S tudents have no homework or exams in a course called “Living Deliberately: Monks, Saints, and the Contemplative Life.” Still, they tell their professor, Justin McDaniel, that the course is a lot of work.
That’s because Mr. McDaniel, a religious- studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has them spend a month of the semester-long course living like monks. That means no talking, no electronics, and no physical contact — in class or outside — among other restrictions. Students wake up early, keep a frequent journal, and practice an act of kindness each day.
The idea for the course grew from a question a student asked Mr. McDaniel during his first year of teaching, at Ohio University. The professor was explaining monastic life during an introductory Buddhism course. Most students, he says, think that monks are “cool.” But this “really honest, good student” wanted to know: “Why would anyone do that to themselves?”
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Every religious tradition has some form of asceticism, Mr. McDaniel says, some sense that deprivation is the path to paradise. And there are all kinds of theories explaining why. But as Mr. McDaniel discussed them with the class, he realized none of them quite answered the student’s question. “And I just said, well, what if we tried to do some of this and see how it feels,” he recalls. “Instead of a sociological theory, a psychological theory, let’s actually test it out.”
He created the course after he had moved on to the University of California at Riverside, then took it with him to Penn, where, he says, his dean calls it “the only humanities course that has a lab section.”
Looking across religious traditions, Mr. McDaniel came up with five categories of behavior that define monastic life. Four involve restrictions: on the body and sexuality, communication, food, and appearance. The fifth is a positive requirement: to live for others rather than oneself. Mr. McDaniel has devised rules for students to follow in each category. For example, during the month of practice, men in the course must wear white shirts, and women black shirts.
In addition, students are required to add to their journals every half-hour when they’re awake. Mr. McDaniel also creates tailored assignments for particular students based on what they share in their journals.
The course includes traditional lectures about monastic life. That helps students understand what monks do. Spending a month living like them helps explain why.
After taking the course last fall, Pierson Devers can point to several reasons people live monastically. “For some people, it’s a way of simplifying their lives,” says Mr. Devers, who plans to graduate from the university’s Wharton School in December. Despite its restrictions, monastic life is easier in some ways, Mr. Devers adds — it reduces the number of decisions followers must make. Another appealing feature: The lifestyle “gives them a space to contemplate what life really is.”
One point Mr. McDaniel emphasized during the course was that time away from distractions like cellphones would allow students to resume their regular lives with newfound knowledge, Mr. Devers says.
“Living Deliberately” taught Mr. Devers a few things about himself: He’s a visual person — and a romantic (forbidden to talk or touch, he wrote notes to a woman he was dating). It also persuaded him to become a vegetarian, which he had been considering.
After teaching the course seven times, Mr. McDaniel has noticed some patterns. His students earn good grades in all their courses that semester. They report increased concentration and deeper connections to others. That’s not just according to Mr. McDaniel; it’s been studied by the university’s Positive Psychology Center. After a star soccer player took the course, Mr. McDaniel says, his coach wanted to talk with the professor about how to build nonverbal communication and awareness of one’s body and those of others. Who wouldn’t want to replicate these kinds of results?
But when a Chronicle reporter asked Mr. McDaniel to share the syllabus for “Living Deliberately,” he said he couldn’t: There isn’t one, beyond what he must give students and the dean. The reason? He doesn’t want other professors to try and peel off single components of the immersive experience. “Monastic life is not about individual techniques,” he says. “It’s about fundamentally changing the way you interact with others, and interact with the environment, and interact with the way you survive through food, and sexuality, and shelter.”
Mr. McDaniel has learned firsthand that the experiential piece of the course must be comprehensive in order to work. Once, in an effort to accommodate students’ busy schedules, he taught a Saturday version of the course over multiple weeks, in which students followed a shorter list of restrictions just on course days. “They got nothing out of it,” he says, “and they started to dread it.”
In order to reap any benefit from adhering to the restrictions, Mr. McDaniel says, they must be followed, well, deliberately.
Beckie Supiano writes about college affordability, the job market for new graduates, and professional schools, among other things. Follow her on Twitter @becksup, or drop her a line at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com.
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