Press Release: Mindfulness in education: rethinking our priorities

Mindfulness in education: rethinking our priorities

Global mindfulness think tank publishes key strategy document on mindfulness in education

 

[LONDON, UK, APRIL-] We currently have no clear idea of what our educational systems will look like after this ‘mindful pause’ of lockdown but we can be sure that whatever arrangements and technologies are in place, the need for the generic and foundational skills of mindfulness, which help us understand and manage the workings of our own minds, will continue to be as strong as ever.

So, the publication of a new “Strategy for Mindfulness and Education” by leading global think tank, The Mindfulness Initiative, hits this timely opportunity for a rethink. It sets out a purpose, vision, and bold plan for the further development of evidence-based mindfulness across our educational system.

The Strategy reminds us that mindfulness in education has already developed some way and, when done well, is both effective and popular with pupils, staff and parents. The Strategy highlights the clear evidence that mindfulness can:

• promote wellbeing, and reduce stress and suffering in pupils and staff

• improve the quality of teaching and learning

• enhance social and emotional skills and help students and staff relate more effectively to “challenging” student behaviour.

Professor Katherine Weare one of the authors of the Strategy says: “Mindfulness has the ability to be at the core of some of the important debates and developments that are happening around the fundamental nature and purpose of education in our challenging and crisis-ridden world”. Adrian Bethune, her co-author agrees: “The Strategy highlights ways in whichmindfulness can help shape an education system which ensures our children and young people can do well in school and develop the many varied personal skills they need to navigate and flourish in their present and future lives”.

The Strategy is free and available for download at: https://www.themindfulnessinitiative.org/the- mindfulness-initiatives-education-strategy

 

NOTES

The Mindfulness Initiative grew out of a programme of mindfulness teaching for politicians in the UK Parliament. It provides the secretariat to the Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group, and works with legislators world-wide to help them make trainable capacities of heart and mind serious considerations of public policy.

Katherine Weare and Adrian Bethune are Education Policy Leads at the Mindfulness Initiative.

Adrian is a primary school teacher, speaker, and author of the award-winning “Wellbeing In The Primary Classroom - A Practical Guide to Teaching Happiness”. Katherine is a Professor of Education and known internationally for her work on cultivating wellbeing in education, including her recent best-selling ‘‘Happy Teachers Change The World”, co-written with renowned Zen mindfulness practitioner Thich Nhat Hanh.

Mindfulness is perhaps best considered an inherent human capacity that can be cultivated through practice. This capacity enables people to attend intentionally to present-moment experience, inside themselves as well as in their environment, with an attitude of openness, curiosity and care.

Banner image by Susan Yin on Unsplash