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Do you know what your children are being taught at school?
Low-Income Schools See Big Benefits in Teaching Mindfulness
On his first day teaching at Coronado Elementary School in Richmond, Calif., students threw rocks at Jean-Gabrielle Larochette, pretending he was a police officer. He spent fifteen minutes of every class calming down a handful of kids in this low-income-neighborhood public school who wouldn’t follow directions or behave.
Larochette began practicing meditation and mindfulness to cope with his own stresses of teaching and supporting traumatized kids. He believed the breathing techniques that helped calm his fears might work for his students too, so he founded the Mindful Life Project.
“Before we can teach a kid how to academically excel in school, we need to teach him how to have stillness, pay attention, stay on task, regulate, make good choices,” said Larochette. “We tell kids be quiet, calm yourself down, be still. We tell them all these things they need in the classroom, but we’re not teaching them how to do that.”
The project has since grown and is now being incorporated in a group of elementary schools in Richmond, in an attempt to improve academic performance and create a more positive school culture by teaching students mindfulness. Mindfulness is the ability to exist in the present moment and practicing it often looks like meditation. Schools across the country are beginning to use mindfulness as part of an effort to address the social and emotional needs of children, improving student achievement in the process.
“My hour of lost teaching time because of behavior problems went down to about 15 minutes a day –that meant almost a whole other day of teaching,” Larochette said. “I had to figure out what I could do to bring this to the rest of the schools in our area.”
Studies of mindfulness programs in schools have found that regular practice — even just a few minutes per day — improves student self-control and increases their classroom participation, respect for others, happiness, optimism, and self-acceptance levels. It can help reduce absenteeism and suspensions too. A mindfulness practice helps reduce activity in the amygdala, the brain’s emotional center responsible for fear and stress reactions.
“The other thing we know mindfulness does with the brain is it increases the activity in the prefrontal cortex,” said Vicki Zakrzewski, education director at the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center, which studies the science behind mindfulness. “This is where we make our decisions, how we plan, our abstract thinking,” she said.
Educators at Nystrom Elementary school in Richmond are seeing some of those positive effects in their students. “This year is much better,” said third-grade teacher Glenna Hamilton. “Last year, it was just horrible.” One of Hamilton’s most disruptive students became more respectful and responsible since he began receiving mindfulness training. “If he does something incorrect, instead of being argumentative with me, he really thinks about it and realizes, ‘I didn’t make a good choice,’ and I see him self-correcting,” she said.
Nystrom’s school culture has shifted since the student began mindfulness training, said Principal LeDonna Williams. Students now have a common language to use when they want to calm each other down and fewer students are being sent to her office. When a student does act up, Williams will sometimes ask them to practice mindfulness before she addresses the problem. “Then you see the little fists releasing and their temperament coming down and they’re willing to talk to you a little more candidly about what their issues are,” Williams said. “They use it, they really do and it’s nice to see that.”
COPING MECHANISM FOR TRAUMA
Many students at Nystrom directly know people who have been killed and others experience trauma secondhand from living in a violent neighborhood. In 2013, there were four homicides, 39 armed robberies and 47 assaults with a deadly weapon reported to the police in South Richmond.
“There’s a lot of grief and loss,” Williams said. “A lot of students experience violence on a daily basis, either in the home or in the community. And it’s coming out in their school work, in their interactions with other students, the climate of the school, it affects that.”
All the schools the Mindful Life Project works with have seen drops in detentions and referrals, said Larochette. At Nystrom, 18 kids accounted for 82 percent of the suspensions. At the beginning of their mindfulness training those kids were suspended 62 times in the first trimester. After three trimesters of mindfulness practice, that rate had dropped to 20.
“When we look at low-performing schools it’s not that these children are unable to learn, it’s that very often they are unavailable to learn,” said Madeline Kronenberg, a West Contra Costa County school board member. “They’re not able to focus; they’re so fixated on other things that are going on in their lives that it’s difficult for them to be able to find space for learning. Our job is to educate these kids and the way you educate them is that they need to be available to learn.”
At Nystrom, students report using mindfulness in a variety of situations. “When there are older kids, we were playing football and he hit me pretty hard on purpose,” said sixth-grader Tayshawn Newman. “We were going to get into a huge argument, and I just said, ‘Forget it.’ I took a deep breath and said, ‘Forget it.’” Another student reported that the mindfulness training makes him feel calmer and that he uses it when he feels like hitting someone. Another boy said he uses his mindfulness practice when he has trouble falling asleep.
Hear about individual students’ experiences with the Mindful Life Project
The mindfulness instructors understand that for many kids the ability to create inward calm is crucial when external quiet is hard to come by.
“The idea was to really create a grassroots movement,” said Larochette. “A movement that’s within, that stays within, that solidifies within and then meeting our kids when they get to middle school and high school and sustaining those opportunities and having a mindful life project instead of just mindfulness for eight to 10 weeks or a couple of years.”
The project is in the process of finalizing contracts with two of the biggest middle schools in the area. They hope mindfulness will follow elementary school graduates, helping them navigate middle school and eventually high school. Ultimately, Larochette would love to have high school mindfulness students come back to mentor younger students.
Check out what the Mindful Life Project looks like in action.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mary O on
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Hi Watchman, God bless you!
I don't believe in meditation, but I do think it's good to teach kids to take time to reflect and think. Sometimes kids don't have enough role models around. My grandkids visited this last weekend. Gary (husband) and I listened to nap time upstairs. It wasn't happening. They were into business. Their tired parents sent all of them downstairs to Gary and me. In our house, we have what we call the train. The couch has three cushions. You sit there, you sit there and you sit there. Stay awake don't go to sleep. This is quiet time. We didn't want to hear a peep. :-) Ana said, "Wait a minute, you want us to stay awake?" Yeah, just lay back and relax. They were all quiet. Later when their parents came downstairs after their nap, they asked us what we did. They're so quiet, what did you do! The train is just a little quiet time out. Their kids can sit quietly for about 20 minutes. They range in age from 2-7 years old. I couldn't believe the 2 year old could sit quietly that long. We put him in the middle and the other two were like quiet anchors. He just watched them and did what they did. Grandparents can have a good and quieting influence on the grandkids.
Love,
Mary
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Permalink Reply by thewatchman on
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Hi Mary,
That sounds very sweet w/your grandbabies. I do believe you're right about Grandparents having a wise and positive influence in the lives of those children.
On the topic of this discussion tho, this is something entirely different. If you'll watch the video at the end of the article, it talks about yoga for these children. As a Christian & mother, I would be extremely disturbed by this "mindful meditation". They have taken everything Godly out of schools and are now replacing God with something else.... I think that it's vitally important to be aware of these modern/new age influences.
It's just another brand of indoctrinating this generation into a new world system without a Godly influence.
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Here is an excerpt from what is taking place:
Susan Kaiser Greenland, author of The Mindful Child, has been teaching mindfulness and promoting it in inner city schools through her foundation, Inner Kids Foundation. In an interview, Greenland said this about the link of mindfulness to Buddhism:
"The Buddhist foundations/applications of the secular mindfulness work can be a great strength rather than an Achilles heel if reframed as a well-established, evidence based training protocol shown to reduce stress, improve immune function, develop executive function and attention with measurable results when it comes to changes not just in the health and wellness of the individual but also in the likelihood of an individual who has undergone that training in engaging in social, compassionate action." (http://urbanmindfulness.org/2011/10/mindfulness-with-children-an-in...).
She acknowledges that Buddhism is the foundation of mindfulness, but implies that if mindfulness can be "reframed" using terms related to mental health and stress reduction, then the messy religion issue can be circumvented.http://christiananswersforthenewage.org/AboutCANA_Background.html
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I don't like yoga either. IMO, it has some spirits attached to it.
A book that I'm reading (that I haven't finished and made up my mind about it) talks about how we can put God out of our lives. He's out of our schools, He's out of our government. Israel did that, and when the elders went to inquire of God by Ezekiel, God said...I will not be inquired of by you. That verse had never caught my attention before. Anyway, our kids need God and the Bible.
My granddaughter is old enough to understand and we talked about Jesus this last weekend. I was thinking...God, this is so great. :-) I just had to share that.
Love,
Mary
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It's true, it's been falsely marketed as an exercise technique...even Christians have bought into the lie about yoga.
Here is some more information:
The Yoga most practiced by Christians is Hatha Yoga. The poses themselves are often depictions of Hindu deities, and the hand positions mimic the hand positions seen on the statues of Hindu gods. These hand positions are called mudras and are thought to help manipulate and channel prana, a supposed divine force or breath of the universe.
The purpose of Hatha Yoga is not physical and it is not to relax; it is part of a complex spiritual path to prepare the student for more advanced meditative states and also to lead the practitioner to the realization that the true self is divine (the
Atman). The goal is to dis-identify with the body and self as one's real identity in order to reach a state of Self-realization; that is, to realize the divine nature of Self.
Many Yoga classes do not use the Eastern terms when teaching Yoga, but disguise these with other terms that sound innocuous, such as "breathing techniques" for pranayama; "energy points" or "energy centers" for chakras; "center" for meditation; "poses" for asanas, etc.
It is not as if there are no other forms of exercise; and Yoga is not really exercise anyway - it is a spiritual practice with a spiritual purpose. The spirituality of Yoga is only temporarily hidden when it's marketed as an exercise. Here are several ways that reveal its core spiritual nature:
a)The first issue of Yoga Journal in 2000 devoted itself to the theme that marketing Yoga as an exercise has been obscuring its spiritual roots and purpose. Yoga Journal had interviews with Yoga teachers who were beginning to regret this, saying that it is wrong to leave out the spirituality.
b) Marketing Yoga as a physical practice in gyms and health clubs serves as a hook to bring some into the Yoga studios where the Yoga teaching is more serious and spiritual.
c) Many Hindu Yoga masters have been more critical of Yoga as it is taught in the West, offended that it is being taught as a physical exercise or way to de-stress, and upset that the spiritual aspect is being hidden or minimized.
d) Yoga Journal articles have become more spiritual in nature, since now Yoga has taken hold in the culture, having been marketed successfully as a path to health, fitness, and peace.
e) As of late 2009/early 2010, the state of Virginia may attempt to regulate Yoga training schools (most schools are regulated but Yoga schools that train teachers have so far escaped this). The Yoga teachers oppose this by defending Yoga as a spiritual practice, saying that one reason it cannot be regulated is due to Yoga's spiritual and non-physical nature.
f) Additionally, Yoga was not a practice common to everyone in India; it was an esoteric practice for devoted followers under the guidance of gurus, and aspects of Yoga were (and still are) considered dangerous by serious Yoga masters. This is because the goal is a spiritual one that supposedly opens one up to more kundalini (the serpent power allegedly coiled at the base of the spine and which is supposed to pass up through the seven invisible chakras) and advanced meditative states (for which hatha Yoga is the training ground) which, students are told, can cause insanity or death. I heard some of this myself when involved with Yoga and Eastern beliefs as a New Ager. It doesn't matter whether these terms are used or not, or whether these goals are stated or not. Yoga is an esoteric occult practice that in the West has been associated with youth, health, beauty, and peace as a marketable package. To sell Yoga in mainstream culture while divulging its true origins, associations, and purposes would make it a marketing failure.http://christiananswersforthenewage.org/Articles_ChristianYoga.html
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Permalink Reply by Tammy on
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I had never thought about the poses before but you're right. The way they put their palms together in front looks just like some of those statues in India. Now, I'm going to have to study up on this one. My Catholic study is on hold waiting on a reply.
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That link I posted is a really good place to start. You'll find a lot of info there.
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I haven't watched the video yet but I know during these sessions, some instructors tell them to empty their minds. To me, that is really dangerous.
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Yes it is dangerous.
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What happened to just doing jumping jacks & windmills? This has nothing to do with yoga but my 6th grader brought home an article he had to comment on. It was about Mars & how it could have possibly sustained human life. His comment, of course with mama's help, said that his belief was the world was created about 4000 years ago. The first man was Adam & he was on planet earth, etc etc. The teacher actually gave him an A which shocked the bejeebers out of me. Now that I have watched the video, there at the end where the kid gets upset about his brother, do you see that one kid in the blue bouncing around - that's my young'un right there. lololol
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