Optimum Performance Training Institute

COLUMBIA, MD – OPTI is a holistic preventive healthcare network and performance training institute dedicated to educating people about how to use movement, nutrition, recovery, psychology, and mindset to care for themselves in all aspects of their lives. Corey Beavin, a Performance Enhancement Specialist and Director of Education and Internships, explains “Just as you need to learn basic algebra to do your taxes, or literacy in order to get by in the world, you need to be educated about how to take care of your physical body. Rather than being attached to the outcomes of your weight or what you can lift, this needs to be a process-oriented approach.”

The entire OPTI team of personal trainers, physical therapists, and nutritionists has begun to use The Art of Learning principles with their individual clients. In addition, they are bringing Resilience based principles such as Investment in Loss, Beginner’s Mind, and Using Adversity into their physical education initiative, which aims to teach principals and physical education teachers across the nation about providing their students with sustainable solutions for their physical lives. “I heard Josh speak and listened to his book and it completely aligned with my life and mission to change the education system of people, specifically in the realm of health as it relates to movement,” Beavin told the JWF. “The JW Foundation is an amazing resource and partner in people learning the realities of how to continue to gain competency in movement which, in its foundation, is a process-oriented, self-regulated behavior that views adversity as a learning challenge.”

Mandarin Chinese Language and Culture – various schools

New York, NY – Lu Chihlan teaches a Mandarin Chinese Language and Culture course at Manhattan High School for Girls and in an afterschool class for kindergarten through fifth grade students at PS 3, is a Culture Workshop Instructor for elementary students at the China Institute, and a tutor for the Chinese Flagship Program at Hunter College. In addition, she is actively involved in the campaign to develop a community middle school within her home district.

Chihlan explained her desire to bring The Art of Learning principles to all of her students because of the powerful impact the book had on her when she first read it. “After my son’s teacher showed me this book, lots of puzzle pieces came together for me in understanding the power of inter-disciplinary studies and the process from knowledge input to internalization, through interconnection to creative output and performance.”

In her high school course, Chihlan uses the Resilience module, with a specific focus on Beginner’s Mind and Using Adversity, to support her students in exploring their interests in Asian culture and preparing them to be global citizens. She incorporates principles such as Investment in Loss and Value Process Before Results through in-class review and reflection on drafts of project assignments.

With her younger students, Chihlan weaves Beginner’s Mind into their Chinese language instruction. “I take them to a garden nearby and take advantage of the environment where they are relaxed and comfortable while teaching concepts like colors and flowers and nature in Chinese, turning the language challenge into excitement and inspiration. Our project-based curriculum also allows us to practice Using Adversity in the process.”

DAART

PENSACOLA, FL – Barbie Nall teaches a variety of subjects to 6th through 12th grade students in a drug and alcohol residential treatment center. In addition to providing the students with the academic coursework necessary to reach or maintain grade level standards, the program aims to give the students tools to learn positive coping skills necessary for developing healthy relationships, solving problems, and avoiding triggers.

“Having already faced many obstacles, the students need multiple avenues of encouragement to better their lives,” Nall explains. “Some students have never had a stable environment and need to know how they can make life better for themselves. The book, along with the study guides, will help the students realize how to make that difference.”

Nall plans to share The Art of Learning with the counselors and director of the program and possibly have the students read and discuss the book. In this way, the students will not only encounter the concepts in class, but in their counseling sessions and the dormitory as well. In addition to the book discussion, Nall will incorporate Resilience principles such as Value Process Before Results, Investment in Loss, Beginner’s Mind, and Using Adversity into the break periods using kinesthetic activities.

Colaiste Dhulaigh

DUBLIN, IRELAND – Colaiste Dhulaigh is a community college in Dublin, Ireland, dedicated to providing the students within the community with the skills and confidence they need to further their education and enter the workforce. Dave Curran, the Head of Journalism and a Student Services team member in the Media department at the college, has found The Art of Learning to be an invaluable resource on his own path to learning and growth and has shared the book with many friends and colleagues. Curran explains that one of the aspects of the book that appeals to him is that, “Josh’s principles of learning take the mystique out of talent and progress. He makes excellence feel attainable.”

Curran plans to teach a seminar to journalism and media production students in which he hopes to provide the students with the tools to “approach tasks differently, aware that a result different to the one they hoped to achieve will be treated as learning rather than failure.”

The seminar will use learning principles such as Listening First and Loving the Game to help students discover their passions, The Power of Presence to provide the tools to improve focus in all aspects of learning, and Value Process Before Results and Investment in Loss to emphasize the learning opportunities present in mistakes.

“I want students to think creatively about how they approach their learning by viewing bad results or a lack of focus as something other than failure. Rather, they should treat these as steps toward being better students by reflecting on the causes.”

Creative Learning and Collaborative Composition

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA – Nikola Tošic is an improvisational jazz musician who facilitates creative music making workshops to students of varying ages and musical experience and teaches music in a free afterschool program for children in an underserved community.

His initial connection with the JW Foundation was as a contributor to our Learning Journal with his piece entitled Loving the Game of Making Music.

After exploring his personal relationship to The Art of Learning principles, Tošic began to think about how he could further incorporate these concepts into his teaching. “The Art of Learning has had a major role in reshaping my approach to obstacles and adversities, unlearning, maintaining presence, and cultivating quality in life. It feels natural to share this information and these experiences with my students,” he explains.

Within his creative music making workshops, Tošic is using learning principles such as Value Process Before Results, Investment in Loss, Beginner’s Mind, Breaking Down Walls, Internal Solution, and Downward Spiral to help his students embrace the process of working collaboratively to create something new.

“I try to have open discussions on ‘what just happened’ in the workshops which allows the participants to share what they noticed during a creative exercise (like a social dynamic, a problem-solution, coincidences etc). The nature of collaborative composition is that there are always obstacles, which usually need to be overcome in a novel way. ”

ONE Boulder Fitness

BOULDER, CO – Jessica Reiss, the Personal Training Director at ONE Boulder Fitness, supervises a staff of 13 personal trainers.  In her role as director, Reiss is interested in providing her trainers with the space to utilize their own creativity while supporting them in drawing on all of their strengths to provide their clientele with the best possible fitness experience.

She plans to have all of her trainers read The Art of Learning and to provide active workshops in which they practice the learning principles through movements. The team will then identify specific learning principles to incorporate into their training, such as how Making Smaller Circles by focusing on one area of the body with depth and intensity can help a person develop the tools to improve strength overall.
“In asking important questions like how to look inward, the internal growth will allow them to shine brighter for their clients,” Reiss says.  “I want to lead them into self discovery to become safely vulnerable in front of their clients to allow dialogue and relationship building.”
Reiss is particularly drawn to the concepts of Investment in Loss and Using Adversity within the realm of physical fitness.  “People get caught up with failures, which feel very real when experienced in the form of physical pain and discomfort. They don’t utilize these interpreted expressions of failure as part of success.  These failures diffuse them.  We have to see the value and the effort, not the outcome.”
With both her trainers and her personal clients, Reiss is interested in exploring the relationship between physical and emotional responses to adversity.  She plans to incorporate visualization and meditative breathing to help her staff and clientele create positive habits in one area of their lives in order to positively affect the whole.