students find themselves.
This Is a Conscious Shift to Reach All Students
While we have provided many statistics regarding violence, poverty, and trauma, the approaches we recommend are for all classes, all students, all teachers, and all school leaders. Without a unified, schoolwide approach, we can anticipate fragmented results. It is simply inadequate to only teach compassion to the students who are bullied, or to those who bully. Also, at a societal level, our need is to deepen an understanding of and commitment to compassion at all levels, in all districts, with students from different walks of life. And the research-based strategies we recommend are effective across the board.
The stakes are high. When we look at the world at large, and at neighborhoods in the United States, we believe that the role of compassion and mindfulness is foundational, and that high-stakes assessments, while important, cannot be a sole driver to further our educational agenda. Despite the pervasive trauma, educators have the opportunity to help students heal and overcome the obstacles to happiness, success, and well-being that stress, trauma, and daily challenges create. Educators, with the nuanced approach we are recommending, can achieve the mission of reaching all students so they not only learn, but also experience a higher quality of life. With our intentional support, even students who are difficult to reach can experience basic opportunities that are at the core of our democracy—greater happiness, more justice, and more equity—and lead more productive and fulfilled lives. Educators, by first being aware, or mindful, can then implement strategies that could make substantial differences for many students. It might even be a matter of a few moments of consideration a day—a few moments of planning, greater expressions of caring, and extended compassion.
from the classroom
Caring can be demonstrated with small gestures of kindness or understanding such as a kind greeting or explanation of how students feel on a five-point scale or a simple journal prompt. In Lori Curtin’s first-grade classroom at Lee Elementary School, in Lee, Massachusetts, every day is a new beginning, with each first grader taking a turn as the morning greeter. These students stand alongside their teacher welcoming classmates with a smile, handshake, or high five.
When in the classroom, students follow a well-established and practiced routine: hanging their belongings, placing homework or notes from home into the teacher’s bin on her desk, standing in line patiently, or talking quietly at their desks. Exchanges are pleasant and respectful. Students then fill in a small writing prompt at their desks, much like a short journal: “On a scale of one to five, where one is very sad and five is very happy, I feel like a _______ this morning” or “Dear Ms. Curtin, I wish you knew _______.” This writing activity helps students identify how they are feeling and helps the teacher understand their feelings as well.
The short writing entry also helps alleviate any fear or anxiety that students may be feeling at that moment—maybe they didn’t eat breakfast, maybe their parents had an argument, or maybe something consistent changed to upset them. Whatever the reason, students can start their day aware of how they feel and move forward. At the same time, the teacher is alerted (through the student lens) to any concerns she should know about to help students through the day (L. Curtin, personal communication, May 2, 2017).
We Can Take a More Holistic and All-Encompassing Approach
To quote Peter A. Levine (2008), “As individuals, families, communities, and even nations, we have the capacity to learn how to heal and prevent much of the damage done by trauma.” All of us remember teachers who made a difference, teachers who elevated our sense of well-being. Educators will only optimize the learning success of children when they make this shift from a sole focus on academics and learning in academic environments to a more holistic, all-encompassing approach that also includes understanding the varied social-emotional and psychological needs of students in their classrooms and the trials they bear.
The approach we recommend has its roots in various cultural traditions, with individuals with mental health and medical concerns, and by organizations promoting healthy organizational climates that boost good health and well-being. For example, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (2014) describes the need to build trust before the work of healing trauma can begin. In Capacitar: Healing Trauma, Empowering Wellness, Joan Rebmann Condon and Patricia Mathes Cane (2011) address trauma through a multicultural approach that addresses body, mind, spirit, and emotions, discussing the need to heal the brain, heal the person, and heal the community. Physician, neuroscientist, and author David Servan-Schreiber (2013) discusses a need to reprogram the brain to adapt to the present rather than to continuously call up past experiences. Mindfulness facilitates that work, and part II (page 59) introduces those practices step by step. Servan-Schreiber (2013) also discusses an approach to reduce stress and help heal stress through creating more coherence between the brain and the heart.
Jon Kabat-Zinn (2003), creator and researcher of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, suggests that our thoughts, emotions, and life experiences influence our overall health and well-being. While Jon Kabat-Zinn and Thich Nhat Hanh (2013) acknowledge “there are few outright cures for chronic diseases or for stress-related disorders” (p. 199), they believe it is possible for people to heal themselves when they learn to live and work with conditions in the present, moment to moment. Specifically, their research, work, and practice of mindfulness demonstrate the moment-to-moment awareness of cultivating just being and how this heightened awareness can boost our immune system, help regulate our emotions when under stress, reduce our pain, increase our energy, and allow us greater peace, calm, and happiness. According to Kabat-Zinn and Hanh (2013), healing “implies the possibility that we can relate differently to illness, disability, even death, as we learn to see with eyes of wholeness” (p. 199).
One of the primary reasons we recommend focusing on healing in classrooms is the wide-ranging extent and prevalence of trauma. There is simply too much work to be done to rely on organizations outside of schools to take on a lion’s share of the work. Another simple reason is that the research continues to show that by addressing trauma and teaching mindfulness, we better situate students for learning and success (Bandura, 1991; Felver et al., 2015; Kauts & Sharma, 2009; Shunk & Ertmer, 2000; Zelazo & Lyons, 2012).
The students we are teaching will only focus and flourish when we meet them where they are, when we teach with a full realization of how to mindfully educate in a way that pulls each child into the excitement of learning and draws out his or her innate potential and confidence to learn. It isn’t so much about teaching academics as shifting our focus to teaching students—paying attention to what impacts learning and how to nurture students so they learn well.
We Can Support Teacher Health and Well-Being Through Mindfulness
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