Dive Brief:
- To help students regulate their emotions and improve attention spans, some teachers are starting to lead meditation practices in the classroom.
- At New York City's Arturo A. Schomburg Satellite Academy, a high school for students who are behind or have previously dropped out, one English teacher has seen success by using a Tibetan bell and asking students to free-associate and meditate around certain words.
- Mindfulness can be seen as an antidote to distraction and is found to be effective in improving attention, reducing stress, and increasing capacity for compassion and empathy in various scientific studies.
Dive Insight:
Every so often, mindfulness pops up as a hot new thing in society, and in schools, it's no different. Boutique charters and teacher prep programs like California's MindUp and Mindful Schools are nonprofits that coach teachers how to help students achieve better concentration through mindfulness.
Yet mindfulness in the classroom can be controversial. Some have linked it to religions like Buddhism, which parents have spoken out against on the basis of religious teachings in public school classrooms. A lack of long-term studies around efficacy also give some experts pause. If districts and schools are interested in testing the waters, it's possible to incorporate a meditative practice without going whole hog. Teachers can ask students to engage in "quiet time" or lead short periods of meditation on a theme or thought.
As of June 2015, 18 schools in the U.S. had instated "quiet time" programs in which students learned to meditate daily.