"Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgementally." -Jon Kabat Zinn
You may have heard your child coming home talking about a curricular structure we use in the classroom called Mindfulness10. Many of you have shared stories with me about your child making space for what they are calling mindfulness practices even at home. I thought over the next few weeks, I'd write a little about mindfulness here to share with you a little about how I came to know and love the practice of mindfulness, how I incorporate it into our day, and ways that your brilliant children have been talking about their practices in the classroom.
The quote I added above is written by a medical doctor named Jon Kabat-Zinn out of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. After practicing mindfulness for a longtime, himself, Kabat-Zinn started the Stress Reduction Clinic at the UMass Medical Center that supports patients in learning how to best take care of themselves in the face of the stress chronic illness. The work he did with his patients, beginning in 1979 has grown into what many of us now know as Mindfulness Based Stress Relief or MBSR and is present in all types of settings today. Educators have seen the power in his techniques as well. Many schools nation-wide are trying out some mindfulness techniques with incredible success in supporting students in managing emotion, regulating behaviors, achieving academically, and simply finding more awareness, purpose, and agency in their choices.
Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as a process of paying attention characterized by purpose, presence, and acceptance of what is present without resistance. In schools, families, and recreational settings everywhere, we ask our children to pay attention daily. After reading about Kabat-Zinn and practicing mindfulness myself for a decade, I couldn't help but wonder what might happen if we spent more time supporting, teaching into, and inquiring about this attention process in schools.
I found such rich growth and steady foundation in my own life utilizing mindfulness practice and techniques, that began seeking out curricula for practicing these types of attention with elementary aged students. I trained with the Mindful Schools organization (an offshoot of Kabat-Zinn's MBSR organization), read research on the effectiveness on mindfulness with children, and completed some of my own research on the effects of these practices to finish my PhD at USC.
In our classroom each day, you may find mindfulness in many corners of the school day. Given that I see mindfulness as a practice AND a way of being, I try to support my students in trying on mindfulness as a way of doing things so that they can truly inquire for themselves as to what from this way of thinking works best for them. In my own life, I see mindfulness as a way for practitioners to solve problems more thoughtfully and consciously. This translates in our classroom in the way that we transition from one subject area to another, the way that I remind individuals to bring their wandering attention back, and in the Mindfulness10 Practice itself.
Mindfulness10 is a 10 minute time period, where I set a timer, and each student chooses something simple and easy to do (coloring, reading, writing, drawing, working with clay, putting together a puzzle, etc.). We call that activity an "anchor." During the 10 minutes of practice time, what we are actually practicing is bringing our attention back to stillness, resting on that anchor. We work to simply notice our attention wandering and bring it back without extra judgement or frustration with ourselves that is so easy to garner when we don't succeed in doing something we tried to do. Our brains are built to think and our senses are built to take in information so that we stay safe. This practice helps to train our thinkers and our senses to respond rather than react to the stimuli around us.
I recently heard a fellow practitioner and mindfulness teacher of mine say that this practice is truly about "finding out what you're up to." Upon hearing her observation, I went on to consider that far too often we find ourselves on autopilot in our daily lives, not necessarily checking in with the ways that we are paying attention, the objects or personal stories that catch our attention, and results of not paying attention. This process of attending can be so informative of what we are actually thinking about or noticing and supportive of making a conscious choice to pay more attention to the things that truly matter. For many of us in our classroom, we are finding greater enjoyment in what we are reading, writing, and solving in math when we can devote our attention for longer periods of time.
Try it Out: If you are interested in trying out a mindfulness practice, see if you can find 2 minutes in your day to try to use your ears only. Start a timer for those 2 minutes. Close your eyes, and simply notice the sounds around you. Can you hear sounds of the room around you? Can you hear the birds singing if you are outdoors? If you notice yourself explaining what's happening or thinking about what's for dinner tonight, simply bring your attention back to those sounds as an anchor.
Enjoy!
