MINDFULNESS AND
EDUCATION
MINDFULNESS EDUCATION INITIATIVE
• Fall, 2009, group of individuals established an
interest group
• Purpose was to explore the implications of
increasing awareness and practices regarding
mindfulness, meditation, and the mind-body
connection among SCSU students, faculty and staff.
• Proposed a day-long mindfulness retreat during the
2010 Convocation.
THE MINDFUL TEACHER
• The most practical thing we can achieve in any
kind of work is insight into what is happening inside
of us as we do it. The more familiar we are with our
own inner terrain, the more surefooted our teaching
– and living – becomes.
• Parker Palmer
TYPOGRAPHY OF THE RESEARCH BASE
ON MINDFULNESS IN EDUCATION
• Cognitive Domain
• Mindful learning as state induced
• Mindfulness as a dispositional trait
• Mindful Abstractions to enhance transfer
• Social & Emotional Domain
• Teacher/student interactions
• Student-directed programs to enhance Social and
Emotional Learning
• Attentional Processes & Executive Functions Domain
• Special education – ADHD
• Attention processing
• Stress Reduction and Health Domain
MINDFULNESS AS STATE
• Based primarily on research by Ellen Langer, et al.
• Draws a distinction between “Mindless Learning”
and “Mindful Learning”
MINDLESS LEARNING
• Development of premature cognitive commitments
to facts without comprehending context: “… a rigid
belief that results from the mindless acceptance of
information as true”
• Arises from:
• Information that appears irrelevant, and is given in
• Absolute vs. conditional language by an
• Authority.
Ex: The three main reasons for the civil war were…
MINDFUL LEARNING
• Mindful learning is a state of mind which results from:
• Drawing novel distinctions
• Examining information from new perspectives
• And is sensitive to context
• Ex.: From the perspective of the white male living in the
“northern” states at the beginning of the Civil War, the main
reasons for the war were…
• “When we teach our students to hold everything
constant, we teach them to learn IF something is
true rather than WHEN something is true.”
MINDLESSNESS AS A SOCIAL ISSUE
(LANGER)
• “mindlessness can show up as the direct cause of
human error in complex situations, of prejudice and
stereotyping, and of the sensation of alternating
between anxiety and boredom that characterizes
many lives. Boredom and malaise, particularly, can
be thought of as conditions brought on by
mindlessness. Without noticing differences in the
passage of time within ourselves and the outside
world, each day looks like every other day. Students
feel stuck and listless in class. Teachers often absentmindedly slog through long-winded lectures and
sermons.”
PERKINS: MINDFULNESS AS TRAITS
AND HIGH-ROAD TRANSFER
• As a dispositional trait:
• Sensitivity (openness to looking closely and extracting new
information)
• Inclination (motivation to explore driven by interest and
ambiguity)
• Ability (skills to mindfully abstract information which can be
used in future situations/contexts – high-road transfer)
• Established in a “hot cognitive economy” classroom
• “”…where the costs of high-level thinking, risk taking and
mindfulness are low.”
MINDFUL ABSTRACTIONS
• “…mindful abstraction is the deliberate
identification of a principle, main idea, strategy or
procedure that is not tied to one specific problem
or situation, but could apply to many.”
• Ex; Learner Profile Plan (CEEP 361)
• Goal: Principles to Practice
• Daily Mindful Abstraction Log
TEACHER/STUDENT INTERACTIONS
• Teachers engaged in mindful practices enhanced:
• Collaborative teacher/student engagements around
problem solving
• Increased awareness of students’ misunderstandings
• Ex: Teaching standard deviation
• SUM
• SOME
• Students’ abilities to deal with anxiety and conflict
• Classroom practices which engaged the students’
mindfulness awareness and skills.