Mindfulness

Mindfulness with Children at CRA Conference

Presenter: Neena Barreto

Mindfulness is quite the buzz word at the moment but it is an ancient practice.

Mindfulness is something I am currently trying to incorporate in my life after learning from a friend earlier this year, that it can calm and lower anxiety for those who take the time to be mindful and present every day. I have been working on being more mindful since reading Mindfulness for Beginners and Mindful Parenting: Simple and Powerful Solutions for Raising Creative, Engaged, Happy Kids in Today’s Hectic World.  I tend to Go, Go, Go and I am attempting to be more present - live in the moment and just be when opportunities present themselves.

Attending the CRA conference and sitting in on the Mindfulness with Children breakout session given by Neena Barreto, I was again intrigued and motivated to refocus on becoming more mindful and present. Neena is an Elementary MIndfulness Coach at Pioneer Elementary School in the New Haven Unified School District. She has the opportunity to work with teachers and students on ways they can be mindful and present at school which then lends itself to how they can become more mindful at home.

In my opinion, mindfulness is something we should be teaching our students (and children). Edutopia does too:

However, before one can expect to teach students, we need to practice mindfulness ourselves.

It isn’t quite meditation Neena explained, “It is a way to be.”

“How do we do it?” Neena asked, “Pause,” she simply said.

Taking a pause and being aware of our emotions, accepting them and learning what to do with them, is how we can begin with mindfulness. From PBS Learning, Mindfulness: A Teacher’s Guide, it shares that mindfulness is “when we can attend to the breath, the body, thoughts, emotions, tastes, smells, sights, sounds, and our impulses and actions and their effects on others and our environment.”

We can begin with just a minute a day. No matter where we are, we can pause and notice our breath, how our body feels in a chair, how our hands are on the steering wheel and take a moment to pause, notice our body, breath, and how we are feeling.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, a Professor of Medicine Emeritus and creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, also explains mindfulness in this video:  What is MIndfulness?

Once we, ourselves, become more mindful, you may wonder, well, what does this look like in the classroom?

Here is a video clip of students meditating in Harlem and why they are choosing to do meditation in their schools. Harlem Students Cultivate Emotional Intelligence, Lead Each Other in Meditation.

According to a New York Times article, “Under Stress, Students in New York Schools Find Calm in Meditation”, it says that a mindfulness exercise may have students focus on their breath so that students learn the habit of calming themselves down and clearing their minds so that they can focus better.

If you too want to continue to understand and apply mindfulness in your life and in the classroom, there is resource that we can access - Mindful Schools. Mindful Schools offers online courses:

My New Year’s Resolution is to further my understanding and practice of mindfulness to slow down and be present more often.

How about you?

~Candace Whites