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Teaching and Learning - Mindfulness Matters
(Hartford, CT) For more than a decade, mindfulness has caused persistent buzzing and conversation among educators. But what is mindfulness? Why do so many educators want to integrate mindfulness in their classrooms? Is mindfulness the latest educational fad, or it a worthy approach?
According to researcher Jon Kabat-Zin, mindfulness is “the awareness that arises by paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.” Kabat-Zinn propelled mindfulness into mainstream societal institutions, such as medicine, higher education, corporations, sports, and the criminal justice system. He focused on mind and body interactions for healing by examining how mindfulness-based stress reduction practices affects the brain and how the brain processes emotions.
Kabat-Zinn’s guided meditation programs and books describe mindfulness and meditation practices in direct, applicable, and captivating terms. Consequently, thousands of individuals practice mindfulness in the United States.
During the mid-2000s, mindfulness programs and practices emerged as a grassroots movement in education with the promise of reducing students and teachers’ stress levels in schools. Although healthy stress is a part of everyday life, recent demands in our education system, such as unremitting testing, and societal issues, such as poverty, can cause students and teachers to experience unhealthy stress.
Unhealthy stress occurs when life’s demands outpace a person’s ability to manage them, and mindfulness practices include, but are not limited to, mindfulness meditation, yoga and breathing exercises, self-regulated behavior, and positive self-expression. Several mindfulness programs, such as Mind Up, Mindfulness in Schools Project, and Mindfulness Fundamentals, have been implemented in classrooms and schools throughout the United States and in other countries.
Although empirical research on mindfulness is recent, and the conclusions limited, there is potential that mindfulness programs improve the well-being of children and youth. A 2013 study in a low-income, ethnic-minority elementary school found, showed that student behavior improved significantly in the following four areas when its mindfulness program ended: paying attention, self-control, classroom participation, and respect for others. More importantly, these gains were maintained seven weeks later.
Additionally, the Hawn Foundation reports that mindfulness practices lead to increased focus, improved academic achievement, reduced stress, and an increase in emotional resilience, and these findings have exciting implications for the potential of mindfulness practices and programs in schools—for both teachers and students.
CREC is on the cutting-edge of mindfulness practices in schools, leading the way by offering mindfulness classroom sessions and by co-hosting its second annual mindfulness conference with Central Connecticut State University on October 21. The keynote speaker will be Tish Jennings, an associate professor of education at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.
For more information about the conference, visit www.crec.org/mindfulness/conference.
