Mindfulness

  It is only April, but teachers and students feel year's end acutely: there is a lot to do. The other side of seeing year's end approach is to cast an eye over what we've done. 

   One of our goals this year was to make the class schedule more rational and predictable. This sounds absurd; of course a schedule should be rational. But ours really wasn't. It evolved over the years out of a commitment to meeting what students considered important, be it particular subjects or class formats. For instance, our classes tend to be small, and our school year is divided into trimesters. As a result, we also tend to have vast number of classes, which can be quite labor intensive, and over all, rather confusing. So we have radically simplified things. Our transcripts now make much more sense. This is important, as most of our students go on to college.

  The variety of classes is still significant, but they are embedded in a larger class format such as American History or Science. 

   That has been one change, ongoing. A second has been quite a bit of experimenting with how to incorporate mindfulness into the curriculum. We begin the day with meditation, have a moment of silence at lunch, end the day gathered quietly. We teach yoga, martial arts, and meditation, and the psychology class is organized around developing self-awareness. Importantly, however, I think a TAS style is evolving regarding teaching mindfulness, and it has emerged from our typical approach: a bit freewheeling, restless, and very student driven.

  

  A mindfulness listserv I subscribe to provided an opportunity for some comments of mine:

All of our students...begin the day with any of a number of mindfulness exercises. It is a 25 minute period that I usually lead, and we begin with a modest ritual (sitting still, paying attention, lighting incense) and then I get a feel for where the group is at. Sometimes I have them do some pretty vigorous warm ups, and then some sitting. Sometimes we shake out our bodies and get pretty ridiculous about it. Sometimes we sit zazen, sometimes with a brief talk, sometimes not.   We may do a group shout, or walking about very slowly, deliberately, and then gradually speeding up to a manic run. This is a favorite of mine, especially in winter, as the kids are often so sluggish and dark. After the run around, I have them lay down on the floor, every which way, and ask them to notice their hearts beating, their breath slowing down, the changes in their body state. We do a simple body scan, noticing changes and warmth and discomfort, eventually becoming very quiet. I often end by asking them to notice what *they* want to do- stretch, lay there, pop up, and tell them they can leave the dojo when they feel like it. Ending in this way is very grounding and empowering. I strongly recommend some version of this.    I feel that responding to their states with a variety of techniques works well, and helps them develop a wide sense of the ways one can be aware, and learn to self-soothe.    We always have a moment of silence before the midday meal, and at the end of lunch we gather in the dojo again for five minutes of zazen to transition to the next part of the day.    At the end of the day, a small group of students lead a final meditation. Again, very empowering.    I suggest becoming familiar with Gendlin's Focusing training- check out Anne Wieser's book The Power of Focusing; it is very compatible with all mindfulness practices and adapts well to teenagers.    Again, I can't emphasize enough how important the vigorous physical movement is, and the grounding in the body. Also, I strongly suggest that when you lead groups do so by suggesting a given technique- for instance, "Now that your body is a little more settled, you might want to imagine a lovely little park, with a brook and sunshine and lots of trees...but if you would rather not, just try to stay still etc etc"   Giving choices like this allows the student to have a more personal and empowering experience. After all, there is no way of evaluating how they are doing, so it is a great chance to help them explore freely.    I also suggest creating a language of exploration, mystery, relaxation, and surprise- that their inner world is very much worth getting to know, that it is theirs alone, and no one can judge the quality of their experience. This is important. Without this, how can they learn to experience without reflexive judgement?

 More on this later in the week.