Advance Praise for Transcendent Teacher Learner Relationships
Second Edition
“Captivating, scholarly and invaluable, Hunter O’Hara’s work beautifully illuminates the profound importance of developing and nurturing transcendent relationships within the teaching-learning community. Readers will be heartened by remarkable stories of transcendence that are built on the foundations of openness, trust, care, risk-taking, and love. A vital and timely work, Dr. O’Hara’s phenomenal book will certainly benefit all teacher education programs, enlightening and empowering current and pre-service teachers, giving them strength, hope, and courage.”
– Joan Ports, D.Ed., Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education, Towson University
“With this second edition, Dr. O’Hara represents the embodiment of transcendence in teacher learner relationships. Captivating stories of learners and teachers, told in their own words, are intertwined with a deep examination of transcendent philosophy.
Thought provoking discussion aligns with illustrative narratives of the real lives of learners and teachers, in their roles as Transcendent Relators and Transcendent Shamanic Teachers. Ultimately, Dr. O’Hara leads us to an understanding of the Shamanic Teacher who creates change and healing, and ‘shapes events and divines the hidden’ to provide healing and relief from past traumas. Readers of this book will be struck by the relevant synthesis and the application to their own lives. Integrating the work of a broad range of notable thinkers and writers, this work is well grounded in the literature and based on thorough research methods.
In the four years after the publication of the first edition of Transcendent Teacher Learner Relationships, Dr. O’Hara’s teaching has guided the development of more than 500 learners. Along with his learners, he himself has continued to develop his own growing practice of transcendence. With a relationship based on a sense of openness and mutual respect, his learners, and those who have become teachers, were not hesitant to offer their critiques and suggestions for this edition. Seeking input from these learners, past and present, and truly hearing them is characteristic of the sense of security and mutuality in a transcendent environment.
This book invites the reader to be part of Dr. O’Hara’s personal life journey to transcendence. We are also privileged to meet a diverse group of individuals who are made real by Dr. O’Hara as they show us their various lives as transcendent teachers and leaners. Readers will be able to find themselves in these stories.
The research has been conducted over time, using a systematic heuristic and planful approach to what can be learned from the collection of voices and stories. The study’s compelling stories from learners and teachers who were co-researchers became part of the research findings.
The book provides valuable applications, perspectives, practices, and ways of seeing dichotomies of schools of transcendence in contrast to traditional schools. Among so much more that we can learn throughout this book, we may aspire to internalize the ‘general dispositions of transcendence’: Hope, Creativity, Awareness, Faithful Doubt, and Wonder, Awe and Reverence.
Perhaps, readers who find themselves currently in transcendent relationships will be validated and inspired to continue, as they themselves become models to their own learners. Others may find themselves hoping to follow this path. Deeply inspired, all will thoughtfully examine their own practices and their guiding philosophies. In sum, it is clear from this work that transcendence may set the stage for the future, becoming the expected and not the exception to the rule.
I look forward to more from Dr. O’Hara and to the change and growth experienced by all of us who have been touched by his work. He provides hope for transcendence among teachers, learners, and schools. Learning to live the way of transcendence is a goal.”
– Edyth James Wheeler, Ph.D., Professor Emerita, Towson University
First Edition
“Hunter O’Hara crafts a rare work of significance that encapsulates the art of great teaching. The focus of the book on the transcendent teacher learner relationship reveals the core of educational effectiveness. Wrapped up in the unique package of teacher as shaman, this book gifts the reader great insight and powerful examples. Revives teaching as joyous – a must read for all educators.”
– Patty O’Grady, Associate Professor, The University of Tampa
“I like much of what Dr. O’Hara has to say, very much of what he has to say. Obviously written by a careful scholar and person of integrity and rather beautiful ideas. There is something lovely and authentic and very personal about his work. I feel the rarity of what he talks about.”
– Maxine Greene, Ph.D., Teachers College, Columbia University
“I entered into Hunter O’Hara’s work and experienced many moments that moved me deeply, at times with great joy but also with feelings of sadness in the awareness that transcendent relationships are rare and that many children and adults go through an entire lifetime without knowing one of life’s treasures – the mystery, beauty, and wonder of a loving relationship. His writing is vivid and alive and with passion and depth portrays the nature and essence of the constituents of a transcendent relationship.”
– Clark Moustakas, Ed.D., Ph.D., founder of the Center for Humanistic Studies (now the Michigan School of Professional Psychology)
Theoni and Veronica
Hunter and Jerry
Helen and Anne
Photo credit: Thaxter P. Spencer, 1888, R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, New England Geneological Society. Color: Patty Allison, at Imbued with Hues, Facebook