Mindfulness and Meditation in the Classroom

1. Mindfulness and Meditation in the Classroom Patricia Larash Division of Rhetoric, CGS 5th Annual Instructional Innovation Conference CEIT, Boston University

2. Mindfulness and Meditationin the Classroom • Why mindfulness? • What is mindfulness? • Where will mindfulness take you? • How to have a one-minute meditation • Select bibliography • Appendices

3. Why mindfulness? “If you understand how you think and work, you can have more control over who you will become. Abilities can improve as you understand how your mind works. ... Creative and critically thinking people open a conversation with themselves that allows them to understand, control, and improve their own minds and work.” --Ken Bain, What the Best College Students Do (2012), p. 64.

4. What is mindfulness? • “Novelty” mindfulness • “Awareness” mindfulness

5. “Novelty” mindfulness “Mindfulness is a flexible state of mind in which we are actively engaged in the present, noticing new things and sensitive to context.” --Ellen J. Langer, “Mindful Learning” (2000), p. 220.

6. “Awareness” mindfulness “...a nonjudgemental [sic] awareness of one’s experience. ... observing the fact that one is thinking.” --Brian D. Ostafin and Kyle T. Kassman, “Stepping out of history: Mindfulness improves insight problem solving” (2012), p. 1031, note 1.

7. Where will mindfulness take you?:Responsibility • Growth • Courtesy • Ethics • Success

8. How to have a one-minute meditation • Introduce the purpose of the meditation • Explain what to do(choosing an object and how to bring one’s attention to it) • Anticipate concerns. Emphasize non-judgment • Direct participants to take stock of the object • Mark the start of the silence • Gently bring participants out of the silence

9. Select Bibliography • Mindfulness and meditation in general • Mindfulness and meditation in education

10. Mindfulness and meditation in general Gunaratana, BhanteHenepola. Mindfulness in Plain English. Updated and expanded edition. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2002. Print. Healey, Tara. "Mindfulness MP3 Downloads." Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. For Visitors. Mind the Moment. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Inc., 2012. Web. 8 Dec. 2012. Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Wherever You Go, There You Are. Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. New York: Hyperion, 2005. Print.

11. Mindfulness and meditation in education Bain, Ken. What the Best College Students Do. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012. Print. Langer, Ellen J. "Mindful Learning." Current Directions in Psychological Science 9.6 (Dec. 2000): 220-223. Langer, Ellen, and MinheaMoldoveanu. "The Construct of Mindfulness." Journal of Social Issues 56.1 (2000): 1-9. Ostafin, Brian D. and Kyle T. Kassman. "Stepping Out of History: Mindfulness Improves Insight Problem Solving." Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012): 1031-1036. Palmer, Parker J. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, 10th Anniversary Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007. Print.

12. Appendices • Contexts • Preliminary results of in-class questionnaire

13. Contexts Existing • Health care • Business • Athletics • Elementary schools • Prisons Potential • Creative and critical thinking • Arts (performing and fine) • Athletic training • Math and science • Psychology, neuroscience, education

14. Preliminary results of in-class questionnaire Introductory text: “I’d like to find out how our one-minute meditations are working for you, to see how I can make our class time more effective and talk about what I’m doing with other faculty members. I will collate the class’s responses and share with you what I’ve learned (in the aggregate, anonymized.” Administered in the middle of lecture class (all four sections combined), Monday, 4 March 2013. Students were offered five minutes to fill out the questionnaire; many of them ended early. I was in the room the entire time but asked a student to collect the questionnaires and give them to me at the end of class. 34 students participated. 5 other students were absent from class that day.

15. 1. What in-class benefits, if any, are you finding from our one-minute meditations? • Reporting benefits: 32 • Not reporting benefits: 2

16. 2. What in-class problems, if any, are you finding from our one-minute meditations? • Not reporting problems: 23 • Reporting problems: 11 (all distinct respondents) • Distracting (other students) 2 • Sleepiness 6 • Other students "try to postpone work" 1 • "sometimes can't focus"/"get distracted by my own thoughts" 2

17. 3. What connections, if any, are you finding between our one-minute meditations and your life outside of our RH classroom (studies, personal life, etc.)?") • Reporting connections: 22 • Not reporting connections: 12

18. 4. What would you like me to know as I consider how, or whether, to continue this practice with my students next year? • Response supports continuing: 27 • Response is neutral/no response/ambiguous: 4 • Response opposes continuing: 3

19. 5. What experience, if any, did you have with meditation before practicing one-minute meditations in RH class? -Reported prior experience: 17 (See next slide for breakdown) -Reported no prior experience: 17

20. Breakdown of prior meditation experience among the 17 respondents who reported having had some • In yoga class: 8 -one respondent (included above) "was forced to do yoga for sports"; may have negative connotations for this respondent • In an academic setting (HS): 6 --AP Psychology class 1 --"My school required a day of meditation once a year" 1 --Health class 1 --Writing class 1 --"there was an entire class dedicated to it" 1 (not sure whether respondent means an entire course, or one class period out of the semester) --"five minute quiet time every day” 1 • --Other: 4 • --Housemates meditate 1 (same as one of the yoga respondents) • --"a little" (no details given) 2 • --"relaxing" (no details given) 1