Teachers typically begin the year with a broad idea of what children should know and understand. Whether it is Race to the Top, or No Child Left Behind, or any other phase of the month, students and teachers are often expected to successfully master, at least to minimum proficiency, a large quantity of content and skills. Sadly, quantity sometimes supersedes quality. What teachers model, students imitate. If teachers rapidly complete units with only a glance at the depth of understanding, this mindless approach will be mimicked in how students complete their work. Mindfulness, on the other hand, which may be considered more child-centered, aids in achieving the depth necessary for long-term mastery (Capel, 2012).
Mindfulness is a purposeful and metacognitive practice. It asks that individuals, in this case teachers and students, not only remain in the moment of teaching and learning, but also think about the lens through which their teaching and learning takes place (O’Donnell, 2015). To accomplish this, however, teachers in specific, and schools in general must create an environment where mindfulness is possible. While mindfulness assists in the well-being of the student, the focus is on learning and how learning fosters well-being (Frias, 2015 and LaRock, 2014).
The most phenomenal part of mindfulness is the result of purposeful engagement. Students feel better about themselves when a classroom and/or school allows them to escape from the other important components of their life, in order to be fully engrossed in the magic their own minds may create. Parents and teachers seem to attempt this in reverse. We try to make children feel better about school, instead of making them feel better as they school. When mindful teaching, working, exercising, art is employed, students bring their whole selves to the work at hand, and are consequently able to explore and expose new ways of being. I believe that the most innovative and effective teaching and learning experiences are where both teacher and student go away changed.
Capel, C. (2012) Mindlessness/mindfulness, classroom practices and quality of early childhood education: An auto‐ethnographic and intrinsic case research. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 29(6), pp.666 – 680 doi: 10.1108/02656711211245656
Frias, E. L. (2015). Mindfulness practitioners in the classroom: An exploration of lived experiences (Order No. 3689679). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text. (1679283923). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1679283923?accountid=458
LaRock, B. (2014). Mindfulness in K-12 education: Transforming students, schools, and educational leadership (Order No. 3582010). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text. (1655369554). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1655369554?accountid=458
O’Donnell, A. (2015). Contemplative pedagogy and mindfulness: Developing creative attention in an age of distraction. Journal of Philosophy of Education,49(2), 187.
