I.
Expansion and Contraction are two — or just one — concepts that come up a lot in Buddhism. For example, when focusing on the breath during meditation, breathing in is expansion (the expansion of our chest) and breathing out is contraction (again of our chest, as the air comes out).
If we start thinking about it, we can see expansion and contraction being part of the nature of reality. We rush to work (contraction) in the morning, then we relax in the evening (expansion). We enjoy life carefree (expansion) until we fall in love with someone (contraction). We spend a period doing the same thing all the time (contraction) until we don’t do it for a long while (expansion).
Given such omnipresence I argue that Western thinkers have discovered these concepts too. Isn’t the Hegelian Dialectic a version of Expansion and Contraction?
II.
How does Expansion and Contraction appear in learning processes? Almost never does learning follow linear sustained growth. There are periods of intensive incorporation of knowledge and there are periods of slow, spaced out understanding of things. Both of these aspects are essential for effective long term learning as temporal space is crucial when digesting new concepts.
In universities, there are periods of lectures that happen every week over a period of months. This is expansion. Then, there are periods of exams that happen every day in a period of weeks. This is contraction. Lectures are typically relaxed periods of going through material in a steady pace, while exams are intense periods of deep diving.
We envision the future of Shoshin College to facilitate analogous periods of expansion and contraction. They will be represented by two modes of learning. The expansion mode is characterised by weekly learning sessions lasting 8 weeks. We call these sessions sparse. The contraction mode consists of daily content-heavy workshop and lectures in the period of 1 week. We call these sessions dense. By establishing such a dual-mode system we create a structure that respects these mechanics of learning.
III.
We have another ambition. We want to present this model, of 1-week daily and 8-weeks weekly, as a way to de-risk learning for people who cannot afford to be full-time students.
It’s common for people who want to learn something new (or change careers), to have to take the risk of leaving a job. The reason is to make time to explore this new thing. It’s risky because the new thing might end up not working out. Yet we hope the above model can be a viable alternative. The time required becomes a few hours a week for 8 weeks and then 1 week full-time.
It’s important to acknowledge that it may be more sustainable but still not ideal. Full-time employees would still have to find at least one week of (holiday or unpaid) time to attend the full-time week-long contraction-mode sessions. And, they would still need to make time for the weekly expansion-mode sessions. Yet hopefully a feasible path, at least for people who are further into their commitment of whatever new discipline they want to explore.