Hello from guest blogger, Lisa Robinson! In the final post this quarter on mindfulness and education, let’s talk about some best practices. In February this year, independent consultant Patrick Cook-Deegan provided two posts about this on the blog for Carney, Sandoe & Associates, an educational recruiting firm that works with schools and teachers.
In the first post, Cook-Deegan provides an overview of mindfulness in education and lists different strategies for bringing it into schools: https://ow.ly/OiSc8. The pros and cons identified for each of the strategies highlight the importance of first performing an effective needs analysis and making sure that there’s sufficient buy-in from all stakeholders to support a successful approach.
Building on the first post, the second one https://ow.ly/OiSer provides tips for implementation and comments about the future of mindfulness at independent schools. Although all the information is useful, the concept of legitimacy really resonated with me. It can be easy to dismiss implementing a mindfulness program as a “flavor of the month” that wastes time and other resources. Cook-Deegan suggested partnering with a local academic institution to use metrics to identify program effectiveness and impact.
Solid research from reputable sources such as this one from Harvard https://ow.ly/OiShP has helped to demonstrate the importance of mindfulness initiatives. So the big takeaway is to anticipate challenges and carefully engage in the troubleshooting required to effectively address each of them. The benefits of well-crafted mindfulness programs that meet the needs of children, teachers, and their schools are worth the time and effort required to make them succeed.
I hope that this quarter’s discussion of mindfulness in education has been helpful. Please leave your comments or questions below.
