Dear Teachers,
We’re proud to offer the updated English version of the MSC Teacher Guide (TG) and Handout Booklet (HB). The Handout Booklet (for your course participants) can be downloaded from PowerSchool Learning, and the Teacher Guide is available (at cost of printing and shipping) here. Most of the wording in the English TG has been changed to make it easier for teachers to use, but the basic content and structure of MSC has remained the same. Experienced MSC teachers will notice how much this TG has improved.
Translations
The schedule for translations of the new TG and HB will depend on the capacity of our dedicated translators around the world, so if you do not teach in English and are curious about the new TG, you might want to get your own English TG now and compare for yourself. Translators: Please check with Mirjam mirjam@centerformsc.org for more about translating this version of the TG. Since many of the changes were in the expression of key ideas in English, translators should decide for themselves how much they might wish to translate.
What’s New?
- This TG is 67 pages longer than the 2016 version because new information has been added.
- There is a comprehensive reference section (21 pages long) with citations throughout the TG. The Annotated Bibliography was deleted because it can be found in the Teacher Handbook on PowerSchool Learning.
- We changed the gratitude exercise and the self-appreciation exercise from an “exercise” to an “informal practice.” That brings the number of practices up to 25 in total—7 meditations and 18 informal practices.
- Changed the names of some practices to make them more descriptive, or to distinguish them from other components of the MSC program.
- Improved the session timings of each component in the TG.
- Added a section on “equanimity” in Session 7.
- The topics of mindfulness, loving-kindness and compassion were broken up between Sessions 2 and 3.
- Updated Compassionate Body Scan
- We made the English wording more gender-neutral
- Added MANY bullets to make the TG even more user-friendly. Overall, the formatting of the TG has significantly improved.
- Lovely new title page.
- Corrected most of the typographical errors in the TG, but surely not all!
In sum, if you teach in English and would like your teaching experience to be easier and smoother, please get the new TG. If you teach in another language (almost half of MSC teachers probably do!), you might still benefit from seeing the changes. The new TG’s are based on feedback from teachers all over the world, and the Center for MSC does not make a profit from annual updates.
There will be much fewer changes next year, and still fewer in coming years. We’re learning how to teach self-compassion in the best possible way, so we ask for your patience during this learning period. A MSC textbook and a MSC workbook (for your MSC students) will be published in August 2018, but the TG will remain an evolving, organic document.
– Chris Germer
