MINDFULNESS IN EDUCATION
“The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over
again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will . . . An education which
should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.”
William James, 1890
Introduction
There is a growing global momentum in the field of mindfulness in education.
Schools in many different countries are now integrating secular mindfulness
training into the classroom in order to facilitate academic as well as social and
emotional learning.
Placing this movement briefly in context, about 30 years ago Dr Jon KabatZinn, Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts
Medical Center, developed a course known as Mindfulness-Based Stress
Reduction (MBSR). This programme has become a successful mainstream
influence in medicine, psychology and corporate environments with extensive
research showing a range of benefits for adults in physical, mental and
emotional health.
With the benefits of mindfulness for adults being well recognized,
practitioners, therapists and educators have begun to enquire into whether
similar benefits might be available for children and teens. A number of
programmes have been established and implemented in various places in the
world, and although the research is still in its infancy, there is accumulating
data to suggest that mindfulness may facilitate a range of cognitive, social and
psychological benefits to students. These include improvements in:
- Academic skills
- Attention
- Working memory
- Social skills
- Emotional regulation
- Self-esteem.
Academic Skills and Attention
Essential to the effectiveness of the academic process, is whether a student is
available to learn. Is he or she in a calm and alert state, able to focus and
engage in learning?
We know that many children and teens today are increasingly struggling with
excessive stress. Over time, this may have negative effects on the
architecture of the developing brain. Stress can also trigger a reactive state
and impede optimal academic functioning.
Mindfulness training can help youth learn how to quieten their bodies and
minds so that they are able to develop stress resilience and move from a
reactive neurological state into a responsive one. This supports learning as
well as positive behaviour and overall health.
Students are often told to ‘pay attention’ but many find this challenging.
Mindfulness is essentially a skill of paying attention - intentionally sustaining
and shifting attention between various aspects of experience. Through this
training a student can develop ‘the muscle’ of both attention and choice learning how to let go of distraction and return to the object of focus. Overall
mindfulness has been shown to increase concentration as well as selfregulation of attention.
Stress Management
‘Fight, flight or freeze’ is the body’s automatic reaction to an actual or
perceived threat. It evolved to keep us safe from dangers like saber tooth
tigers but in today’s world is often likely to be activated over and over again by
paper tigers.
Through mindfulness training, youth can be taught to understand and become
directly aware of the physiological symptoms of stress. From a basis of
attunement, students can then learn techniques for calming the body and
mind. In this way, children and teens are able to take responsibility for selfcalming and develop an essential life skill.
They can also learn to recognize how stress can be fuelled by ruminative
thinking. Using awareness, they can recognize the unhelpful thinking,
‘unhook’ from it and shift attention to what is more helpful and supportive.
Again, this enables youth to make positive choices facilitating their own
mental well-being.
It is important that these skills are learned and practiced during times when
the stress response is not triggered so that they can be effectively applied
during stressful situations.
Social and Emotional Learning
Mindfulness enables students to tune into their interior world and develop
awareness and acceptance of their emotional experiences. They can learn to
recognize the physical sensations of emotion and develop skillful ways of
responding to difficult or intense emotions. In this way, students learn how to
emotionally self-regulate – to manage their feelings in healthy ways.
Understanding one’s own feelings paves the way for the development of
empathy as well as compassion. Some researchers are now suggesting that
emphasis on the development of self-esteem has resulted in a rise in
narcissism and a more helpful approach is to foster the growth of selfcompassion. Through being kind to ourselves we can also open into care for
others and this is at the heart of mindfulness training.
Impulse Control
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power
to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Viktor E. Frankl
Without mindfulness the space between stimulus and response can often go
unnoticed. When we function on ‘auto-pilot’ there is a tendency for a particular
stimulus to result in habitual reactive behaviour. For example, a child may
hear a negative comment and typically react with physical violence.
With mindfulness we develop greater awareness of our reaction and we can
learn to observe the reaction without acting out of it. So when the child hears
the comment, he (or she) can feel the anger in his body and catch the ‘about
to’ moment - that tiny moment when he feels the impulse to strike out. In that
gap, he is able to choose a response. For example, he may choose to anchor
himself through the breath or remove himself from the situation. In this way,
mindfulness facilitates skillful choice – allowing for less reactive behaviour and
promoting more thoughtful responses.
Overall Well-being
Contrary to what was once believed, we now know about neuroplasticity and
the principle “neurons that fire together, wire together” (Dr Donald Hebb).
What this means is that where you focus your attention stimulates the firing of
specific circuits in the brain and over time this will give rise to lasting change.
Through mindfulness, students can learn to voluntarily shift their attention
away from the negative and onto what is positive and uplifting in their lives. In
this way, they can gradually encourage the brain to grow a positive
architecture of mental well-being and resilience.
Informal and Formal Practice
There are many different ways of teaching mindfulness and most programmes
include a variety of informal and formal practices.
Informal practices refer to mindfulness in daily living and can include using the
breath and the five senses to bring awareness back into the present moment.
They also cover awareness of our interior experience of physical sensations,
feelings and thoughts.
Formal practice is also known as meditation and these practices are generally
very short. They enable students to develop the ‘muscle’ of attention and also
consciously choose the focus of attention. In modern times, there are many
distractions in life and attention can often be very fragmented. Meditation
practice allows for a gentle ‘gathering’ of attention and learning to settle into
what is happening here and now.
Meditation also exercises the ‘muscle’ of choice as it involves repeatedly
choosing to let go of distraction and returning to the object of the meditation
such as the breath. In this way, meditation can support a positive sense of
‘starting over’ without getting stuck in past mistakes.
Sometimes it is not possible to find a sense of peacefulness in the outside
world – but meditation can open up an interior sanctuary – which is always
available.
Conclusion: Mindfulness as a Life Skill
A key potential benefit of mindfulness is that it facilitates a more empowered
place of choice – and it is through our choices that we create our lives. When
children and adolescents develop awareness of how they are thinking and
feeling in any given moment, an internal space can open up around their
experience, which may allow them to respond differently, or view their
experience with more balance.
In this way, mindfulness is a valuable life skill which research is showing to be
a feasible intervention with youth. The opportunity now exists to integrate
mindfulness training into educational settings for the long-term well being of
students.
 Fiona Gauntlett 2013