1. The Mindful Classroom: Mindset & Managing the Inner World of Teaching Janet Wallentiny PRSD Lead Divisional Learning Coach March 3, 2016 Mighty Peace Teachers’ Convention

2. Our formula for this session Research base about Teacher Behaviour + Instructional Strategies = Enhanced Student Learning

3. Science suggests...

5. Negativity Bias

6. Our Troublesome Brains

7. Our Survival Systems!

8. Sometimes life can be so hard...

9. Andy Hargreaves Consider the relationship between what teachers are thinking and feeling at any point in time and their actions at the same point in time. 1998 p3

10. Andy Hargreaves Teaching is an emotional practice. Teaching and learning involve emotional understanding. Teaching is a form of emotional labour. Teachers’ emotions are inseparable from their moral purposes and their ability to achieve those purposes

11. Andy Hargreaves Teachers’ emotions are rooted in and affect their selves, identities and relationships with others Teachers’ emotions are shaped by experiences of power and powerlessness. Teachers’ emotions vary with culture and context. – P 319

12. Integrated Experience the concept that behaviours and attitudes of teachers impact behaviours and attitudes of those in their care and vice versa

13. Our tools as humans... Positive Thinking Programs Daily Affirmations Psychotherapy Religious beliefs Rituals that help us feel safer in an uncertain world Mindfulness tools

14. Mindfulness Mindfulness practices were developed in response to our complex evolutionary predicament. systematic methods for gaining insight into how the mind instinctually creates suffering for itself. interrupts these natural processes of the mind

15. Growth mindset Carol Dweck - Mindset Mindset - how a student perceives their abilities The power of “Yet”“Yet”

16. In our Inner World of Teaching New Situation Working Memory - Script Self System - Interpretation

17. Based on meta-analyses It is safe to conclude that there is consistency between peoples’ attitudes and their behaviour. There is consistency between what people do and what they intend to do.

18. Managing the Inner World of Teaching Requires 3 phases Awareness Analysis Choice What emotions are these? What is my interpretation? What script is activated? What is the probable outcome? Is this desired? What would I prefer to happen? What script do I need?

19. Understanding the Basics: The Power of Emotions: The more we understand the human mind – the more effectively we can manage our inner world. Emotions are powerful things! They exert inordinate influence over thinking and behaviour

20. What am I feeling? The human mind is designed to remember events in our lives that have generated negative emotions – most particularly fear.

21. Fear An organism that remembers a past danger can recognize a similar danger in the future, and respond accordingly Of course, any animal or organism that can predict danger is likely to survive and pass on its genes

22. Fear Conditioning Our brains are designed to pay great attention to those things that generate fear in us. Not only helps us to remember the situations, we see as threats, but also distorts our thinking in the short term Fight or flight reaction

23. Fear, Anger, and Disgust Fear Anger is fear’s cousin Anger Disgust these emotions are designed to keep us alive and safe in the world

24. What does this mean? Consider The student who smiles at us during a lesson The student who turns away from us when we smile The group of students talking in the back of the room when it is time for class to begin

25. The Nature of Interpretation Categories – We learn from others – We create from our own observations Interpretation – categories - generalizations

26. Scripts From the world of Artificial Intelligence: A script is a structure that describes appropriate sequences of events in a particular context

27. What Script will I probably execute as a result of my interpetation? Will this outcome be the most positive for all? What is my preferred outcome? What script do I have to execute to attain this outcome?

28. Our thermostats Cybernetics Self system Presume positive intentions

29. Managing our Inner World takes practice 3 types of negative situations – People – Events – Tasks

30. How to begin Conduct a self audit of your day before it begins – are there people, events, or tasks that I have negative associations with already?

31. Managing your inner world in real time Awareness phase – what am I feeling and why am I feeling this way? Analysis phase – what will I probably do, what will probably happen? And will this be positive? Choice phase – what do I want to happen? And what do I have to do to make it happen?

32. Mindfulness

33. Mindfulness Training Mind wandering constitutes about 50% of our waking thoughts...

34. Common Errors in Thinking Occurs when people start holding others responsible for the negative situations they are in or when they blame themselves for things out of their control Blaming “Should” Statements Polarized Thinking Negative Patterns of Thought Subtly dictating rules about how others should act. Causes anger toward people who do not meet expectations or guilt when it violates the user’s self-imposed rules Eliminates the middle ground – causes distorted thinking. See failure or success only without seeing progress or improvement

35. Common Errors in Thinking When people expect the worst possible outcome. Will often use “what if” statements to verbalize their worst imaginings! Catastro- phizing Control Fallacies Emotional Reasoning Negative Patterns of Thought Two types: internal and external Victims of others or fate – fixed mindset = external Internal = when you feel responsible for the well-being of everyone around you. When someone assumes that what he or she feels emotionally is true in reality. If a person feels useless, he or she must be useless.

36. Worry Strong emotions like fear and anger distort our thinking at specific moments in time not allowing us to see alternatives we might consider if we were not angry nor fearful –

37. Rumination -is when we have repetitive thoughts about negative personal concerns and or the implications, causes, and meanings of a negative mood.

38. Positive Thinking Optimism - knowing when to cut our losses and put our energies into problems that we can solve.

39. Inspiration “He who has a why can endure almost any how.” Frederick Nietchze

40. Supporting Ourselves Conduct a self-audit - be prepared and cultivate satisfaction

41. Satisfaction Competence Autonomy Collaboration

42. Be sensitive to students’ inner worlds

43. Teaching with the self system in mind Begin by making sure the inner worlds of students are supported – Physiological comfort – Safety – Belonging – Esteem Introduce students to concepts such as possible selves, growth mindsets, productive dispositions, and personal ideals (See handouts…)

44. Stay Focused Karate Kid - Your Focus Needs Focus

45. Push the Limits

46. Set your own Standards of Excellence

47. www.aac.ab.cawww.aac.ab.ca Alberta Assessment Consortium

48. Inner Peace Believe in a teaching a growth mindset Be present