Mindfulness Through Education
- Melissa Towarak
- Apr 24, 2021
- 2 min read
Ergas (2019), states that since the turn of the century, 2000, many schools are incorporating contemplative practices. His concern though is, do we, as educators and leaders, want to take on the social change in the school system. He argues that contemplative practices includes, “…facing old, new, religious, spiritual, scientific, silence-based, dialogue-based, movement-based, stationary-based, discourse-based, embodiment-based, East-Asian, Western, Aboriginal practices, which are all subject to human interpretation.”
Here is a conflict or more of a concern; through educating students not only about academic topics, but social, justice, religious, and political issues is a fine line of contentment. Since children need connection and movement, I like the idea of incorporating basic contemplative practices, especially through music, art, and physical activities as Activist Ally (Edwards & more, 2017) notes, "These practices may be done in silence and solitude, but they may also take a communal form."
The silence portions assist with tuning into one's soul, to calm down the body and mind. Therefore, being able to teach students these techniques is necessary for future conflict resolutions. For Educators to understand how to use and why these practices is not necessary; however, as Martinez (2015) mentions, social and emotional competencies (SEC) allow teachers to not burn out as quickly and to find their "craft" for becoming a teacher. I have heard it said, the best teacher is the learner teaching another; therefore, if a teacher is able to successfully practice SEC to find his/her love in school, then he/she will be able to teach that love of social and emotional challenges .
Reference
Edwards, D., Bush, M., Vega-Frey, J., Duerr, M., Horwitz, C., Sackey-Milligan, R., & Bergman, C. (2007).
The activist's ally: Contemplative tools for social change. Northampton, MA: Center for
Contemplative Mind in Society. doi https://learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet02-
Ergas, O. (2019) A Contemplative Turn in Education: Charting A Curricular-Pedagogical
Countermovement. Pedagogy, Culture & Society.27:2, 251-270, DOI:10.1080/14681366.2018.1465111
Martinez (2015). Developing Teachers' Social and Emotional Skills. Edutopia. Doi:
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