not suggesting that there is one correct response to this exercise—not everyone experiences the same feelings when placing his or her hand on his or her heart.) So, while we are focused on compassion, the term that more precisely reflects the spirit we are seeking to achieve in schools is heart centered. You will learn more about this in this book and will gain some experiences to deepen your understanding of both mindfulness and heart centeredness. In a compassionate, heart centered community, a spirit of cooperation helps develop the goodness and best in others and ourselves.
Education of the Heart Through Mindfulness
Remember the days before you taught, when you considered a teaching career, when you desired to teach to make a difference in the life of a student? Our wish for every teacher, staff member, and school leader who picks up this book is that the fire and passion that first drew you to teaching reignite. And that as you consciously address what students really need most in the moment, that you also feel more fulfilled. We see mindfulness as the vehicle to bring us back to authentic, foundational, and compassionate relationships—relationships that cultivate the gift of connectedness, being, and the goodness in all.
Why Mindfulness Practice?
Far too many children and adults carry an insurmountable weight of stress or past traumatic experiences that can negatively impact the way that they interact, learn, teach, lead, and live (Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, 2014). Mindfulness is an organic, practical, and accessible life tool that they can use to calm the mind and body and counteract the high levels of stress and trauma associated with school, work, and life. To be mindful is to be aware, to be sensitive to oneself, to how others are feeling and behaving, and to one’s environment. Mindfulness is also about balance or equanimity—the feeling of ease, calm, acceptance, and nonreaction in that same particular moment of awareness. Mindfulness is the opposite of absentmindedness. When we are absentminded, we are distracted in thought and inattentive to what is before us. When we are mindful, we take care—we are not careless or neglectful. When we are mindful, we consider the well-being of others, ourselves, and our world, the greater good, the needs of the planet, the best course of action for preserving the environment, and the impact on children and others.
Cultivating an environment where we are mindful—where students, and the teachers on whom they depend, can focus and flourish—requires staff who have an ecological perspective. That perspective is one where teachers develop a keen awareness of the factors that affect themselves and their students inside and outside of school. Professor and stress-reduction expert Jon Kabat-Zinn (2003) says that such awareness “emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (p. 143). Such awareness or mindfulness involves turning inward to be more aware of self; being more observant of the external world; and having a greater awareness of self and others in various situations. Being mindful is to put in place the practices and strategies that create an environment where students and staff “wake into a day in which there is a possibility of grace, of being ‘gifted,’ of being surprised” (Jackson, 2011, p. 35) and of learning instead of waking into a day of stress or hopelessness (Whyte, 2002).
Mindfulness is enhanced through a range of activities that elicit greater awareness of one’s environment, awareness of experiences, awareness of breath, and awareness of emotions and how one is feeling. The use of activities that generate mindfulness in schools is growing rapidly (Felver et al., 2016). A meta-analysis of twelve databases of research conducted on the effectiveness of mindfulness activities in schools makes apparent the accumulating evidence of the popularity of these activities (Zenner, Herrnleben-Kurz, & Walach, 2014). Mindful attention to self and others is a powerful first step to creating schools that are more responsive to the needs of students and to our own needs. With mindfulness, you can become the change you seek in your school community. Through developing a greater sense of calm and living life moment by moment on a deeper level, you can reduce stress and see the possibility of experiencing greater joy, insight, and understanding.
Why Is Mindfulness Important to Combating Trauma and Stress?
While mindfulness is an important component in improving well-being for all children and adults (Farrell & Barrett, 2007), it has particular significance for those who experienced trauma (Fischer, 2017). One of every four children experiences a trauma before the age of four. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2014) reports that many children live in a culture of violence, bullying, and trauma. And if children live with poverty, if children live in neighborhoods of high crime, if children experience racism and discrimination, the frequency and severity of their trauma will be even greater. Paul Gilbert (2009), the founder of compassion-focused therapy, describes the extent of harm that children experience: “Individuals subjected to early [traumatic] experiences can become highly sensitive to threats of rejection or criticism from the outside world and can quickly become self-attacking; they experience both their external and internal worlds as easily turning hostile” (p. 199). Children who are ashamed often “use a cold, bullying or aggressive inner tone to try to change their thoughts and behaviors” (Gilbert, 2009, p. 203). They often experience difficulties with learning, attention, memory, self-esteem, decision making, communication, fear, and impulsive behavior.
Through mindfulness practice, we can help build stronger connections between the areas of the brain that stress and traumatic experiences have compromised. Mindfulness helps to slow down reactivity and increase body awareness. It can contribute to greater emotional regulation and help us cope more easily with life’s frustrations, setbacks, and relationship challenges (Siegel, 2010a). When considering the trauma children face and the impact of poverty and neighborhoods of violence, the importance of being more responsive to the needs of our students is obvious. Developing a greater awareness, understanding, and compassionate response to children’s suffering is essential. In essence, we might be able to achieve greater compassion and greater academic gains if we pay more attention to what our hearts tell us. As Rollin McCraty (2015) indicates in Science of the Heart, Volume 2:
The heart communicates to the brain in four major ways: neurologically (through the transmission of nerve impulses), biochemically (via hormones and neurotransmitters), biophysically (through pressure waves) and energetically (through electromagnetic field interactions)…. The heart-brain’s neural circuitry enables it to act independently of the cranial brain to learn, remember, make decisions and even feel and sense. (p. 3)
Rollin McCraty’s (2015) extensive research suggests that it may be worthwhile to pay attention to our hearts. When we focus solely on our intellectual understanding, we may miss out on important information that is readily available to us as it is processed at our heart level.
Why Should We Open Our Hearts Through Mindfulness Practice?
So, we are suggesting that you consider opening your heart, listening to your heart, and acting from a place that includes input from your heart—increasing your mindful awareness of what your heart is feeling. If you have ever felt that your heart was telling you one thing and your head another, you may understand the value of tuning into your heart. Mindfulness practices can help us increase our sensitivity to our feelings and help us make more balanced heart-head decisions.
We believe that to adequately prepare our students for college, career, and life, we must educate with both our minds and our hearts. Chapters 1 (page 13), 2 (page 21), and 3 (page 37) offer research to support this belief. However, before educators can open the minds of their students, they must open their hearts to understanding the magnitude of the stressors, trauma, and circumstances that
