Angelo was a wonderful presenter and I loved his thoughtful modeling of how mindfulness can be practiced. I especially appreciated his slides on how human brains are influenced by a mindfulness practice, including presenting research on mirror neurons. I had read a study a few years ago about how reading fiction and building empathy for characters activates a similar mirror neuron reaction for fictional characters, which theoretically could build empathy for people/populations outside of a reader's individual experience. Super interesting! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3559433/

My group discussed how we use mindfulness in the classroom and ways that we can build upon our current practices to go deeper. Since I'm in classrooms across K-2, I see a variety of ways that teachers (and students) do mindfulness and support students in their mindfulness journeys. I would love to see students be able to use their mindfulness practice when they are feeling emotionally dysregulated, or in need of a break, but also to not only associate mindfulness with negative emotions, but as a tool that can be used at any time.