Teaching a Mindful Classroom

     The average adult body is made up of 50 to 65% water (water chemistry in the body). Dr. Masaru Emoto studied the profound effects of prayer on water (messages in water). When the intent of the prayer is pure the water would form a cohesive crystalline structure. This was true whether it was one person praying, or many people. However, the intentions must be pure and true. Thinking about these two points makes me wonder about the power of our thoughts. Western religions, such as Buddhism have led our country to embrace the positive impacts of yoga to creating a healthy mind and body connection. But what about the science of mindfulness, and how could it impact student learning, teaching, and the classroom environment. Dr. Dan Siegel, an interpersonal neurobiologist (website) has written books and given talks extensively on the subject of the mind and the connection to human behavior, as well as relationships. While Dr. Siegel states candidly that there is no widely accepted definition of the mind by any of the branches of science; he defines the mind as an embodied and relational emergent process that regulates the flow of energy.
     Thinking about the mind and being mindful came to me out of the desire to teach my students the value of resilience. Resilience, or GRIT is the ability to recover quickly from difficulty. This is an important skill to teach our students and our children. Today more than ever with the pace of our world, I believe our children will grow up to face challenges, adversity, and problems we would not believe fathomable. Resilience seems to be the one thing we can teach them to deal with these challenges. Vygotsky (1978) theory was that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition. As educators and parents we understand well the importance of relationships to a child's development.
    I think the source of teaching our students and children resilience begins with the quality of the relationships we develop. I would like to make the connection between the quality of relationships that we develop with the ability to be mindful. To be mindful, for me, would mean making a conscious effort to be present when someone is speaking with me, to listen actively. This means to stop what I am doing and give the person my full attention. I also think it means taking the time to think about myself and my students each day in reflection. Ten minutes of sitting silently in my thoughts in the morning could make the difference between creating mindfulness in my classroom, or letting the day run away with or without me.