Wolkin, J. (2015). How the brain changes when you meditate. Mindful.org. 

How can mindfulness and meditation benefit you as a teacher? Mindfulness can help you in a variety of ways in both your professional and personal life:

• Avoid snapping when a student makes a rude comment
• Mindfulness increases impulse control and emotion regulation
• Avoid getting frustrated with a student who isn't understanding a particular concept
• Mindfulness increases empathy and understanding
• Avoid burnout and chronic stress
• Mindfulness improves health and reduces stress

Things you can do

1. Advocate for implementing mindfulness meditation programs in your school that will train teachers, parents, and students in mindfulness practices

2. Incorporate mindful talk in your classes

Provide time for reflection and evaluation after key tasks

At the end of each day, ask students what happened:

-What went well?

-What went poorly?

-How can you improve and what strategies could you use?

3. Take 5 minutes each class to allow your students and yourself refocus

-Take slow, deep, purposeful breaths

-Let your body relax

-Clear your mind

-Let students know that it is common for their minds to wander. Tell them that this is fine, just notice it and try to clear your mind again

-Have students count their breaths or think about how their bodies feel

-Do you have tension in particular places?

4. Have your students discuss or think about their emotions and feelings

-What are you feeling right now?

-How does that impact you?

-How can you cope with or change your emotions?

-How can you positively channel your emotions?

-Imagine a [happy/sad/calm/stressful] situation, how does your body feel? What are you thinking? -What emotions are you experiencing?

Mindful Notes from CEI

In our Heart Centered 21st Century Rubric, developed in conjunction with principals and principal leaders, CEI has included multiple indicators to help teachers and principals vision, plan for, implement, and monitor mindfulness in schools. Indicators with the Rubric are organized according to behaviors and actions of teachers/principals and students. In the area of mindfulness, the following are some of the indicators included in the Rubric:

• Teachers and administrators understand how trauma has impacted their own lives
• Teachers and administrators demonstrate empathy and understanding of trauma, vulnerable populations, and individual concerns
• Includes lessons on breathing, body scans techniques, and consciousness
• Teachers help students understand a wide variety of emotions, folding these into their lesson plans and class discussions
• Students practice meditation and mindfulness, including breathing practices
• Students are aware of how they feel in safe and unsafe situations
• Students are aware of their own emotions (including anger, fear, apathy, and joy

The process that CEI is advocating includes participatory visioning, planning, implementation, and monitoring with CEI Associates assisting teachers and schools with the initial steps and providing periodic technical assistance. The aim of our work is to infuse the priority indicators in schools so that policies, curriculum, disciplinary procedures, teacher-student interactions, and community involvement all reflect the priorities. In addition to the focus on mindfulness, other unique components of our Rubric include the indicators on neuroscience, cultural responsiveness, and social justice and equity into the Rubrics.

CEI is currently establishing a team of CEI associates who will be available to assist with implementation. These include: Dr. Mason (national), Jillayne Flanders and Dr. Michele Rivers Murphy (New England), Lisa Stepney (OH), Suzan Mullane (AK and WVA), and Orinthia Harris (DC and MA).

For more information on mindfulness, check out CEI blog posts: Teaching Mindfulness through Feminism and Intersectionality; Using 21st Century Practices- Results of CEI’s Survey of Principals and Other Leaders; Empathy vs. Compassion; Heart Beaming TM Certification; CEI Now Expanding Offerings - Yoga and Meditation

How Much Violence in Schools is Too Much? Does violence in schools interfere with the right to a free education? Last April, a group of public school families and a pro-charter advocacy group filed a lawsuit against the New York City Education department, stating that students were deprived of the right to receive an education free of violence because they were not protected during various violent incidents. They also claimed that violence in schools is underreported and increasing.

New York state and city figures conflict as to whether violence in schools is increasing or decreasing due to the difference in sources of data (state versus local). Some argue that the news coverage of school violence has led to the belief that the situation in schools overall is becoming worse when the truth is that violence in schools is declining. The opposing view is that school violence is underreported and being incorrectly categorized. Sixty-five percent of public schools recorded at least one violent incident in the 2013-2014 academic year. Aside from conflicting statistics, the media's coverage of violent incidents in schools is prevalent and frightening. The individual lawsuit claims were serious: one 11-year-old girl was bullied and assaulted for years with no intervention, and a 9-year-old boy may have been grabbed by the ear by his own teacher and thrown into a landing. 

Could Restorative Justice be an Answer?

As an option for handling violence and its precursors in schools, Restorative Justice is gaining in popularity

Restorative Justice encourages offenders to take responsibility for their actions and teaches them to avoid future offenses through mediation. It usually involves teachers and students communicating about the offender's harm to the victim and arriving at a solution to "right the wrong."

Many schools have seen suspension rates drop after implementing such programs and there are many positive reasons to implement Restorative Justice.

Restorative Justice programs,  however, are sometimes implemented with inadequate preparation and support. Teachers are also concerned about the amount of time it can take to mediate a situation.

Or Perhaps it is Reducing Toxic Stress and Promoting Social Competence?

Last November, Julie Scelfo in an article in the NY Times, covered the topic of teaching peace in elementary schools through social emotional learning. It mentioned that learning success is influenced negatively by excess stress and can greatly predict whether a person graduated from high school on time or earn a college degree.

 

It is becoming increasingly accepted that the most vital of all qualities relative to success in the future concerning all aspects of life, is social competence. The optimism level and hope in those passionate about the shift in education is rising with programs like these, but are strategies applied post conflict as effective as needed? There is a distinction between anticipating an issue like school violence, and mediating the issue, rather than systemically building skills to prevent it. Is it possible to improve the occurrence and perception of violence by incrementally shifting the focus on peace?

Or Perhaps We Should Consider a New Educational Model?

In Education Revolution, Will Stanton (2015a), an Australian writer and activist and teacher who has devoted his life to reforming the educational system, quoted Buckminster Fuller, who stated, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." Though many researchers and activists are already implementing some version(s) of what is being proposed (evolution of education), the actual revolution of education initially presented itself as out of reach. 

 
In place of a slowly evolving model of education, Stanton (2015b) proposes a "Six Dimensional Model," to replace the function of education. This model considers that all human beings are creators, and that the culture of education has had a negative impact on creativity as we grow older. It explains all that schools do to encourage conformity, competition, obedience, and standardization, despite the many patchy efforts of restorative justice programs and focus on promoting innovative programs to increase student engagement and problem solving. The dimensions of Stanton's model are: self-discovery, inquiry, sustainability, innovation, communication and empathy.

• Self-discovery includes mindfulness, meditation and creative play but requires that it be part of every school day.
• Inquiry emphasizes providing learners with the tools and resources to be independent critical thinkers, where the teacher will shift from an information expert to one that promotes open dialogue.
• Stanton believes that we are not taking our environmental reality seriously enough and that Sustainability has to be a primary focus, and that a diverse range of environments are necessary to suit the learning context.
• Innovation brings up the fact that humanity's progress and creativity have always been born from unconventional ideas and outside the box thinking should be encouraged.
• Communication brings up media literacy being taught at the age of ten and exposed to all types of media in order to think critically about the persuasive techniques being used.
• Lastly Empathy, where schools would function as communities where the evolution would be dependent upon uniting all colors and creeds and removing barriers of separation.

Mindfulness and a Holistic Approach. Mindfulness and meditation are gaining popularity across the country, and so is curriculum revolving around sustainability, and innovation. Stanton delves into detail regarding the meaningful instruction of math and including non-physical quantum phenomena in science education. He believes this model will bring the much needed balance back into our education system, providing opportunities from both right and left -brain learners to reach their utmost potential. Stanton suggests that an overhaul would consist of taking a holistic planetary approach and work toward the philosophy that we are all one. Violence is not an issue of a particular region, it's a global concern that deserves a more collective perspective. 

Our Solution. The Center for Educational Improvement strives to inspire principals and teachers to consider a broad, holistic approach to education and to provide a platform to stimulate thoughts and discussion. We believe that dialogues in school communities are essential to the evolution of schools. 

We are encouraging schools to use CEI's Heart Centered 21st Century Rubric, where you can evaluate many aspects of your school's effectiveness on a four-point scale from emerging to exemplary. The Rubric is designed to be used across curricula and circumstances. So schools, for example, could implement Stanton's Six Dimensional Model (see above), restorative justice, mindfulness, or peace-building and use the Rubric to help guide the process.

The interactive rubric, developed by the CEI and Thrivist, includes indicators about creating a sense of compassion in the classroom. Others indicators:

• Rate whether or not a school is teaching children how to effectively communicate in a positive way,
• Include considerations for strengthening equity, justice, social justice, and student voice.
• Include questions that specifically ask if students are being taught the value of grit and resiliency.

The rubric is the product of over six years of research and includes references from over 100 sources. Thrivist, which operates in 1000 communities, created computer software with ClassGather to present and operate the rubric in an intuitive way.

Stanton, W. (2015). A new education model for humanity. Wake Up World.