Ms. Schoeberlein begins by explaining how her interest in mindful teaching and teaching mindfulness grew out of her experience teaching health and sex education classes:
"Students didn't have the skills to pay attention and develop an awareness of what was happening, in the moment, with their bodies, emotions, and thoughts... Telling them about prevention wasn't going to help if they weren't present while taking risks."
She goes on to explain the benefits of mindfulness practice for teachers and students in any subject area, with many suggestions for increasing our patience, attentiveness, and responsiveness, and then modeling this behavior for students.
There are techniques to help students:
- increase their visual awareness and memory;
- become more aware of their own learning style and effective ways to study;
- accept critical feedback on their work; and
- become more willing to accept challenges.
For teachers, there are techniques for beginning and ending the day calmly and reflectively, as well as improving classroom management through modeling rather than demanding behavior.
Ms. Schoeberlein is careful to mention which practices might be appropriate for our own personal practice but not for the classroom, and she clearly explains how various activities can be modified in ways that are developmentally appropriate for different ages of learners (K-12).
I recommend this book as a solid introduction to mindfulness practice, full of suggestions and exercises designed for teachers to use ourselves and/or with our students, with or without institutional support, and with or without necessarily using the term "mindfulness.”
Best Practices in Teaching Mindfulness to Children
Everybody Present: Mindfulness in Education (recommended book)
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