Deep Dive
long(er) form reflections on mindfulness in education
"It is easy to forget that yoga is not simply about wrapping yourself up into a pretzel shape or performing amazing feats of athleticism. Rather, it is about tuning into our bodies and becoming more familiar with our internal states. This can prove to be especially challenging for middle school students who are so outwardly focused and engaged socially and with peers."
After completing a 9-week course in Mindfulness Education with Wise Minds. Big Hearts., this is what educators had to say.
"Neurons" connect through the synapses as new patterns of thought are formed!
When I told my teachers from Newburyport that it was not a requirement to start teaching mindfulness during the course, and that it was more important to me that they learn to teach mindfully than teach mindfulness, there was a palpable shift in the room. For some, this course is adding to their already deep understanding of mindfulness. But for others, it is beginning an investigation into something totally new.
It's true that you can teach mindfulness activities with no personal experience in mindfulness. You can buy curriculum online and faithfully implement each lesson. It's likely that students will benefit from this level of instruction. But what happens when the adults in the room start to look at themselves? When they start to recognize their own triggers and moments of reaction? When they connect with their deep joy and gratitude? This is when the work goes from being impactful to transformational.
Our first two days together were a blend of setting our own intentions, practicing mindful moments, learning about the field of mindfulness as it exists now, and engaging in activities that can hook students so they understand why we are paying attention to our breath or listening for the end of the bell. We reconnected with why we chose this profession and read from Parker Palmer's Courage to Teach. We explained mindfulness in our own words and put it into words that our kids could understand. And we practiced. What does a day feel like when we start first thing with a short meditation, transition with meditations, and end with meditation? How does creating that space around each activity give us permission to breathe? To reset? To adjust? To notice? When we can answer these questions for ourselves, as educators, we don't just intellectually get, but embody, the practice.
Educators thinking about the "predator" stressors in our lives to match with the actual predators that triggered the "fight, flight, freeze" response in our ancient ancestors.
Of course, real delight can come from learning about why our brains function as they do and how we can support healthy brain development. There is great benefit in giving students language around the structure and function of their brains, sharing with them about their ancient nervous systems, and teaching them about each of their senses. Some students buy in when they learn that athletes like Russell Wilson practice meditation, while others are interested in the research in the field. These are the "hooks" that can compel students (and adults) to commit to trying mindfulness.
For the next nine weeks, we will figure out which of these hooks we connect most with ourselves and believe will most impact our students. We will use them to introduce these ideas to our students and ask them to practice themselves. At the end of the day, as Jon Kabat-Zinn humorously shares, you don't eat the menu, you eat the food, to get the nutritional benefit. Likewise, it is not reading and learning about mindfulness that helps us understand, but practicing it, that will reap the rewards.
So most importantly, for the next nine weeks, we as educators will practice. Each day, we will look at ourselves to see what's there, in hopes that we can make peace with it and teach from our truest selves. It is only through this practice that we can mindfully teach mindfulness.
I am embarrassed to admit that Facebook tipped me off. In my memories section at the top of my news feed, there was a reminder that one year ago yesterday, I shared the seed of my mindfulness project: a cover page for the website. Just the words "wise minds. big hearts." and a "coming soon..." Now, as I read over my blog from the past year and reflect on the work I've done for so many amazing staff and students, I can't help dance a little dance in excitement. I'm doing it!
I partnered with 10 schools and organizations, served over 250 preschool, elementary, middle, and high school students and over 400 educators this past year with face-to-face programming around New England. I developed my own 1-2 hour, 6-week, 8-week, and 10-week curriculum for high school students, 1 and 2 hour workshops for teachers, and am currently developing a graduate-level course for teachers that I will teach this fall. I started a Maine Mindfulness Educators Network. I have written extensively about these experiences in hopes that others may be inspired to try it themselves. I attended my first 5-day and 10-day silent retreats and continue to educate myself with an MBSR course, a Difficult Emotions course, and countless hours reading the current research, theory, and practice in the field.
While it can be hard in our culture as a woman to say it, I will:
I am proud of the work I'm doing, dang it.
Now, I have found that doing the work I love means doing a lot of work that I don't love. I never set out to be a small business owner, but the only way I could pursue my passion for mindfulness in education in my beloved state of Maine was to strike out on my own and hope someone was interested. Running a small business has been incredibly challenging. It necessitates a level of business acumen: networking, planning, accounting, marketing, public speaking, and self management and motivation that teachers aren't trained for, and I certainly did not possess when I started this journey. I still have a tremendous amount of learning to do in this area, and find myself at a loss more often than I'd like. However, if I've learned anything this first year, it's that it's less about knowing how to do everything and more about knowing how to find the people who know what you don't know. I am so grateful to the Small Business Development Center at USM and Cori Holt with SCORE for supporting me in those areas.
In that same vein, I am grateful to those who introduced me to their friends and colleagues and those who invited me into their schools.
To the teacher who used her own time to write a grant to bring me, the staff who voted to have me come work with their kids after I ran a workshop for them, the assistant superintendent who unhesitatingly signed her district up for programming, and so many more individuals and organizations that see the value of this work and entrusted me to share it with them,
To my friend's who pitched me to their administration, those that field my mindfulness programming questions, and my partner who reads my blogs and emails to make sure they are intelligible to the rest of the world,
To the organizations who provided scholarships for my trainings,
I thank you.
I am not just proud of me, as I could not possibly have shared mindfulness with as many folks as I did this year without the help of countless individuals. I am proud of us.
Stories from the Field are small moments about how mindfulness impacts the students I work with (and in return, how they impact me), in hopes of capturing what it means to learn and use mindfulness. This story comes from Lila Yoga Studio in Portland, ME:
Finding tree pose during the story, Penelope and her Puppy Mind
After a year of working primarily with adolescents, I was both nervous and excited to match the energy of little ones in a Yoga and Mindfulness for Families offering at Lila Yoga studio. Just before 2:00pm on Sunday, 4-6 year olds raced in the door and immediately started grabbing eye pillows to toss into the air. After retrieving one that hit the fan and flew across the room, I managed to settle us down onto our mats, mamas behind the kiddos.
We started with a round of introductions, using an animal motion paired with our name to share out. The room was full of peregrine falcons, giraffes, and chipmunks by the time we made our way around the whole circle. I asked to raise their hand if they had a brain (most kiddos did), and told them we would be learning about our crazy brains.
Kids hold mountain pose as I tell them about Penelope's next move
I taught them how our minds are like puppies, and we have to train them so that they do what we want them to do. We went on an adventure together to help Penelope find her Puppy Mind, passing through cat pose, frog, boat, snake, tree, mountain, and airplane until we finally found Penelope's puppy mind at home. We trained her by putting one hand on our brain, one on our belly, and took 5 deep breaths together.
Next, we pulled brain fist models out of my box (literally just our fists) and learned about the different parts of the brain and their jobs. After that, we drew out brain maps in families, labeling the different parts of the brain and their primary function. Finally, we identified the part of the brain we were trying to train today (the PFC).
To train the PFC, we practiced listening to the sound of the bell, and then just the sound of the room. This helped us with our voluntary attention. Kiddos notice the sound of the wind in the trees, cars passing by outside, and other kids rustling in the studio.
After all this training, we blew off some steam by taking our yoga poses into action, crab walking, soaring, and hopping across the room.
We closed by mamas and kiddos cuddling up for a squeeze and release activity, followed by a filling the body with heavy red liquid activity.
One mama's reflection:
“I thought Erica really held the kids attention during the class. She a loving yet firm approach and the kids seemed to respond warmly to her. My son has looked at his brain map a few times since and we have practice putting one hand on our ‘PFC’ and one of the belly for five breaths. I love the mix up of movement, brain lesson, coloring and connection with mama at the end. What a fun way to introduce the monkey brain to the kiddos.”
1. Keep 'em moving. This means incorporating yoga, or breath and movement, throughout the practice.
2. Teach the brain structure. Nothing is cuter than hearing a 4-year-old say "a-myg-da-la." They can do it, just don't overload them with too many big ideas.
3. Make is a story. You can tell them, or you can take them on a journey.
4. Let them make it their own. Their favorite animals. Their animal walks across the room. Their tree pose may not look like yours, and that's okay.
5. Choose props carefully. They might have different ideas for their function.
Stories from the Field are small moments about how mindfulness impacts the students I work with (and in return, how they impact me), in hopes of capturing what it means to learn and use mindfulness. This story comes from a STEM high school in Portland, Maine:
When I started the semester with my students, I told them we were doing an experiment on ourselves. We would review the research, and look at the science, but ultimately it would be our own experience that determined the impact of mindfulness meditation on our well-being. As the semester comes to a close, it was time for them to draw some conclusions based on their experiences.
Least I seem a hypocrite, having in my last post spoken of the limitations of assessing mindfulness and yoga, I still believe there is value in examining the data we can collect, as long as we acknowledge there are some things we cannot measure.
At the beginning and end of this course, students anonymously took the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Healthy Regulation Scale (HRS). Each of these psychological measures have been vetted for test-retest reliability. I explained to the students that because the number of participants was low, the we would need to be careful about drawing hard conclusions, but I did notice when I compared student responses, it appeared that there had been overall change rather than one student's responses skewing the data.
I handed out graphs comparing the mean of the student responses from the pre- and post- test, and asked them to make statements or ask questions about what they found interesting. Students noticed that there was growth on every dimension, especially in feelings of control over their lives (Q2, Q7, Q9). One student remarked that she would have thought people would be more stressed out at the end of the trimester when they had a lot due, so she was surprised at the results. The average PSS score dropped from the "high perceived stress" category (27.3) to the "moderate perceived stress" 21.4.
Perceived Stress Scale
The Healthy Regulation Scale (HRS) also had some interesting implications, with student data suggested growth in eight out of the twelve dimensions. There were a few anomalies, however, that students made hypotheses about. First, students reported they had slightly less ability to bring their focus back when distracted (Q2). One girl thought this might be because they had different contexts for thinking about this question. In the beginning, they might have been thinking about during homework, whereas at the end, they might have thought about it in meditation. Another interesting finding was that students reported a slightly less peaceful attitude with themselves (Q5). Someone reflected that maybe it was because they had done enough meditation that they could see their foibles, but not enough to accept them. The greatest growth appeared to be on questions about having healthy ways to calm down and relax (Q10, Q12).
Healthy Regulation Scale
Because quantitative data can be limiting, students also had the opportunity to reflect in an open-ended format on their experience. In the end, we performed a loose mixed-methods experiment on ourselves. So yes, it's not perfect, and it provided a great way for students to get feedback on their investment into trying mindfulness this trimester.
Below is an unscientific summary of the findings:
Yoga and mindfulness are inherently internal processes, so when it comes to the end of a semester, and I have to assess whether or not my students are "on target" or not, I balk. I could assess whether or not they were there to practice on time and prepared each day. I could assess whether or not they could hold downward dog for five complete breaths. I could say if they kept their eyes closed for the full ten minutes of mindful meditation. This is all external evidence of their commitment to trying the practice (or at least trying to look like they are committed). But the real impact of yoga and mindfulness happen inside, often in subtle ways, over time. It looks different depending on each student.
Furthermore, teaching practices that inherently ask us to be nonjudgemental of ourselves, then turning around and smacking a grade on my students' ability to be nonjudgemental, feels ironic and antithetical.
Assessing yoga and mindfulness' efficacy is not just something I'm tasked with, but the community at large. But is it working? is a question researchers in the field are diligently trying to answer through self-reported stress perception scales, measurements of cortisol throughout the day, teacher behavior reports, GPA, etc. Show me the research! is a familiar battle cry in the world of education today. This is important. We don't want to be enacting policies that impact the lives of millions of children without evidence that these measures are going to support them. And yet...it's tricky.
For the student who has been failed out of each wellness class she's taken, who began the first half of the trimester in jeans for yoga, arriving 30 minutes late for class if at all, what does passing look like? What if, by the end of the semester, she came every day on-time in gym shorts and participated fully each time she was there? An amazing shift in behavior, to be sure, but can I find a standard this aligns to? Not really.
What about the student who I see threaten to beat up another student right after my class, but who writes, "Over the best semester, my flexibility improved greatly and so did my endurance. It was always awesome to start my day off with yoga, waking up my body and stretching everything out." Is that a success or failure?
Each time I stand before students, I teach a classroom full of individuals with their own histories, personalities, and mindsets. What success means for each of them, and what "efficacy" of the program means for each of them, may look entirely different. For one student, perhaps he continues to practice mindfulness even when he doesn't make it to school. For another, perhaps it's seeing patterns of behavior she didn't notice in herself before, even if she isn't in a place to change anything yet. These intangibles are incredibly difficult to capture at a quantitative measure for research purposes, and equally as challenging to grade at the individual level.
One of the greatest freedoms I have offered myself in teaching these skills and strategies is a release from an expected outcome (I wrote about the importance of Trust for Mindful Schools earlier this school year). If I expect my students to all behave like little peace warriors who mindfully decide to put their technology away without prompting and offer a compassionate ear whenever one is needed, I am bound to be disappointed. Even more problematic, I miss the nuance. I miss the subtle shifts in student well-being. I close the door on the possibility that they may more fully develop in a more equanimous direction long after they are under my instruction.
To use Portia Nelson's metaphor from "Autobiography in Five Short Chapters," perhaps they will fall in the same hole they have always fallen in right now, but at least be able to see it. And maybe some day down the line they will walk around it, or choose another street.
So I'll assign them a grade, because that's our system. We should continue the research into mindfulness to add to the picture of the potential benefits and drawbacks. But it is also up to me to make space for the subtler intangible shifts, that may occur now or in the future, because of the work we did together. I hope as we continue to look to research and evidence to inform our choices of school programs, we make space for the complexity of our humanity, and the myriad of ways our students and programs may be "successful."
Stories from the Field are small moments about how mindfulness impacts the students I work with (and in return, how they impact me), in hopes of capturing what it means to learn and use mindfulness. This story comes from a STEM high school in Portland, Maine:
Anger, fear, joy, disgust, and sadness from Inside out
I like Pixar's Inside Out as much as the next person. If I'm being honest, I probably like it way more than the next person. I use these characters to think about my emotions as harmless little muppets who I can comfort and soothe. I think the whole film gives us great insight into our mind. However, watching the movie just offers us a way of symbolizing, and even working with, them. It does not really give us a clear picture of what emotions actually are.
So take a minute to grab a pencil and paper. Write down the word "emotion." Then, write the definition.
How'd it go? We might we know emotions so well, but when it comes to defining them, things get muddy quickly.
Here's how the conversation with my high schoolers went on the first day we tackled this topic.
Me: Okay, so tell me what you wrote down as the definition of emotion.
Student: A feeling.
Me: Can you explain what you mean by feeling?
Student: Um...emotion?
Defining an "emotion" is incredibly challenging. It is not just hard for us laypeople, but even scientists are still hotly debating the issue. At article in The Atlantic titled, "Hard Feelings: Science's Struggle to Define Emotions" explores this difficulty. Joseph LeDoux, a professor of neuroscience and director of the Emotional Brain Institute at NYU, stated, "'It's been said that there are as many theories of emotions are there are emotion theorists.'" The field is still evolving, and what we believed to be true in the 1950s when scientists first turned their attention to emotions has been challenged repeatedly.
Carroll Izard compiled surveys from 34 emotional researchers and created this description:
“Emotion consists of neural circuits (that are at least partially dedicated), response systems, and a feeling state/process that motivates and organizes cognition and action. Emotion also provides information to the person experiencing it, and may include antecedent cognitive appraisals and ongoing cognition including an interpretation of its feeling state, expressions or social-communicative signals, and may motivate approach or avoidant behavior, exercise control/regulation of responses, and be social or relational in nature.”
Our response as a class: Huh?
Image from PNAS study
I asked the class to come up with our own personal, intelligible definition. We started by trying to understand the physiological component through a Mindful Schools exercise I have dubbed the "emotional vaccine." I spoke an emotion at a time and asked them to notice what sensations arose in their bodies. After three emotions, we would open our eyes and share out. While there was some consistency for what students reported out about their experiences— a swelling of the chest for "pride" or sinking in for "sadness"— there was also some diversity. For example, some students reported feeling anxiety in their heads and others in their bellies. We followed this by reading a study published in PNAS called "Bodily maps of emotions" that showed cross-cultural consistencies in body sensations in response to specific emotions. Then, we read the afore mentioned Atlantic article, which began with Paul Ekman's study demonstrating the universal correspondence of facial expressions to particular emotions.
Whether or not body sensations were universal still seemed up for debate from our experience, but we decided there is definitely a physiological component.
So it has something to do with physical sensations, but what else? This short video helped us understand where they might originate in the body:
From it, we learned, "emotions are the effect of...chemical messages traveling from our brain to our body." By adding the two together, and doing a little word smithing, my students came to consensus on this definition:
"It's so sterile to describe something so...you know?" one student remarked.
"I do know," I replied like the English teacher I once was, "that's what poetry is for."
Poetry and Pixar.
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