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Mindfulness in the Classroom


There is such a stigma around the idea of meditation and yoga. People’s minds are still yet to change and if you had asked me, back in comprehensive school, to practice yoga with my classmates, I would have turned around and laughed. The concept of mindfulness wasn’t understood but that’s beginning to change.

https://blogs.bmj.com/ebn/files/2018/07/Mindfulness.jpg 
Mindfulness is making its way into schools all over the world and is becoming a staple of the curriculum. This year Australia launched its very first mindfulness curriculum in schools. The curriculum was designed by the creators of the Smiling Mind app and covers 20 mindfulness topics. These topics are constructed to ‘’support children in Year 1 to Year 6 to develop self awareness, self management, social awareness and social management skills.’’ (Smiling Mind, 2018)  
Another school demonstrating mindfulness is Nantucket New School in the United States of America. Faculty at the Upper School in Nantucket ‘’ have a common language from the 3-year olds to the 14-year-olds.’’ When completing a task, they ask the children, ‘’ ‘Was that a mindful decision?’ ‘Did you think about your choice?’ ‘Stop and take a breath.’ ‘’ This has helped them massively with problem students and discipline. ‘’By the time the lower school gets to the upper school we’re dealing with teachable moments instead of discipline problems.’’ As the children proceed through school they are learning self awareness and understand how to make decisions ‘’based on their self awareness.’’ (Garey. J, 2018)

Here in the UK we’re still working on getting mindfulness intertwined into the curriculum. As a start, we have ‘’over 5,000 teachers in the UK have been trained to teach mindfulness, according to the Mindfulness Initiative, and that number is growing all the time.’’ (BBC News, 2017)

Yoga has been introduced to our curriculum here in the UK. One school in Llanelli has been practicing yoga which has led to ‘’heated debates’’ between teachers and inspectors. (Wales Online, 2018) People are questioning the use of yoga in classrooms asking ‘’how can this be ‘best practice’’’ when there is ‘’no research and no evidence.’’ However, Jason Hart believed that the ‘’positive effects of yoga helped the school achieve the highest possible inspection mark… when Estyn inspected it.’’ (Wales Online, 2018)

Currently, there is ‘‘an estimated three children in every classroom that suffer from a diagnosable mental health problem… behind those numbers is a general trend to increased levels stress and lower levels of wellbeing.’’ (Adrianopoulos. A, 2017) Teachers are adapting their teaching methods to give children tools they need to deal with their problems. Mindfulness could be a solution to help lower these levels of mental health problems. A study conducted by Farb et al. had participants ‘’randomly assigned to an eight week MBSR training group.’’ These were compared against ‘’waitlisted controls on self report measures of depression and anxiety.‘’ The results were collected via MRI’s after watching sad films. From the results they found that those who were exposed to the MBSR ‘’displayed less anxiety, depression and somatic distress’’ than those who were in the control group. (Farb et al. 2010)

According to Corcoran, Farb, Anderson & Segal (2010) an affective benefit of mindfulness is being able to regulate your own emotions. ‘’Corcoran et al. theorize that mindfulness meditation promotes metacognitive awareness, decreases rumination via disengagement from perseverative cognitive activities, and enhances attentional capacities through gains in working memory; these cognitive gains, in turn, contribute to effective emotion regulation strategies.’’ (Davies. D & Hayes. J, 2011) Other benefits of mindfulness include ‘’increased focus, attention and self control.’’ Along with, ‘’improved academic performance, overall well being and the ability to resolve conflict improving.’’ In contrast to this levels of disruptive behaviour and levels of stress decrease. (Gerszberg. C, 2018)


Whilst studying at Cardiff Metropolitan University, my perception on mindfulness has significantly changed. Throughout my time here we’ve been learning how to put mindfulness into practice for our own wellbeing and how to incorporate it into lessons. Our lecturers arranged for outdoor coaching sessions based on nature connection. For one of the sessions we were taken outside and sat in a TP tent. Here we learnt all about previous connections to nature through history. Another of our sessions was set in the forest where we were given African drums. In groups we then had to make up our own songs based on our surroundings. I know what you’re thinking, but you’d be surprised just how into it you get. After each session we practiced mindfulness by concentrating on the natural sounds around us and focusing on our breathing. Relaxing, right?
I for one, can not wait to see the future of education and the part mindfulness has to play in it.

If you’re looking for an easy way to introduce mindfulness into your classroom, try this:

-Take an empty glass jar and fill it with water
-Add roughly 2 teaspoons of glitter (Colour of your choice)
-Screw the lid onto the jar (Can be glued if working with younger children)

These homemade ‘snow globes’ show how the mind works when it is busy and full and when it is calm. Just shake to see the mind at work and as it settles, as should the mind. You can take this idea and put it into many different lessons, as starters main body’s or finishers. This can help them children to open up and talk about their feelings without feeling pressure or confronted. Give it a try!

References
Adrianopoulos, A (2017) ‘Wise Up – Prioritising Wellbeing in Schools’ (online) Available at: https://youngminds.org.uk/media/1428/wise-up-prioritising-wellbeing-in-schools.pdf Accessed on: 06/12/2018
BBC News (2017) ‘Mindfulness to Help Children’s Mental Well-being in Schools’ (online) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-39082415/mindfulness-to-help-children-s-mental-well-being-in-schools Accessed on: 06/12/2018
Drabble. E (2013) ‘How to Teach… Mindfulness’ (online) Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/teacher-blog/2013/jun/24/mindfulness-classroom-teaching-resource Accessed on: 06/12/2018
Farb, N. A. S., Anderson, A. K., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D., & Segal, Z. V. (2010). Minding one’s emotions: Mindfulness training alters the neural expression of sadness. Emotion, 10, 25–33. doi:10.1037/ a0017151.supp
Garey. J (2018) ‘Mindfulness in the Classroom’ (online) Available at: https://childmind.org/article/mindfulness-in-the-classroom/ Accessed on: 06/12/2018
Gerszberg. C (2018) ‘Mindfulness in Education’ (online) Available at: https://www.mindful.org/mindfulness-in-education/ Accessed on: 06/12/2018
Smiling Mind (2018) ‘The Mindfulness Curriculum’ (online) Available at: https://www.smilingmind.com.au/the-mindfulness-curriculum/ Accessed on: 06/12/2018
Davies. D and Hayes. J (2011) ‘What are the Benefits of Mindfulness? A Practice Review of Psychotherapy-Related Research’ (online) Available at: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.912.4622&rep=rep1&type=pdf Accessed on: 06/12/2018
Wales Online (2018) ‘Children are Doing Yoga at School and People aren’t Happy’ (online) Available at: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/big-row-thats-erupted-over-15013500 Accessed on: 06/12/2018



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