The amygdala has been repeatedly implicated in emotional processing of both positive and negative-valence stimuli. Previous studies suggest that the amygdala response to emotional stimuli is lower when the subject is in a meditative state of mindful-attention, both in beginner meditators after an 8-week meditation intervention and in expert meditators. However, the longitudinal effects of meditation training on amygdala responses have not been reported when participants are in an ordinary, non-meditative state. In this study, we investigated how 8 weeks of training in meditation affects amygdala responses to emotional stimuli in subjects when in a non-meditative state. Healthy adults with no prior meditation experience took part in 8 weeks of either Mindful Attention Training (MAT), Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT; a program based on Tibetan Buddhist compassion meditation practices), or an active control intervention. Before and after the intervention, participants underwent an fMRI experiment during which they were presented images with positive, negative, and neutral emotional valences from the IAPS database while remaining in an ordinary, non-meditative state. Using a region-of-interest analysis, we found a longitudinal decrease in right amygdala activation in the Mindful Attention group in response to positive images, and in response to images of all valences overall. In the CBCT group, we found a trend increase in right amygdala response to negative images, which was significantly correlated with a decrease in depression score. No effects or trends were observed in the control group. This finding suggests that the effects of meditation training on emotional processing might transfer to non-meditative states. This is consistent with the hypothesis that meditation training may induce learning that is not stimulus- or task-specific, but process-specific, and thereby may result in enduring changes in mental function.

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This paper reflects on a career through a personal narrative of how I, as an educator, together with my students, have tried to walk in the steps of Paolo Freire. My journey has been an international one, but this particular reflection highlights the development of a Project called TASC: Thinking Actively in a Social Context. The Project was developed in KwaZulu/Natal, literally meaning 'the place of the Zulus', an enforced 'homeland' under apartheid rule in South Africa. The case study highlights the resilience and determination of a group of students who were committed to rise above the denial and repression of opportunities for Black students. It is a story of love, joy and successa pedagogy of hope. (1) tribute to Paulo Freire. 2008. (Working title) (With permission) *

This paper attempts to explore, briefly, the divergence of thinking about the nature of creativity and the reative process. It is suggested that creativity involves thinking, intuition, feeling and sensing and that in order to achieve fulfilment, the highly creative personality needs a framework of elf-understanding, positive encouragement and acceptance in order to balance the rational and irrational components of the creative personality. Creativity is regarded as the reconciliation of conflict between detachment and commitment, passion and decorum, immediacy and referral, masculinity and femininity. The assessment and promotion of creative functioning are vital considerations for the teacher. The writer suggests ways in which the teacher can promote a classroom environment in which all children can flourish creatively and in which the highly creative child can more easily reconcile his/her differences within the peer group.

All children are born with the gifts of curiosity and creativity – and an insatiable appetite for asking questions to find out about the world in which they live. Fostering these questions and developing inquisitive and investigating minds is one of the essential roles of parent and teacher, and the processes of enquiry are the necessary routes for nurturing and developing all children’s potential for thoughtful discovery. The ethos of this paper is that ‘every child matters’, and the underlying message is one of ‘inclusion with differentiation’. The theme flowing throughout is that teachers and learners need to work interactively to construct knowledge; and, together, through this interaction, deep and sustained learning is promoted. When learners are truly involved in constructing knowledge for themselves, their motivation is high and both individual and group effort is sustained. Importantly, children in many communities are born into a rapidly changing technological world: they grow up using technological tools naturally, with ease and without fear, and they are often more proficient than their teachers! Learners are communicating globally, but all too often their technical skills and powers of communicating are not utilized in schools. In this paper Belle Wallace explains the Thinking Actively in a Social Context (TASC) Framework for thinking and problem-solving; Alessio Bernadelli recommends a wide range of software tools that he uses to develop TASC at secondary level; and Clare Molyneux and Clare Farrell describe a very successful primary project using TASC and Studywiz.