The following article was posted on LinkedIn today:
“Imagine you’re working at a school and one of the kids is starting to act up. What do you do?
Traditionally the answer would be to give the unruly kid detention or suspension.
But in my memory, detention tended to involve staring at walls, bored out of my mind, trying to either surreptitiously talk to the kids around me without getting caught or trying to read a book. If it was designed to make me think about my actions, it didn’t really work. It just made everything feel stupid and unfair.
But Robert W. Coleman Elementary School has been doing something different when students act out: offering meditation.
Instead of punishing disruptive kids or sending them to the principal’s office, the Baltimore school has something called the Mindful Moment Room instead.
The room looks nothing like your standard windowless detention room. Instead, it’s filled with lamps, decorations, and plush purple pillows.
Misbehaving kids are encouraged to sit in the room and go through practices like breathing or meditation, helping them calm down and re-Center. They are also asked to talk through what happened.
Meditation and Mindfulness are pretty interesting, scientifically.
Mindful meditation has been around in some form or another for thousands of years. Recently, though,science has started looking at it’s effects on our minds and bodies, and it’s finding some interesting effects.
One study, for example suggested that mindful meditation could give practicing soldiers a kind of mental armour against disruptive emotions, and it can improve memory too. Another suggested mindful meditation could improve a person’s attention span and focus.”
This is an excellent article for educators and parents who are working with students/children. For more on this subject, check out the article at unworthy.com. Also, check out more on mindfulness on my website under teachables. Wishing you a mindful, successful day!
