You Up? A story of parenting (and leadership?): Time for the Sovereign to Show Up

January 21, 2020, Author: Chris Breen

This story starts almost ten years ago when I rather reluctantly agreed to become a silent one-third owner of the house that my daughter and her husband were wanting to buy. I did this as they had been told that, as they were both self-employed, this was the only way that they could get a […]

Leadership, Life, Teaching and Learning

GUEST HOUSE REVISITED: Hinge Moments and Other Stories

July 16, 2019, Author: Chris Breen

Hinge Moments are the amazing moments that occur when one is happily minding one’s own business and is then suddenly interrupted by life. When this interruption is also one of our triggers the resulting response can be very unhelpful.  Catching hinge moments is a game that has an enormous pay-off when one succeeds and echoes […]

Leadership, Life, Teaching and Learning

This Being Human is a Guest House

November 16, 2018, Author: Chris Breen

Hinge Moments occur when the natural flow of one’s life of one’s life is suddenly interrupted by an outside force. At that moment, a door of opportunity opens for us to make an intelligent adult choice of action. Unfortunately, on most occasions the hinge moment passes with us blithely ignorant of its presence with a […]

Teaching and Learning

Expanding the Foundations of Biocentric Education

January 30, 2018, Author: Chris Breen

I have revised this piece of writing from a year or two ago and re-posted it as I will be referring to aspects of Biocentric Education in a future post and it helps to have some background available to interested readers. Biocentric Education is a branch of the work inspired by the creator of Biodanza, […]

Teaching and Learning

Student Deadlines and Extensions

October 20, 2017, Author: Chris Breen

One of the least satisfying aspects of teaching comes at assignment submission time. Suddenly my email inbox is flooded with all sorts of pleas for late submission. This year I decided to do something different. A month before the assignment was due I sent out the following email: Sent: Tuesday, May 9, 2017 5:50 PM [...]