Mindful Schools - Engaging children. Supporting educators. Transforming schools. A Mindfulness Curriculum for Adolescents. How To Teach The Relaxation Response. Tips for Teaching Mindfulness to Kids. How can we build the quality of mindfulness in our children, our classrooms, and our schools?
The Oakland-based Mindful Schools program, of which I am a co-founder and co-director, teaches children in public and private elementary, middle, and high schools how to be more mindful of their thoughts and actions. As of the fall of 2009, Mindful Schools had brought our five-week in-class mindfulness training to over 7,000 children in 26 schools, 22 of which serve low-income children. The program is secular, extremely cost-effective, and uses short, interactive exercises that are tailored for children. Both quantitative and qualitative responses from teachers, principals, and students have indicated that our program greatly improves the classroom and the overall school environment. Purpose. Have your own mindfulness practice. Choose a time for mindfulness. Create the environment. Get the students involved. You share. They share. Practice every day! 1. 2. Teachers Guide. By Dr.
Amy Saltzman Download this guide as a .pdf or a Word .doc. What Is Mindfulness? This brief document provides a working definition of mindfulness, an overview of the scientific rationale for offering mindfulness to children and adolescents, a review of the professional and personal benefits of practicing mindfulness, specific suggestions for developing your own mindfulness practice (which is a prerequisite to sharing mindfulness with your students), and two examples of practices you can use in your classroom.
While there are many definitions of mindfulness, the definition I use with children and adolescents is: Mindfulness is paying attention to your life, here and now, with kindness and curiosity. As human beings we have the unique capacity to pay attention to/be aware of our internal and external worlds and the interactions between the two. Why Is Mindfulness Important? Stress and Learning As a classroom teacher, you already know that many of your students are stressed.
How To Start a Meditation Program in Your School. Middle school teacher Rose Ludwig rings the bell to begin Quiet Time, a daily program of silence and optional meditation for students.
Quiet Time (QT) is a program of mandatory quietude and optional meditation that happens schoolwide, twice a day at Visitacion Valley Middle School (VVMS) in San Francisco. It was implemented by the Center for Wellness and Achievement in Education (CWAE), a San Francisco nonprofit organization that is a national leader of whole-school implementation of QT. Here are some of the pieces that needed to come into place for QT to run and succeed at VVMS as well as tips for how you can get started and trained. Setup and Process To ensure success, the setup is critical. A good duration for QT in middle school is 15 minutes. The first bell at the beginning of minute zero signals the start of QT. Requirements for Success For a program like QT to succeed, space, time, training, and resources are required. How to Get Trained in Meditation Pitfalls to Avoid. Resources & Downloads for Meditation in Schools.
Educators from Visitacion Valley Middle School, in San Francisco, have provided these resources for you to use in your school.
All students at this urban middle school participate in a daily program of quietude and optional meditation (left). Trainer Noah Schechtman (right) explains how the benefits of meditation can help students achieve their goals. Credit: Daniel Jarvis Resources on This Page: Tips for downloading: PDF files can be viewed on a wide variety of platforms -- both as a browser plug-in or a stand-alone application -- with Adobe's free Acrobat Reader program. Click on any link below to view or download that file. Documents to Help You Get Started Back to Top Additional Resources on the Web School Meditation Programs Guidelines to Lead Meditation Resources for Learning Meditation * Transcendental Meditation® and TM® are registered or common law trademarks and are used under sublicense. What do you think about this Schools That Work story? Infographic: Meditation in Schools Across America.