1. The Way of Mindful Education
Cultivating Well-Being in Teachers and Students
Daniel Rechtschaffen

2. Learning Goals
We will review the significance of mindfulness, as presented by the author.
We will consider how mindfulness in schools begins with yourself (self-practice).
We will explore the characteristics of a mindful classroom.
We will share new learnings.
We will make relevant connections to our course work.
We will consider questions for further / deeper thought.
We will practice mindfulness according to curriculum suggestions made by the author.

3. Mindful Activity Mantra meditation
The Gayatri mantra is one of the oldest mantras known.
It loosely translates to an honouring of the Mother Earth, the Sun, and all living beings. I

4. Why Mindful Education Matters
“Students are told to pay attention a thousand times in school, but rarely are they taught how.” (p.10)
Cynthia

5. The Way of Mindfulness
“Defining mindfulness is like trying to explain to a child what the word fun means. It’s easier just to play a game with them and, as they are dancing around gleefully, you can say, “This is called having fun”.” (p. 6)

6. Mindful Education Revolution
“Before any good teaching and learning can happen, we need to cultivate environments where children and teachers aren’t running for the exits. We need to nourish the inner lives of our students and teachers.” (p. 14)
Part 1 - Book
Theme - the purpose of mindfulness is for teachers and students.

7. The History of Mindful Education
“Mindfulness can support and be woven into the great wisdom of social emotional learning, multiple intelligence theory, and many other conscious education philosophies. Instead of pushing aside educational paradigms that have come before, mindfulness supports the cognitive, emotional, physical, and relational aspects of learning.” (p. 18)

8. Mapping the Movement Training and self care for teachers
Direct service to students
Curriculum-based teaching
All of the above

9. The Science of Mindfulness
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)
Stress Management and Resilience Training (SMART)
Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE)
Daniel Siegel - The Whole-Brain Child
“What is most inspiring to me is the way I see children, through mindfulness, learning to feel fully comfortable in their own skins, trust themselves, and be compassionate to the world around them” (p. 35)

10. The Origins of Mindfulness
“The beauty of mindfulness for our modern use is that all we need is our breath, our bodies, our minds, and our hearts.” (p.36)

11. Cultivating Heartfulness
heartfulness activity - making a heart with kind words

12. “Begin with Yourself”
“How do you want to transform yourself to be a greater conduit to the learning of the youth that have been brought into your care? What is holding you back from embodying the type of person you hope your kids will become?” (p.43)
Adeline - not just a curriculum on mindfulness. book focuses on the need for self-exploration and practise.
Part 2 of Book

13. “Caring for the Caregiver”
“Information is imperative in education, but transformation is is where maturity, morality, and wisdom come from. When you are on a path of personal growth, you are modeling to your students the true meaning of happiness.” (p.43)
Adeline
Connection to our first class where we talked about the qualities of teachers who we admire. We talked about people whose deep love of teaching and compassion endures.
Why I am in this cohort...AHA for me: mindfulness may be one way for teachers to help themselves, or better yet, help each other in their relationships and support.

14. “The When, Where and How of Mindfulness”
When? Always & Now! (Send heartfulness at the beginning of class, mindful breaths when the bell rings, etc.”)
Where? Everywhere! (Ideally nature. Quiet space with few distractions. Use an item / spot in your classroom.)
How? Daily! practices to cultivate embodiment, attention, heartfulness and interconnection. (Prepare, Practice, Reflect.)
“We educators know that our finest teaching happens with a balance of prepared focus and creative flow.” (p.51).
Adeline
Two legs of Mindfulness: Focused Attention & MIndful Relaxation.

15. “Cultivating Embodiment”
‘Bodies are where we feel our emotions, where we have our thoughts; they are the places that every experience happens." (p. 54)
Acknowledging and “befriending”
the sensory responses that we are
having in our bodies.
be body aware - connect to the
breath
Adeline
Classroom: managing your own situational stress. Helping students acknowledge and respond to theirs.
Flowing with the “muddying” waters…
walking, surfing, dancing, gardening,
Yoga, martial arts

16. “Cultivating Attention”
“Mindfulness helps us cultivate the balance patience, and attention we need to wade through the muck of mind chaos.” (p.58)
Adeline
Building attention muscles increases vigilance, and by cultivating presence builds neural connections that expands our capacity and open-heartedness.
Mindful Breathing
Student analogies: catching butterflies in a net, baseball - watching a ball come outside the swing zone...breath don’t swing!
Not lost on the waves...anchored and navigating skillfully!

17. “Cultivating Heartfulness”
Self-compassion. Embody compassion.
(Caring phrases.)
“With heartfulness practices we learn to support the happiness, kindness, gratitude, and other beneficial qualities we find inside while bringing a kind attention to difficult emotions such as anger, jealousy, fear and sadness.” (p.61)
Adeline
Happy baby, vs. screaming baby.
Open our hearts like we did in kindergarten. We tend to grow up to armour our hearts which can leave us feeling discosnnected.
High school: kindness is cheesy. (Open up vulnerability - creates a sense of courage.)
We must melt our inner armour...when we run up against self-judgement, shame, self-limiting beliefs….learn to hold that crying inner child.
May you be...happy, safe, healthy, peaceful.

18. “Cultivating Interconnectedness”
“From the great gears of the universe turning in tandem to molecules in our bodies swirling in perfect symbioses, we have proof everywhere of the underlying interdependence of all things.” (p.67)
Move attention between the breath, and outside sounds. Notice simultaneous sensations, thoughts, smells, emotions.
Adeline
humans cannot exist without each other...students cannot exist without teachers.

19. Also...
Cultivate Emotional Intelligence (Projections & Mindfulness)
Cultivate Mindful Communication
“Remember as we move through this book that the foundation for teaching mindfully is always our own mindfulness practice.” (p.86)
Adeline
EI:
AHA: Teacher training takes months, if not years. NNEC teachers who have taken mindfulness course not engaging.
Students are highly attuned to us...we must cultivate our own healthiness.
MC:
ground self in authetic presence.
statements and behaviours effect students.
midful listening and carefeull attention to those around you will improve your own experiences.

20. Cultivating Attention
Watch video -

21. The Mindful Classroom -Qualities of a Mindful Teacher
-Essential Ingredients of a Mindful Classroom
-Working with Diversity and Inclusion
-Working with Stress and Trauma
-Working with Different Age Groups
Brooke
This is the chapter overview...

22. Qualities of a Mindful Teacher
compassion
understanding
boundaries
attention
intention
authenticity
The Mindful classroom chapter explores how to use the foundation of our own mindfulness to build a classroom environment conducive to mindful to mindful teaching.
The chapter begins with a description about the qualities of a mindful teacher. Again it is reiterated that when you continue to practice mindfulness on a regular basis that these states of compassion, attention and authenticity become enduring traits.
The Heartfulness practice we just completed can cultivate compassion toward our students and ourselves. When we can find our compassion we can respond to a child’s needs more skillfully.
Understanding - We learn to look more deeply at ourselves with mindfulness practice. As we see ourselves more deeply we begin to see how we make assumptions and judgments. When we become more aware of this we it opens our hearts and creates a safe, caring environment.
Boundaries - We need to create and model respectful boundaries in the classroom to create trust and safety
Attention - Daniel alludes to students with ADHD and when in fact we slow down ourselves and pay attention to the students needs it is more successful for both the student and teacher.
Intention - are essential and when we learn to be flexible with change we can support our students and the class as a whole from moment to moment. We we teach from expectations, we are bound, and miss opportunities to contribute to the lives of our students. Example of this - when you are canoeing down a river, it is crucial to focus on where you are headed. You hold the intention of going in that direction. The nature of the river is that you will turn many directions before you reach your desired spot. You need to adapt and be flexible. Just like in the classroom.
Authenticity - Teachers who are being themselves are the most inspiring

23. Essential Ingredients of a Mindful Classroom
Mindful Mornings
Scheduling Mindful Moments
Peace Corner
Using Mindfulness Language
Making Agreements
Council Practice
Taking Care of the Teachers
“Mindfulness is always optional”
(p. 101)
“Following are some recommendations on how to incorporate mindfulness into your school to cultivate an environment that is conducive to inner connectedness, emotional health, and social fluency.” (p. 95)
Daniel suggests for the greatest effect we want the whole school to practise together.
He suggests to begin the day with a mindful activity. If you can find a group to sit with you can try the heartfulness practice and send kind wishes to yourself and others.
Scheduling mindful moments at the beginning of the day is essential for creating a safe, attentive environment. It can take on many different forms such as: a minute silence, listening practice, breathing practice, or movements. This can be the opportunity to have a talking object (stick, ball, dinky, significant object) and hand around the room.
Peace corner - I love this idea! It can be a dedicated space in the room. You can have objects in this space like music, mini-spheres etc. It is important to not confuse this with a place you send students but rather a place students can self refer to.
Using Mindful Language - building a mindfulness vocabulary within the classroom is important so they can learn the language of their sensation, emotions, and thoughts.Students will quickly learn what is to put on a mindful body, and become aware of the space around them, anchor breath, and language about how the brain works
Making Agreements - I always do this with my class to identify common values. Together, as a class, we set rules for the classroom to create a safe space. Of course some rules are not up for debate but having students involved in the process and offering explanations for the rules creates a relaxed and happy place. Another example: when I implemented the restorative approach in my classroom for the first time I spent a lot of time building a community of trust in the room. We began by establishing group norms. We passed around a talking stick and each student commented on what they felt was an important rule for the group. Each day we began by reviewing the group norms.
Council practice - to create this space, the classroom chairs can be arranged in a circle. Use a talking piece for consistenmcy of one person speaking and everyone else listening. To initiate conversation a question, story, quote is used. In the picture on slide is my classroom. These is the new look. We transformed our room in late may. We begin the day by students sitting in a circle. We check in, talk about the lesson and then go into “work stations.” This is the work station look. At the end of class we place the chairs back and circle and close with a community circle. This may be a sharing of something new you learned that day. My AHA moment is reading this exact part of the book when I can relate to the book and my own experience with community circle. The amount of caring for one another in the room changed dramatically with this change. Students respected each other and didn’t make assumptions or judgements of others. Exactly what the research and this book indicates! :)))))))
Most importantly - Taking Care of Teachers - teachers need to take care of themselves first. Practice mindful moments daily.

24. Working with Diversity and Inclusion
“ You can never assume that you know what lies in the inner world of a child. When you are genuinely interested in who your students are, they can feel it. They can sense that someone cares.”
(p. 109)
Daniel begins this section by talking about how a teacher dealt with a difficult conversation with his class about the Sandyhook Elementary School shooting tragedy. The class was feeling many emotions and they felt much anger and pain. Patrick let the students share their feelings and did not close the door on their emotions. Instead, he opened a door into the truth of each student's inner world. Mindfulness can lead to understanding, which can lead to compassion, which can lead to empathetic action.
“Examining the effects of an impoverished upbringing as compared to an affluent one is one of the greatest predictors of achievement. When we look at the amount of poverty and disparity in our system we can’t help but have heavy hearts. Once we are aware of privilege and discrimination we can gain greater understanding of the dynamics in our communities and work toward equity.”
Some pointers: Get interested and do some research about the cultures and populations you are working with. Invest time in your students and this is the best way to gain knowledge about who they are and how they live their lives.
Cultural and religious traditions have different ways they view emotions. Be mindful of this.
Offering opportunites to explore culture and family history. Help student’s learn about each other and respect diversity.

25. Working with Stress and Trauma
Stephan Cope quotes:
“In Trauma, the body’s alarm systems turn on and then never quite turn off. And we experience the intense suffering of never truly feeling relaxed, at ease in life, always intensely on guard, with the primitive brain constantly scanning for threat or opportunity. Our inner sentry is always on watch”
(Overcoming Trauma through Yoga, p. 116)
“Research on trauma, neglect, and abuse have given us a window into their tragic effects on the brain, on gene expression, and into the patterns that those suffering from them develop over a lifetime. The Adverse Childhood Experience study has shown how difficult early childhood experiences set a path for obesity, drug use, criminality, and other destructive behaviors. The ACE Study also showed that as the ACE score increased the number of risk factors for the leading causes of death decreased. Thus, persons with high ACE scores are later at much higher risk for health and medical conditions resulting from their choice of remedies for their pain. “ (p. 115)
“Kids need to know what to do with toxic stress. Instead of trying to stop unhealthy habits we need to offer healthy alternatives. Love, care, and attention, even children in the most terrible environments can grow up resilient and healthy.
Trauma can distance us from the moment and can turn us from our emotions and difficult sensations. How does Mindfulness help? It can return us to our present moment, bringing the attention back to our emotions and experiences. When we don’t teach our children our children the inner resources to meet difficult experiences or give them appropriate methods to release trauma, they carry it into their bodies and inflict this pain on either themselves or the world around them.
Some pointers:
develop strong networks in the school such as social workers, psychologists and local agencies.

26. Working with Different Age Groups
Mindfulness Practices for:
Grades K-2
Grades 3-5
Grades 6-8
Grades 9-12
The book offers suggestions for mindful practice, mindful implementation and pointers for each grade level. The stages are broken down to provide you with a better idea of what is generally appropriate for each grade level.

27. Mindful Eating
Karen
Eating an orange in silence activity

28. Mindful Education Curriculum
-Introducing Mindfulness to Students
-The Layout of the Mindfulness Lesson
-Mindfulness Based Curriculum
Embodiment Lessons
Attention Lessons
Heartfulness Lessons
Interconnection Lessons
Integration Exercises
-Heartfulness Sends Out
Trevor

29. Introducing Mindfulness to Students
It is important to treat the material differently than you would a usual lesson.
Set up of room.
Ask students to discuss what they have heard about mindfulness.
Talk about the benefits of mindfulness.
you do not want students to see it as another course to stress out about. If you push students into mindfulness you risk turning it to indoctrination.
Set up the room so everyone is in a circle which is more conducive to a sense of equality and openness. Also, you want the room to feel safe so try to arrange a situation where people from outside can not see in or hear. They suggest letting students that do not want to participate sit off to the side.

30. Layout of the Mindfulness Lesson
Opening Mindful Moment
Check-in and Report Back
New Lesson Introduction
Practice
Sharing/Council
Journaling
World Discovery
Closing Mindful Moment
Can be integrated into everyday class structures, but it is helpful to give an extended period of time when first introducing the topic. 15 mins for elementary and an hour for middle/high school students.
Opening
Can be a lesson that was previously taught (good openings would be mindful listening, anchor breath.)
Check in and report back
Once students experience some lessons, use this time to get the students to think about how they have been using them in their everyday life.
New Lesson
SImply introduce the lesson but it is important not to tell the students what they experience will be like, but set up the lesson as an exploration.
Practice
Allow students to practice the lesson
Sharing/Council
Allow students time to share how the experience unfolded for them. Whole group or small groups.
Journaling
Helpful to allow students time to reflect in their journals. Younger students can draw while older students can write.
World Discovery
Suggest ways to explore the theme of the day in daily life.
Closing
Short mindfulness practice.

31. Mindfulness Based Curriculum
16 Lessons are presented in a specific progression because some lessons are better used before others.
Embodiment Lessons
Focused Attention Lessons
Heartfulness Lessons
Interconnection Lessons
Integration Exercises
Each lesson consists of learning objectives, how to prepare, things to remember, sample scripts, ideas to get dialogue started, journaling prompts, ideas for world discovery activities and finally, age and stage (how to do the activity with grades K-5 and 6-12 for example).
Embodiment- Start with this so we can gain the language of our physical sensations and students can feel safe and secure in their bodies.
Focused Attention- Once the language is there, we start to cultivate their attention with work on breath and sound to stabilize attention for example.
Heartfulness- Next step is to teach students how to identify and feel emotions in their bodies. Students learn to regulate difficult emotions by bringing kind awareness to to these feelings and strengthen beneficial emotions.
Interconnection- Once students become mindful of their bodies, minds and hearts, they can integrate awareness into everyday life.
Integration- Three exercises that help you discover what you have to offer and what is needed.
Day 1 looking at what your passions, personal strengths and life tools are by asking three questions that you meditate on for an hour.
Wait a day
Day 2 where you look at the needs of the communities you are involved in. Again there are questions that you answer by writing them down. (Family, Friends and community)
Day 3 is where you put the first two exercises together and see what links can be made between your resources and the needs that your world has.

32. Heartfulness Send Out
“Strive to open your heart, open your mind, and be fully present in your body. There is no religion to this; it doesn't even need to be called mindfulness. This is about kindness, insight, and taking responsibility or our lives. This is about falling in love with life exactly as it is.” (p. 282)

33. Connections “See the student on the inside.” Guest Speakers:
Karen Jacobson suggests that we need to incorporate caring into Mindfulness, and that only those who are interested should go ahead with it - so does D. Rechtschaffen.
Jennifer Simms cautions against blanket implementation & the need for individualizing the implementation.
Science vs. Spirituality?
Layout of class
“ we can use our mindfulness to see the student within the student. Instead of looking at his or her external actions, we can keep our committment to looking more deeply at the child who is acting out in fear, aggression, or pain” (p. 90) - this relates to the article I read about “The Deeper teachings of Mindfulness Based Interventions as a Reconstruction of Education because we need to value the “in here” moments as much as the “out there.” Students are told to pay attention a million times in school but rarely are they taught how.
“Mindfulness Without Borders” - page 280. Ambassador Council. (restorative-like roots.) Emphasis on Heartfullness.
Disregard of spiritual - “mindfulness” does not belong to anyone! “These universal practices have been cultivated throughout millenia - or, we may say, they have cultivated us.” (p. 37) Strong emphasis on science (neuroscience and developmental psychology) measurable stress symptoms reduced with MSBR, neuroplasticity, psychological intervention for mental health, increase auditory focus,
Our class has a lot of similarities with how the book lays out a mindfulness lesson. Both have opening mindful moments with a check in and report back. We go over the new lessons and practice then share. We are using a journal to reflect on our experiences. At the end of the class we have a closing mindful moment.

34. Further Questions
When do we know we are “ready”? Is it OK to grow along-side the students?
Can we bring Mindfulness as a staff-wellness initiative?
3. How can we help those looking for authentic training to know what that
might be, and how do we train those who want to deliver it?
With the recent push for more literacy and math initiatives by our province, can we effectively introduce mindfulness in our schools? Is this the right time?

35. Reference
Rechtschaffen, D. J. (2014). The way of mindful education: Cultivating well-being in teachers and students. New York, NY: Norton.