I took the course Increase Student's Mindfulness: Strengthen Your Students Academic Success and Confidence While Reducing Disruptive Behaviors by Kristen Burke (Bureau of Education & Research). It was a useful seminar with many ideas on how to refocus and change the mindset of students. The idea of many of the suggestions is to break negative mental patterns by using mindfulness techniques to reset the brain. Some of the ideas included breathing techniques, both learning chest breathing to increase awareness and wake the brain as well as belly breathing when relaxation and calming the body is necessary. I can see the benefit of this as a way to calm students on a day when the focus is an issue or even individually for a student when they are upset about an issue that comes up or after an injury has occurred.
Kristen also talked about eye closing and opening, focusing on the fingers or one finger, or even the back of the hand as a quick way to reboot the brain and gain the attention of your students. I can see using these quick strategies when
I need to regain attention during a transition. Also when I am presenting an idea I want them to retain so I want to reset the brain beforehand. Finally, even with an individual student when they need the opportunity for a quick reset.
Another idea was to add body movement depending on what we were trying to accomplish. For example, if there is a student who is looking closed up with their shoulders, looking slumped, etc., then having them swing their arms back and around to open up the shoulders can help them relax and reset their brain. I could see incorporating this especially when specific skills are going to be practiced like throwing to open and loosen the muscles as well as activate the brain for the lesson. She introduced three movements I would like to incorporate and could even be completed from a desk or seated position. These movements are roller coaster wrists, jellyfish fingers, and spiders on a mirror. They are all movements to reset the brain and refocus students on the task at hand.
She then covered the importance of starting simple and not trying to introduce too much too early. She used the idea of training for a marathon and how the first day just run to the mailbox and back, to get started on the journey. The idea is to start with one technique like jellyfish fingers to introduce the idea of mindfulness, and then gradually bring in more and more. She talked about how important packaging mindfulness is so it is accepted and not resisted. When, where, and how can either set you up for success or derail the idea. Finally, she used the phrase- Work with the Willing, Love the Rest- which I thought was a good way to approach it. This means start your practice with those who are ready to accept and are open to your mindfulness teachings and support those who are not and they will likely eventually come around and will be open to learning. This course could be beneficial to teachers and staff as a way to learn techniques to reset, calm, activate, and free the minds of your students and self.
Reflection by:
David Hay
Lower School Physical Education
Link to course info: https://www.ber.org/seminars/course/LFX/Increase-Students-MINDFULNESS-Strengthen-Your-Students-Academic-Success-and-Confidence-While-Reducing-Disruptive-Behaviors