In my humble opinion, bringing the transformative practice of mindful awareness to children, teens and their families could revolutionize the world as we know it. There are great educational programs that teach valuable life-skills cradle to grave. But it's tough to use those life-skills in a crisis or other difficult situation unless you can: (a) Attend in a clearheaded way to inner and outer experience; (b) Tolerate any emotional discomfort that comes up in response to what you see; and (c) Purposefully respond in a way that is kind and compassionate to yourself and others. When kids, teens and adults systematically develop these three capacities through mindful awareness - attention, balance and compassion - they transform themselves and are better able to transform our world into a more peaceful, collaborative and caring place.
I just got back from an inspiring weekend with 300 educators interested in mindfulness and education. Hosted by the Omega Institute, our faculty (led by Jon Kabat Zinn with Gina Biegel, Jennifer Cohen, Vinnie Ferraro, Laurie Grossman, Linda Lantieri, Daniel Rechtschaffen, Dan Siegel, Spring Washam, and me) taught games, activities and songs that help develop mindful awareness at an early age. In panel discussions, we shared our perspectives on how best to build and implement programs suitable for public education. Home from the conference, and back to my workaday life, there are a few things we discussed that are important to share with a wider community.
1. Motivation. Be clear about why you're teaching mindful awareness in the first place. The answer may be different depending on the teacher, but before stepping into a classroom know your objective. For me, it is to share tools that help people of all ages manage life's ups and downs in a way that's in their best interest as well as kind and compassionate to all those involved.
2. Perspective. Mindfulness in everyday life is not a religion, so don't approach it as one. While this work is informed by contemplative traditions it is also informed by child development, psychology, neuroscience, and pedagogy. Leave any remnants of religion at home, be they implicit messages, gestures, language, or icons. They are not appropriate in public schools.
3. Simplicity. Use simple, clear language and activities that communicate simple, clear concepts and experiences. Some of the language and many of the activities that are useful when teaching mindfulness to adults go right over the heads of kids and young adults. Adapting mindful awareness games and activities for a younger audience can be a fun opportunity to express your creativity.
4. Play. Speaking of fun, we're working with kids so let's be playful! We can develop mindful awareness singing, dancing, laughing and playing. If we frame mindful awareness playfully kids are more likely to be drawn to it than if we frame mindful awareness as a serious, sedentary activity. Besides, there's nothing wrong with having a bit of fun ourselves.
5. Integration. If one of your objectives is to help people better manage life's ups and downs, don't forget to integrate mindfulness into everyday activities. The more we include mindful awareness in our daily routines, the more accessible it will be and available for kids to call upon to help cope with challenging real-life situations.
6. Collaboration. Not everyone in this growing field agrees with me or with the seven points that I'm outlining here. But to take this work to the next level, and demonstrate why it's important to those who need to be convinced, we'll have to put our differences aside and work together for the benefit of everyone - students, teachers, families - absolutely everyone without exception.
7. Strategy. Congressman Tim Ryan is the first national politician to see the importance of mindful awareness training and act on it. To borrow from my students: "Let's give it up for Congressman Ryan!" We need more big-picture thinkers to join him and develop a comprehensive strategy for researching and developing secular mindful awareness programs and implementing them in public settings.
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Roger Fransecky: Are You Really Paying Attention? The Importance of Being Present
If only more people could understand the true meaning of 'mindful practice' and that it does not need to be taught in the Buddhist tradition. When we learn how to be mindful, such practice can become a way of life - even for those who choose not to meditate.
Clearly, the benefits of mindfulness are manifold. Some forward-thinking organizations are now introducing mindfulness training into their staff development programs in order to turn a stressful workforce into a resilient one. I teach 'mindful strategies' to organizations with very positive outcomes. Mindful employees are happier, more balanced and productive, and deal better with conflict, change and stressful situations, not just in the workplace but also in their everyday lives.
How wonderful would it be if mindful practice would transform more children and their families.
Christine Maingard, Author of "Think Less, Be More", http://www.thinklessbemore.com & http://www.mindfulstrategies.com.au
My boys often let me know they were the only ones in their class with a bedtime, I joked about it to their teacher and she told me they weren't wrong. Most of the kids from kindergarten on didn't have an appropriate bedtime or regular meal times. We live in a neighborhood that's mixed socio-economic and it was the middle to upper income kids who were the least regimented. My son's best friend sometimes called our home at 11 p.m. when the boys were in 3rd grade.. my sons bedtime in 3rd grade was 8 o'clock. We set routines around bed time, bath time and meal times and we stuck to them because those routines benefited our kids greatly when it came to education.
I'd like all parents to have to give teachers well rested, well fed students because those are the main tools they need to become mindful in all aspects of their lives.
I think we need to define it and develop an approach to it.
www.tmeducation.org/videos
yappnmutt comment is actually very deep ; mindfulness cannot b e taught ; it is neccessary of course to have it but it is not available in a stressed brain ; only a stress releif program can liberate mindfullness from deep within and deep within is in the realm of pure spirituality ; TM, in published research is shown uniquely effective in neutralizing stress on the brain; mindfulness meditation is not better than placebo
school pricipals have had it up to flood level with psychological complexities
it is all about the natural brain ; the mind is irrelevent to solving problems
the mind is the cause of problems
nuances about this requires a great and big book
unless the seeming simple word stress is understood. wordy solutions are futile
as a for instance Buddhists have been practicing mindfullness [ mindfull awareness] for many centuries and they are not stress free
in principle mindfull awareness would create a miracle in schools BUT without TM practice 2x daily 10-20 minutes there isnt any timely uncostly way to create mindfull awareness in a stressed brain in millions of students; if stress didnt exist mindull awareness " cosmic consciousness ' would allready exist in students
a stress free human nervous system naturally is mindfull awareness;
speak with Norman Rosenthal MD psychiatrist about this
There are also some impressive and similar results on buddhists monks, who have been meditating for many years. (but these are monks, and not householders)
There's something really screwed up to society when we start thinking that we can't teach kids how to properly deal with failure/losing/etc. These kinds of philosophies may help kids live a comfortable, fluffy life, but in the real world, what happens when they go to their first major job interview and fail? There's this whole movement to make kids environments more positive; I'm sure in some situations its quite valid, but most of the time, its just going to involve unnecessary positive motivation. Our school system ranks continually lower, and "positive thinking and spirituality" is not the main thing lacking.
Children are smarter than adults think they are; we all understood what the teachers were really doing.. they had basically crafted a class that fed their own goofy psychological craving to be viewed as enlightened beings spreading peace and understanding. We didn't really learn anything, but the teachers got to pat themselves on the back and feel good about themselves.
Not if you've got a book to sell.
Why take the teaching learning experience so seriously. I read a student request in their school newspaper that pleaded with teachers to stop torturing them with their power points and boring lectures. I like teachers who bring humor, play, physical and mental exercises into the learning experience--why take educationi so serious, we can ask?
Such kindness; you're a breath of fresh air. Ergo the moniker, "monthofmay." ;-)