Should mindfulness practices be taught in public schools?
This question has recently been highlighted by a lawsuit filed in a Cape Cod school district, over a program called Calmer Choice. There was also a a long essay on the topic recently published in Tricycle magazine (a Buddhist publication). The concern is that mindfulness programs are actually promoting Buddhism in schools. At Highview Middle School (the public school where I teach), I have been leading and sharing mindfulness practices for many years, so this is a topic has particular relevance for me and the community I work with.
At my mindfulness trainings and workshops, we have never stressed -nor even discussed- the core teachings of Buddhism. We have discussed the idea that life entails stress and difficulty- a common sense observation embodied in the "First noble truth" (of Buddhism). Anyone who is involved in education- or merely alive- can assent to this truth.
Anyone looking into the topic of mindfulness is going to bump into Buddhist references, as mindfulness has been nurtured and honed in Buddhist communities, for over two thousand years, as a technology for mental training and focus. But many religions have contemplative practices, and the "modern" mindfulness movement gets inspiration from many cultural practices, including science and poetry. One question is how to address the sources of these practices and make them appropriate for a school setting.
While legal and constitutional experts will argue the fine points in this debate, teachers "on the ground" don't often have the luxury of waiting until scholars have all weighed in with their opinions. We have students dealing with mental health issues, difficulties in focusing, and impulsivity, (sometimes severe), and we need tools to ameliorate these problems now. And since some of the old methods of discipline have long been abandoned, we need new methods and tools to cope-and to help our students to cope.
Most teachers sharing mindfulness care little about Buddhist metaphysics or teachings. Their primary concern is their own suffering, and the suffering of their students. And even if the issue is not outright suffering, it's about how to help students reach their full potential, both academically, and emotionally, as well as having a calm and focused classroom. Kids who cannot settle down and focus are going to be disadvantaged at every point in their educational journey. Students who over-react to every slight are going to have very difficult relationships. Perhaps this is why mindfulness is often linked to emotional intelligence, and perhaps that should be our core focus.
Although this conversation is getting national attention now, I feel like it was actually resolved some time ago. When Jon Kabat-Zinn created his famous "Stress reduction clinic" in Boston in the late 1970s, he wisely saw how he could re-contextualize mindfulness techniques to help people cope with serious pain and anxiety. He wasn't concerned with making anyone into a "Buddhist." And there is even a movement among contemporary Buddhists called "Secular Buddhism" which does not concern itself with concepts like karma and re-birth, concepts which lie outside of the realm of empirical observation. Likewise, a re-contextualizing process is taking place in education, and there may be some thrashing about for a while. But this discussion might be a good thing in the long run, and make us re-think our entire educational enterprise. Mindfulness practices help us address the whole student, as Barry Boyce of Mindful.org recently reminded us in a column entitled, Should we teach mindfulness in public schools?
Recently I was in the hallway with a rambunctious group, telling them we were going to walk, "like civilized people." They had been entering the room yelling and fooling around, instead of starting their warm-up tasks. After lots of moaning and eye rolling, we did just that, as I modeled the desired behavior for them. A colleague of mine, Joe, saw what we were doing, and sent me the note, pictured above. I started thinking of this walking meditation as, "civilization practice."
There is certainly a lot of training that has to take place for teachers to do this work in the best possible way, and we need to depend on quality studies to continue evaluating what works, and what doesn't, and what is appropriate for a public institution. And there are a lot of subtleties involved in implementing mindfulness in a public school context, and we are still learning what those are.
Mindfulness in education will never be about accepting the metaphysics of any spiritual tradition. And many Buddhists might argue anyway, that their practice is more about inquiry and curiosity, than it is about "absolute" principles of belief.
Mindfulness in schools is, however, about self-awareness and self-regulation. It's about becoming a kind, dignified, and civilized human being.
This question has recently been highlighted by a lawsuit filed in a Cape Cod school district, over a program called Calmer Choice. There was also a a long essay on the topic recently published in Tricycle magazine (a Buddhist publication). The concern is that mindfulness programs are actually promoting Buddhism in schools. At Highview Middle School (the public school where I teach), I have been leading and sharing mindfulness practices for many years, so this is a topic has particular relevance for me and the community I work with.
At my mindfulness trainings and workshops, we have never stressed -nor even discussed- the core teachings of Buddhism. We have discussed the idea that life entails stress and difficulty- a common sense observation embodied in the "First noble truth" (of Buddhism). Anyone who is involved in education- or merely alive- can assent to this truth.
Anyone looking into the topic of mindfulness is going to bump into Buddhist references, as mindfulness has been nurtured and honed in Buddhist communities, for over two thousand years, as a technology for mental training and focus. But many religions have contemplative practices, and the "modern" mindfulness movement gets inspiration from many cultural practices, including science and poetry. One question is how to address the sources of these practices and make them appropriate for a school setting.
While legal and constitutional experts will argue the fine points in this debate, teachers "on the ground" don't often have the luxury of waiting until scholars have all weighed in with their opinions. We have students dealing with mental health issues, difficulties in focusing, and impulsivity, (sometimes severe), and we need tools to ameliorate these problems now. And since some of the old methods of discipline have long been abandoned, we need new methods and tools to cope-and to help our students to cope.
Most teachers sharing mindfulness care little about Buddhist metaphysics or teachings. Their primary concern is their own suffering, and the suffering of their students. And even if the issue is not outright suffering, it's about how to help students reach their full potential, both academically, and emotionally, as well as having a calm and focused classroom. Kids who cannot settle down and focus are going to be disadvantaged at every point in their educational journey. Students who over-react to every slight are going to have very difficult relationships. Perhaps this is why mindfulness is often linked to emotional intelligence, and perhaps that should be our core focus.
Although this conversation is getting national attention now, I feel like it was actually resolved some time ago. When Jon Kabat-Zinn created his famous "Stress reduction clinic" in Boston in the late 1970s, he wisely saw how he could re-contextualize mindfulness techniques to help people cope with serious pain and anxiety. He wasn't concerned with making anyone into a "Buddhist." And there is even a movement among contemporary Buddhists called "Secular Buddhism" which does not concern itself with concepts like karma and re-birth, concepts which lie outside of the realm of empirical observation. Likewise, a re-contextualizing process is taking place in education, and there may be some thrashing about for a while. But this discussion might be a good thing in the long run, and make us re-think our entire educational enterprise. Mindfulness practices help us address the whole student, as Barry Boyce of Mindful.org recently reminded us in a column entitled, Should we teach mindfulness in public schools?
Recently I was in the hallway with a rambunctious group, telling them we were going to walk, "like civilized people." They had been entering the room yelling and fooling around, instead of starting their warm-up tasks. After lots of moaning and eye rolling, we did just that, as I modeled the desired behavior for them. A colleague of mine, Joe, saw what we were doing, and sent me the note, pictured above. I started thinking of this walking meditation as, "civilization practice."
There is certainly a lot of training that has to take place for teachers to do this work in the best possible way, and we need to depend on quality studies to continue evaluating what works, and what doesn't, and what is appropriate for a public institution. And there are a lot of subtleties involved in implementing mindfulness in a public school context, and we are still learning what those are.
Mindfulness in education will never be about accepting the metaphysics of any spiritual tradition. And many Buddhists might argue anyway, that their practice is more about inquiry and curiosity, than it is about "absolute" principles of belief.
Mindfulness in schools is, however, about self-awareness and self-regulation. It's about becoming a kind, dignified, and civilized human being.
Comments
Post a Comment