The Art of Patience

Recently a colleague at my school said to me, "I need some more of that patience that you were talking about".... referring, I think, to a workshop I gave a few days prior, on mindfulness. He reminded me of a phrase I have been practicing with for several years, "May I be patient"... It has resurfaced in my mind countless times as I've dealt with challenging students and classes. I decided to make this artwork in honor of my friend's comment, and I made copies for all the staff at my school. It's a simple but powerful phrase. You might like to try memorizing it and practicing with it. Patience is certainly one of the cardinal virtues that every teacher has to have- or start cultivating.

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The conscious and connected student

While the mindfulness in education movement is still young, it has an increasing footprint in schools across the US and the globe. One can argue that most of the practices are body and sensory based practices- breathing, awareness of sound, mindful movement, etc. All in the service of self-awareness and emotional health, all well and good. But some educators are trying to expand that interpretation of mindfulness. Amy Edelstein is an educator in the Philadelphia schools where she has worked as an outside provider (meaning she is not a regular classroom teacher) teaching mindfulness to students for many years. She has developed her own program called The Inner Strength System , and her most recent book is entitled, The Conscious Classroom (Emergence Education Press, 2017) . In this wide-ranging book Edelstein shares her experience working in the urban schools of Philadelphia. She does not shy away from describing the tremendous challenges her school f...

I recently published my first book on Amazon, "Advice for Every Hour." It's available in both ebook and paperback. It has many of the essays on this blog, as well as additional content. It chronicles my adventures applying mindfulness and other strategies in my life, and classroom.

Playing Around

Photo by Matheo JBT on Unsplash In March I offered an e nso workshop for art teachers in my district. We had a great time that included discussion, mindful breathing, lots of painting and generally making a mess of things. We talked about how enso painting fits into a Japanese aesthetic context, and how it is also relates to the "action painters" of abstract expressionism . Especially relevant is the notion of wabi-sabi , the embracing of change and imperfection. We began the practice part of our workshop with some focused, mindful breathing, to help us become fully present. The silence was refreshing after a very busy school day. I then demonstrated the traditional enso, where the artist completes a circle in one focused movement. I also showed examples of ensos that I had done in other media, or combinations of media, to illustrate creative options for elaboration. After some practice on newsprint, my colleagues immediately began playing w...

The mindful teacher

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