Browsing by Author "Mitchell-Pellett, Mary-Ann"

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    Exploring the Contributions of Indian Philosophy in Cultivating the Inner Potential of Educators: A School Administrator's Quest for Self-Realization
    (2013-08-07) Mitchell-Pellett, Mary-Ann; Jones, David
    This qualitative auto-ethnographic study was an exploration of the relevance of personal wholeness in my life as a teacher and an educational leader. It allowed me to further understand the ways I became “divided” from my True Self through the “deforming” processes located in many cultural contexts, which included educational institutions. This study also examined the reasons that I - a middle-class white female Canadian raised in a popular Western Christian faith - embraced Eastern (primarily Indian) philosophy on my healing journey. My story revealed the “delusion of separateness” from True Being, and the ways that I was reunited with my fundamental essence through a transformational process supported by Indian teachings and practices. Seven other educator participants accompanied me on this journey: four from Canada and/or the United States and three from India – all practitioners of a form of Indian philosophy. This research project analyzed data obtained through participant in-depth interviews and was triangulated with other data sets including their personal narratives, and a focus group. Self-data that was analyzed and shared throughout this study include personal journals, autobiographical writings, and essays and assignments collected over a ten-year period. This study identified three interconnected processes that were crucial to the unfolding of personal wholeness: Calling - Honoring the Call to Wholeness; Turning - Discovering Portals to Wholeness; and Walking - Living into Wholeness. This unfolding of Being, not only personally benefitted the participants, but also provided a variety of benefits for their students, colleagues, and educational institutions they served.