Why we need space for mindfulness in our schools

A friend recently shared a news report about a school community debating the teaching of mindfulness in the school, some thought it was a great idea whilst others did not want it shared with their children.

It was a fascinating piece to read.

I think perhaps there was a little of the fear of the unknown playing in the minds of some so perhaps there was room for further explanation and sharing of research to support the adopting of the practice. Who knows and it's not my place to be debating the rights and wrongs of that particular school issue but it did get me thinking about mindfulness in our schools and if there is a place.

Photo sourced from:
 http://sustainable.org.nz/sustainable-business-news/your-mind-at-work-is-mindfulness-good-for-business#.VCk1ifmSwyk

For me mindfulness is about being aware of our own thinking and bringing ourselves into the present moment so we can fully engage in what is happening right now rather than worrying over what has happened or might happen.

I am no expert in the field at all but I thought I would share some ideas that I have from my perspective as a parent and teacher. I have been thinking about why mindfulness is an important habit for our children to learn and then about how we could create opportunities for developing and practicing mindfulness in our busy school days.

Why focus on mindfulness in our schools? 

If our children are able to calm their minds and be 'in the moment' as it were then I see that it could lead to some positive outcomes such as:

• better stress management
• students could be better able to identify where they are having a difficulty and generate possible solutions or seek help in a timely fashion 
• improved concentration through avoiding distractions 
• encouraging better self management enabling students to respond rather than react to conflict or negative situations 
• more harmonious playground activity 
• enabling the teachers to concentrate on learning opportunities rather than behaviour management in the classroom meaning everyone gets a better deal

And the potential good news is not only for our children, their mental wellbeing and their learning... it has the potential to help teachers too! If we practice mindfulness with our students we could enhance our own health and wellbeing at the same time as creating a healthier, more harmonious working environment for our students, colleagues and families. There is a lot of evidence to support mental health benefits for adults with mindfulness. 

It is great to see some research being done in the field of mindfulness in education to support the practice and offer a road map for future progress in schools. Check out this link for one useful paper about the process written by Grant Rix  from NZ Mental Health Foundation with a focus on the NZ context. 

How to encourage mindfulness in our schools? 

There are a whole range of techniques that I believe could be used to enhance mindfulness, many of which are about calming down the chatter inside our minds. 

Here are a few that I have used in my own classrooms or for my own wellbeing, some of these may work better than others and I would be interested in your feedback: 

• breathing techniques- deep diaphragmatic breaths to calm the mind. I have used this with children who have anger control issues... when something happens and you feel angry before you do anything else move away and do 10 deep breaths where you focus on breathing in and out slowly then come and see someone. For more about breathing click here 
• relaxation- a mentor from my teachers college days took us through a muscle relaxation exercise which I know still helps me to relax my body and mind at times. Basically you lie on your back and systematically tense different parts of your body then release them starting from your toes and working your way up the body (so you scrunch your toes up tight and then release, do this two or three times then move into tensing up your feet and up the body). The focus is on feeling the tension release when you let go. 
• visualisation- when I have dozens of things spinning around in my head I sometimes need to stop, accept them then let them go and I have found visualisation really helpful. There are several that I use and have used with children as well, here are a couple. Imagine you have walked through a forest and you come to a deep clear pool in a clearing, it is warm and safe, around the pool are big round stones, as you pick each one up imagine something that is worrying you and write it on the stone, then let the stone drop into the water, watch it float to the bottom, you can pick that worry up any time you want but for now it can stay there. Another one is walking down a hallway with lots of doors and putting my worries or concerns into each door and shutting it before going through the end door where the room is empty. There is also the balloon idea, which can be done physically as well as in your mind, imagine blowing up a balloon, each breath you put in something that is worrying you, when it is full, tie it off and let it go, watch it float up into the air and away. 
• being grateful- I know that this seems to be creating more to think about but every so often, stopping and working out what I am grateful for right now helps to even things out and bring me back to reality when I am getting bogged down with negative thoughts.  
• having down time- if we are always moving from thing to thing to thing without finishing something off or having down time then there is no space for mindfulness... and it is stressful for our learners. We need to be able to wrap something up before shifting to the next thing. I do think that integrated learning helps create flow and seemlessness which makes the shifts and changes throughout the day more organic. I also think summarising our learning, reflecting on it if possible, before we move on can help create that space as well. 
• juggling- giving your brain a repetitive task that takes your focus and attention to complete helps to quieten the extraneous noise as well. I taught one class to juggle at the start of the year and they did really well, it was amazing how focused some students became. It works with other tasks like knitting. I found earlier this year making a pom pom with my little boy incredibly calming. It is about being present with that task however, rather than multitasking... in fact it can be an opportunity to practice letting thoughts come and go whilst staying focused on the task at hand. 
• yoga- in one class we would do 10 minutes of yoga every school morning before getting into
  
  maths, I used a children's book of yoga positions (Isabelle Koch- like a fish in water) and we would do 4 or 5 positions most days sometimes with music sometimes without. It was amazing the calmness that would descend over our classroom, for myself and the class. The focus was on breathing and moving slowly.  
• focus on our senses- mindful eating is one suggestion that comes up often, it is focusing on the whole experience of eating our food, smell, see, taste and even touch. When you go for a walk outside focusing on what you can see that you might not have seen before or what you can see, hear, smell right now can be helpful, it is all about bringing your attention to what is happening in the here and now. It amazes me with what my little boy notices when we are out and about that I haven't spotted. 

As an aside: I do wonder if when we start 'educating' children that we inadvertently unlearn their natural sense of mindfulness, if perhaps we create more internal 'chatter' or bring in more distractions (think about our classroom spaces for example, are they visually noisy?). Do we often demand that they focus on what we are wanting them to right now when they are actually fully engaged in something else? Might it be best for our children to adopt a mindful pace? This education isn't only what happens in classrooms either.

There is much to consider. I guess in my way of thinking I wish this wasn't something I had needed to learn (or perhaps relearn) as an adult and perhaps having opportunities for our children to practice mindfulness in our schools will help us all.

Links:

• http://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/newsletters/view/article/27/407/2012/ 
• http://teach-learn-lead.blogspot.com/2014/05/sing-your-song.html
• http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/like-a-fish-in-water-isabelle-koch/1112144111?ean=9780892817733
• http://teach-learn-lead.blogspot.com/2014/08/stimulating-or-visually-noisy-does-what.html

Getting going with growing!

It is spring time here and I have started vegetable gardening this season with the vision of slowly building up skill and hopefully crops over the coming months.

We are blessed with the space to create our garden but have decided to start small with raised plots so we can manage our plants better and experiment with mixed plantings and different soils. We have also refined our compost bin and have got seaweed breaking down for a homemade fertiliser (I am not sure what else my father did but I know he used seaweed and had the most amazing tasting tomatoes ever so we'll see if it was the seaweed in time)

We are growing some plant from seeds and have also purchased some seedlings. The seeds are doing really well at the moment (my father used to get me to strike seed for him as I was good at that bit but nuturing the seedlings as they harden off was where I used to struggle... I hope this time round I can manage to get our seeds past that delicate stage, if so we will have a bumper crop of pumpkins!)

As you can see I am getting quite inspired by this gardening thing. It seems to be the right time, place and space to get growing for a number of reasons:

1. Growing your own vegetables means you are better informed about what products have been used on and around them. This can impact on the flavour and potential health benefits. We are experimenting with using natural products and techniques (like spreading egg shell and wood ash around plants to ward off slugs) 
2. It gets me out of the house, away from the computer (unless I am looking up information about gardening!) and working with nature. It gives me a new place to let my mind wander or to practice mindfulness depending on what I am needing at the time. It improves health and wellbeing before we even get to eating!
3. Our little boy is building an understanding and appreciation of where food can come from. He is learning about nurturing the plants to help them grow. It is another way that he can contribute to our family and hopefully share with others too. 
4. It brings me closer to my dad. Dad was a great gardener and we always had a bounty of fresh vegetables from his garden which I never fully appreciated until recently. 
5. It brings our little family closer together. We are all involved in building up our garden and on good days we are all working together in and around the garden. I am looking forward to eating our food together too.    
6. It is cost effective, especially with the pumpkins I am growing as the seed came from a pumpkin we ate recently! As I learn to harvest seed from our plants this will be more so in coming years I hope. 
7. It is providing me with an opportunity to reuse/recycle/repurpose. We have used old trays to make square vegetable plots/beds. We have also used some trays and other wood off cuts to make a shelf/table for potting and seed raising. Plastic bags have been used to provide a warm cover for seed trays and also as a temporary fix for a couple of broken glass panes in the glasshouse. We have used my father's old drum for making our seaweed fertiliser in and are reusing one of his compost bins too. 
8. There are many small successes to celebrate on the way to getting something to eat out of the garden. Seeing a plot planted out, seeds coming up, plants growing, weeds abating a little... all the little things help to make you feel like you are achieving something and that is good for the soul. 

For all the reasons above and probably many more, I encourage any would be gardeners to give it a go. We are going with trial and error, using some companion planting and other methods to reduce pesticides (and for aesthetics too, putting marigolds in with the vegetable plots looks pretty). There is a wealth of information online and people in our communities with a wealth of knowledge too. 

If all you have is a small patch of ground that is OK, you might only have a window sill but wherever you are if you can and feel inspired to give it a go I say go for it... the outcomes of your efforts are healthy in a number of ways and potentially very delicious :)

Why teach writing in school?

Why do we teach writing in school? I've been thinking about this recently so tonight I am sharing some of my ponderings. At the same time it makes me wonder how often we really question why we teach what we teach every day but let's stick with the writing for now.

There are a lot of reasons we might teach writing, here are a few to start with: 

• to learn one way to develop, organise and/or clarify our thoughts
• to communicate with others
• to share our learning 
• to be able to actively participate in society... to have a voice
• to broaden our opportunities in the future 
• to show evidence of our learning 
• to exercise our creativity
• (to quote 'Mr Keating' from Dead Poets Society, to woo women?!?) 

It would appear that there are many good reasons for learning how to write which is great news, this gives us a huge range of options to create authentic purposes for writing. Authentic is the key word here. As adults, generally speaking, when we are writing we are doing it for a purpose and an audience. In classrooms it would seem to be more often an academic exercise and I am not sure that it needs to be. 

Let's think about some of what we may write in the world outside school and the audiences we might be thinking of as we write: 

• A shopping list- for ourselves or a person who is doing the shopping for us 
• An application- for a future employer perhaps 
• A book- for a particular demographic 
• A blog entry- for a particular demographic or mainly for yourself to clarify your thoughts
• A diary entry- for yourself, or for a family member in the future to read 
• A professional reflection- for yourself to improve your practice and/or an appraiser or critical friend 
• An email/letter- for the person you are writing to, perhaps a friend 
• A facebook post- for your friends or something for the general public 
• A report- for your employers, a stakeholder in a business, members of a community group/committee  

So in our classrooms if we are asking the children to write about a given topic for us, the teacher, is that modelling what writing is really about? I know we need to help our children to improve their writing to enable them to communicate more effectively (in writing) but the challenge is doing this in a meaningful way. We, their teachers, are not their only audience. 

As I said I have been thinking about this and here are some ideas that I came up with about possible contexts and audiences for our students, clearly it is just a start: 

• Writing to a local member of parliament about a community issue we are concerned about 
• Writing an application to take on a role in the classroom or school (perhaps a leadership role?) 
• Blogging for themselves or to share with friends/family members showing what they are learning about at school or in a particular project 
• Diary writing for themselves (I remember at a course many years ago hearing this advice to offer to students about free diary writing at school [may have been from Kelvin Smythe?]- just don't write anything you wouldn't want your parent/caregivers to read if they were to pick up the book) 
• Writing to the school board about an issue around the school or an idea to improve the school 
• Writing a story for another class in the school, or for school children overseas where they may have limited access to books and resources for learning to read 
• Reflecting on their own learning, what is going well, what they are working on- this could be for the teacher, for themselves, for parents/caregivers
• Writing for a school newsletter/newspaper/website to share what is happening in the school with the community 
• Writing a plan for a project- either for yourself or recording for a group of peers (it could be a shared document like a google doc) 
• Taking notes for yourself on a particular topic that you are learning about

Sometimes the context comes from other learning, such as a response to a drama we are engaged in where we may write 'in role'. We may feel compelled to record our thoughts in response to a text we have read or an issue we have been learning about. The opportunities are endless, and when our children notice these for themselves then perhaps we are on the right track to creating real writers.

A note about spelling and neatness before I close. When we write something for ourselves we need to be able to read it, so it needs to be legible and we need to understand it. However if we are writing for someone else we need to practice some empathy and understand that making it clear and easy to read is really important, we have conventions such as spelling to support this ease of reading. In my opinion spelling and neatness is about understanding context and audience. 

Context and audience are important considerations to create authentic learning opportunities and whilst we may see learning to write as an essential skill, having a good reason to do so is no less important. In fact, I'd argue that it is almost vital... when we have a good reason, we are far more likely to be motivated to participate in the learning and that is when the magic happens.   

This is a letter my three year old wrote to his nana when she was overseas... authentic contexts are everywhere

Politics- personality or policies and practice

At the moment we are in the final days of our national elections and like many people I have some opinions. One of them comes from some of the comments I have been seeing in social media and hearing in discussions around the place. Much of the discussion seems to be based on the personalities of the politicians, not their policies or practice. If we vote based on personality does that not lead to us being easily manipulated? I kind of think so and it concerns me hugely. As citizens our voice is in our vote and this should give our politicians a sense of accountability but if we are the easily manipulated masses who are just voting in a personality contest then we lose the power we have and give them licence to practice without concern for the voice of the people who have put them there in the first place.  

I have worked a lot with boards of community organisations, volunteers and schools. In one situation there was a charismatic person, well connected, a great storyteller, who was a brilliant wheeler and dealer and managed to avert a couple of potential crises although I am not entirely sure of how he did it. He had been with the organisation for significant time and was well liked. He moved on and was followed by almost his complete opposite. We were a little taken aback when first introduced to this quiet, serious gentleman who at times appeared to lack some confidence. While we didn't recognise it initially he offered us a lot. He was thoughtful, listened well and presented us with full information rather than the shiny version of what we might like to hear. He offered us options with a dispassionate analysis of potential outcomes. As it turned out he had a dry wit and was very kind and considerate on top of it all.  

Each of these gentlemen gave us something in their time, as most leaders do I believe. The point is if we only vote based on personality the second gentlemen in this example would never have had the opportunity, yet what he gave us was something the first person couldn't and he put us in a stronger more secure position than we had been in previously. 

That we have the right to vote here and that we have a range of options in our voting when so many do not have the freedom or opportunity to be heard means to me that we have a duty to vote consciously. I haven't always taken this privilege seriously but I do now. Do not be taken in by advertisements, they are not policy or representation of practice, they are cleverly created pieces of work made by people whose job it is to convince us to buy what they are selling... the ads are just marketing. Be mindful of the media and be aware of who you are listening to. I think that skepticism is a handy perspective to adopt when considering where you will put your vote. 

If you succeed and no-one sees you have you still succeeded...?

I read this quote the other day from Bradley J Sugars and as I have been teaching I have been thinking more and more about it... 

       A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more                                   than an hour of praise after success 

This has got me thinking about praise and success hence this question, if a person succeeds and there's no-one to praise them have they still succeeded? 

I guess firstly it is about how we define success. This is always an interesting conversation... what does success mean to you. I know some people who by many counts would be seen as successful and yet they don't see it themselves or feel that they haven't quite attained what they should have. Part of this might be that these people are committed goal setters and once they achieve one goal they already have their eyes on the next one? I also wonder if it is that success is really a personal thing and that it evolves and changes as our lives do. 

Success is defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose with synonyms like victory and triumph. 

I am all for celebrating the successes in our lives. Last year I had finally completed my PostGrad teaching qualification, I had been chipping away at it for a number of years whilst full time working, travelling a lot and having our little boy. When I finished I was hugely relieved and although I was studying by distance I chose to go to graduation... this was a moment for me, a public place where I had a private celebration of something significant for me personally.  

However, if we are only looking at the big victories at the end of a venture then we miss the opportunity to celebrate the learning from the journey. And sometimes when you are working through things encouragement is really helpful, I know it was for me as I was under pressure with my study and thinking of giving up. 

And this brings me to the question I asked earlier... do we always need someone praising us to know we have succeeded? It usually feels good to have people notice when we do something well but if we only feel success when others notice then we have created quite a difficult life for ourselves as our personal measure of success is externally defined not internally. We are relying on others for our sense of self worth. 

One of my pet bug bears as a teacher is when the children come to me and ask "have I finished yet?" My response is usually something like "I don't know, have you?" A question like this is indicative of a couple of things: 

1. they don't know why they are doing the work or what the expectations for the work are 
2. they don't know what they are capable of or what their best effort looks like
3. they have become dependent on others to define when their work is 'good enough'

I would prefer that they were coming to me asking "this is what I have done so far, I am not sure what a next step could be, can you help me?" or "I am feeling stuck, can I talk with you about this?"
This then opens an opportunity for me to provide support and encouragement and empower them to have ownership over their own efforts. 

We need to identify ways to help our students without debilitating their development of self management. Some of this comes back to what we do as teachers- making sure we are explicit about our expectations, that we co-construct learning outcomes or rubrics so they can self monitor with clear guidelines that are meaningful for them. A lot of this comes back to understanding our learners and what motivates them and then helping them to understand their own needs, interests and growing talents. We also need to help them identify when personal best is important and when it is OK to slacken off... we all have times when we give a little less than we could, perhaps we are tired, under stress, feeling sad or unwell, or just not interested in a particular topic at that particular time, but if we operated like this all the time our talents would still be hidden under their bushels and we wouldn't get much done. So we manage our time and energy, our students need to be able to learn to do this too, in fact I would like to think the people I work with will be better at it than I am so I can learn from them!  

And they need to experience failure along with success, it is an important part of developing a growth mindset, learning that the journey is important and valuing the learning along the way. If we tie our self esteem to success and victory alone then we are exposing ourselves to unnecessary vulnerability, especially if our measure of success is based on the reactions of others. Karen Boyes has written an excellent blog about embracing failure in learning that discusses this in depth and provides great food for thought as well as some useful tips to support learners in embracing failure. 

Here are just a few questions I am asking myself at the moment so I thought I would share them here too.

• What does success look like for you? 
• Do you celebrate your successes? If so how? How long does the good feeling last? 
• Do you ever celebrate failures? If so how? 
• Is there a difference better encouragement and praise? If so what is it? 

Links: 

Why is learning so scary- Karen Boyes- http://www.karentuiboyes.com/2014/09/why-is-learning-so-scary/

What would you do for a sticker- an earlier post- http://teach-learn-lead.blogspot.co.nz/2014/07/what-would-you-do-for-sticker-some.html