MINDFULNESS IN SCHOOLS PROJECT
TEACHERS’ NOTES
Introducing
Paws b
© Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015
This is an introduction to Mindfulness in Schools Projects’ Paws b curriculum.
If you are already working in a school or educational setting, this introductory
session can be a useful way to raise awareness, providing colleagues and senior
management with some background information about mindfulness, dispelling any
myths about what it is/isn’t, and hopefully creating a sense of curiosity about what
the students will be doing with you during the course of the next 6-12 sessions.
If you are offering Paws b from outside the school/organisation in question, this
introduction can act as a really useful ‘sales pitch’ for both mindfulness and the
curriculum itself.
Welcome!
Paws b is a classroom-based mindfulness curriculum for 7-11 year olds.
It is made up of 6 themes that can be delivered over 6 weeks (one hour sessions)
or 12 weeks (30 minute sessions).
The curriculum was co-developed by teachers with students from Ysgol Pen Y Bryn
in North Wales alongside a senior mindfulness teacher and trainer with the Centre
for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor University in Wales (one of the
most renowned institutions for mindfulness research and practice).
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Before we go any further, let’s do a short arrival practice.
It is a good idea to lead them through something short and simple here. This is
really just intended to settle them ‘into the present moment’, and perhaps draw
their attention to how busy their minds were when they arrived.
Suggested practice – 4-5 minutes:
Coming to sit in a comfortable position, holding a dignified and relaxed
posture. Closing the eyes if this feels right for you, or lowering the gaze to the
floor, and beginning by giving full attention to the sensations of breathing.
Just noticing the full course of the in-breath and the full course of the outbreath, and where in your body you might be feeling these sensations most
strongly.
Seeing if you can sustain your attention on the full course of in-and the outbreath - not thinking about the breath, sensing just this in-breath and just this
out-breath.
Seeing if you can bring a quality of curiosity to the physical sensations involved
in the in-breath, and releasing or ‘letting go’ on the out-breath.
If the mind wanders, just noticing where it has gone, and gently bringing your
spotlight of attention back to your breath. When we notice that we are
distracted and return to our object of attention, we are nurturing a mindful
awareness.
On this next out-breath, slowly opening the eyes and coming back to the room.
There is no need for a lengthy enquiry into this practice, but a ‘How was that?
Did that feel OK?’ is a nice way to bring the practice to a close before moving
on.
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What we were doing in that practice was simply beginning to train our
attention. When the attention wanders, which it will most certainly do at some
point, we simply acknowledge where it has gone and gently, kindly guide it back
to a focal point – in this case, the sensations of breathing.
This is very close to the core meaning of mindfulness, which is PAYING
ATTENTION TO THE PRESENT MOMENT. While it is a little more complex than
that, this very much captures the spirit of mindfulness.
Mindfulness is about training the mind to be in the present moment, whatever
is happening, be that good or bad.
The benefits of training the attention has long been recognised, but the
potential value of doing so in an educational context were beautifully
acknowledged back in 1890 by William James.
Considered to be the founder of modern psychology, James put forth a
challenge to the education system:
[Read quote aloud then click onto the next slide]
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While William James did not have fully developed methodologies to help
him realise this aim, on the other side of the world techniques for training
the attention had been cultivated by a variety of contemplative traditions
over many thousands of years.
[Click]
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Each of the world’s great faiths and wisdom traditions has a contemplative
strand that includes a practice of ‘presence’ - of mindfulness in some form.
For over 2,500 years , practitioners had been developing the psychological
understanding of ‘present moment awareness’, and contemporary
mindfulness practice tends to draw particularly on the practical and
theoretical principles and perspectives developed within the Buddhist
tradition. However, much of mindfulness practice today takes place within
an entirely secular context.
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Today, interdisciplinary findings within the fields of neuroscience and
mindfulness are starting to deepen our understanding, of the mind and the
body.
This cover of an edition of National Geographic magazine captures this essence
beautifully. With the advent of technology, in particular fMRI, scientists can
observe the structure and function of the brain and any changes taking place.
Practitioners with tens of thousands of hours of mindfulness training have
expanded our conventional belief of human potential - in terms of our ability
to focus our attention and develop greater capacity for emotional wellbeing,
good mental health, compassion, ability to learn and even physical health.
You might want to mention here the research evidence summaries listed on
Mindfulness in Schools Project’s website:
http://mindfulnessinschools.org/research/research-evidence-mindfulnessyoung-people-general/
This includes a really accessible research summary by Professor Katherine
Weare: ‘Evidence for the Impact for Mindfulness on Children and Young
People’.
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A really key feature of the Paws b curriculum is the neuro-scientific content.
The Paws b development team worked with a leading neuroscientist (Dusana
Dorjee) at Bangor University in order to get the most accurate and up-to-date
information as possible about the brain.
This is Team Brain!
Children who take part in the Paws b course come away with a really clear
understanding of 4 key areas of the brain that we know can be developed and that
work together as a team:
[Click through the 4 areas which come up in the following order]
Prefrontal cortex: The area of the brain with over all responsibility for making
choices, paying attention and therefore helping us learn more effectively.
Hippocampus: This helps us with memory, especially in linking old and new
experiences.
Amygdala: (There are 2 of these, but we tend to refer to them in the singular) This
reacts automatically in response to perceived threat. Its job is to keep us safe, but
sometimes it gets in the way of making wise choices.
Insula: (Again, there are 2 of these, but we tend to refer to them in the singular)
This helps us recognise how our body state is (tired, hungry etc.) and helps us to
tune in to how other people are feeling.
“The insula is extremely important in detecting emotions in general and specifically
in mapping bodily responses to emotion — such as heart rate and blood pressure
— and making that information available to other parts of the brain.” – Dr. Richard
Davidson.
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Recent developments in neuroscience now allow us to really appreciate the
extent to which the brain, and therefore thought and behaviour, continue to
change throughout our lives.
The more we have particular types of thoughts and feelings, the more this
repetition creates stronger synaptic connections – ‘wider roads’, if you like. This
makes us more likely to have this particular type of thought or feeling again.
Useful phrase from neuroscience : “Neurons that fire together wire together.”
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So, we now know that we can shape this remarkable instrument housed in our
heads.
We can, literally, change our brains by training our minds.
If we are feeling unhappy, if we are feeling deeply stressed, if we worry a lot, if
we feel confused, then there are things that we can do about this.
But it takes time and practice!
[Read this quote by Thoreau to emphasise this]
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This brings us to the work of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn to whom anyone who is teaching
mindfulness in secular contexts today is surely indebted.
Dr. Kabat-Zinn is Professor of Medicine Emeritus and creator of the Stress
Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and
Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre.
Dr. Kabat-Zinn developed the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
program over 30 years ago whilst working with patients experiencing chronic
pain at the hospital. He took many traditional and long-established mindfulness
practices and made them accessible to wider audiences with significant results.
MBSR has been taken through many hundreds of rigorous research studies and
has helped to inform the development of Paws b.
A moving documentary about Jon Kabat-Zinn’s work can be found on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEJGPuPFIvc
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If you want an accessible introduction to mindfulness and a clear description of
the MBSR programme in detail, Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book, ‘Full Catastrophe Living’
is an excellent place to start.
In the fifteen years since its initial publication, Full Catastrophe Living has sold
over 400,000 copies worldwide.
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And it is Jon Kabat-Zinn’s definitions of mindfulness that people still turn to in
terms of its applications to daily life .
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Inspired by the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, Dr. Mark Williams, John Teasdale and
Zindel Segal, co-developers of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT),
took many of the same themes from MBSR and built upon them in order to
support those suffering from depression.
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What followed was ‘Finding Peace in a Frantic World’.
An accessible and structured introduction to mindfulness that takes the reader
through an 8 week course of brief practices and accompanying readings.
It is this book and the research of Dr. Wiliams which informs the Paws b
curriculum as well as its sister curriculum, .b (for 11-18 year-olds).
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Thanks to the extensive body of sound research evidence about the benefits of
MBCT, it has been endorsed by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence in the
UK and can be prescribed by doctors for the treatment of Depression.
It is worth mentioning here that currently the percentage of doctors who do this
is low due to lack of awareness and of qualified MBCT teachers.
But what does this have to do with teaching young people?
[Click]
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This graph perhaps gives us cause to understand one very powerful argument
for the introduction of mindfulness training for young people, and the critical
importance of supporting our youth in their mental health.
In 1967, the average age of onset of Major Depression was 31-33 years of age.
[Click]
Over a 30 year period, this [Click] slipped down to 13-15 years of age.
As Chris Cullen, co-founder of Mindfulness in Schools Project has stated, “The
average levels of anxiety for teenagers today are equivalent to those inpatient
psychiatric patients in the 1950s. We really do face a mental health epidemic.”
While there are very many complex reasons for these surprising statistics, there
is clearly a need for those working in education to support young people early
on, giving them the tools to skillfully navigate life.
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The World Health Organisation states that by 2030, mental health will be the
biggest cause of burden out of all health conditions, including heart conditions
and cancer.
The term “burden” is not an emotive or pejorative term, but a scientific term that
is measured in years of lost life due to early death or severe disability brought on
by illness, in this case depression.
However, there is much work going on at many levels to address this issue...
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In the UK, 2014 saw the launch of All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) [Click] to
study the benefits of bringing mindfulness into public policy.
[Click again]
The Mindfulness APPG is supported by The Mindfulness Initiative [Click], a
coalition of Oxford, Exeter and Bangor Universities to advocate for a better
understanding of mindfulness as a low cost intervention and its potential in a
range of public services. [Click again]
Bangor, Exeter, and Oxford Universities have been at the forefront of research,
teaching and training in this growing field. The APPG offers an exciting opportunity
to bring policy makers together in conversation with academics and practitioners
to consider how the evidence for mindfulness can inform policy.
You may want to mention the important characters in this photo: (Left to right)
Lord Richard Layard, Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn, Chris Cullen and Professor Mark
Williams at No.10 Downing Street.
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In the US, Congressman Tim Ryan is doing a great deal to promote awareness of
mindfulness.
In his book ‘A Mindful Nation’ he has set out his vision of a what it would be like
to integrate mindfulness training into a wide range of areas of society. It makes
for inspiring reading.
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The scope of this evidence is increasing exponentially.
This graph show the huge increase in research publications on mindfulness over
20 years to 2013.
MBCT was developed in the mid- to late 1990s and you can see the huge impact
that this had on the number of publications.
The MBCT manual came out in 2002. It is great testimony to the work and
scientific rigour of Williams, Teasdale and Segal that MBCT has had such a
significant impact in moving mindfulness into the mainstream.
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Many of the applications of mindfulness to date have been focused the areas
of clinical need and mental health.
The extent to which aspects of mindfulness practice help with difficulties such
as anxiety, chronic pain and psychosomatic illness is now well-established.
Such has been the impact of mindfulness in the clinical field that there is an
increasing interest by organisations looking to support their employees, or
people they work with in terms of mental health and resilience.
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More recent applications of mindfulness training have been seen in:
[Click through the images one at a time]
The workplace, with multinational companies such as Google, Apple , IBM,
Proctor and Gamble and Goldman Sachs offering regular mindfulness sessions to
their employees.
Studies of mindfulness-based interventions have shown reductions in employee
stress levels (McCraty et al. 2003); improvements in well-being (Collard & Walsh,
2008). A recent INSEAD report indicated that mindfulness-based leadership
interventions resulted in behaviours that were more likely to lead to greater
levels of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
In Prisons: Research on the effects of Mindfulness-Based Interventions with
prison staff and police is slowly emerging in both the UK and USA. These include
apparent reductions in reactivity, impulsivity, aggression, vulnerability to
depression, addiction, suicide and self-harm, and increased capacity for selfregulation, metacognition, empathy and management of emotions.
Counselling: The concept of mindfulness in counselling is not new and has been
the subject of exploration for about 30 years, but it is increasingly becoming an
integral and informative part of the therapeutic relationship.
Education: The number of mindfulness programmes designed for young people
is now growing rapidly, particularly in developed countries such as the US and
the UK.
Mindfulness in Schools Project is one of several well-respected organisations
whose aim is to provide an accessible introduction to mindfulness for young
people and those who work with them with, often with very classroom-friendly
resources.
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Paws b is one such example.
Paws b is for children of 7-11 years of age, and is offered formally as a series of
PSHE (Social and Emotional Learning) lessons, and informally through
integrating the learning and practice of mindfulness in all National Curriculum
subjects and in the children’s everyday lives.
Paws b was designed by teachers for teachers, and at the most simple level is
an awareness-raising exercise to give all students a taste of mindfulness so
that they know about it and can return to it later in life if they choose to do so.
But let’s go back to basics and ask two important questions:
1. What is mindfulness ?
2. How might it benefit young people?
[Depending on the group you are working with, based on what they know
about mindfulness already, you might want to give them time to reflect on
these questions in small groups and feed back to the larger group as a whole].
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Paws b was designed by experienced classroom and mindfulness teachers: a core
development team of Tabitha Sawyer and Rhian Roxburgh, teachers at Ysgol Pen Y Bryn
in North Wales, and Sarah Silverton, a senior mindfulness teacher and trainer with the
Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor University in Wales.
and at the most simple level is an awareness-raising exercise to give all students a
taste of mindfulness so that they know about it and can return to it later in life if they
choose to do so.
But let’s go back to basics and ask two important questions:
1. What is mindfulness ?
2. How might it benefit young people?
[Depending on the group you are working with, based on what they know about
mindfulness already, you might want to give them time to reflect on these questions in
small groups and feed back to the larger group as a whole].
© Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015
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After feedback….
On a very simple level, mindfulness can be described as:
[Click] Sustained voluntary attention - a focused mind attending to an object of
choice.
[Click] Through practice it allows for the development of positive and nourishing
attitudes such as kindness, curiosity, compassion and gratitude (critically, towards
oneself as well as towards others)
[Click] It’s the opposite of forgetfulness or a distracted mind
[Click] A great metaphor is that mindfulness is a spotlight. We can shine the
spotlight of our attention:
• in a laser-like manner on a subtle sensation
• or diffusely attending to a large group of people
And what are the qualities of a powerful spotlight?
Through Mindfulness Training we are cultivating our attention and developing a
focused mind and an open attitude.
There is also a growing body of evidence emphasizing the effects this practice has
on memory, learning and executive functioning.
For more information about this, refer to Professor Katherine Weare’s study:
http://mindfulnessinschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/MiSP-ResearchSummary-2012.pdf
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It is this tuning in to present moment experiences that provides such a wonderful
opportunity for learning.
[Read the quote on the slide]
You may be familiar with the idea of the Socratic Method.
As Socrates suggested, ‘If we openly and objectively look at what is in front of us and ask
the right questions we will discover how things are for ourselves and not just because we
are told what to think.’
Essentially, we can encourage our students to “See for themselves”.
Of course, all of this needs to be seen in the context of the often rapid and remarkable
developmental changes children go through. From one year to the next, we see dramatic
changes in terms of a child’s cognitive abilities, moral understanding, world view,
relationships, and needs.
Chip Wood’s book, ‘Yardsticks: Children in the Classroom Ages 4-14’ summarises some
of these very clearly…
[Click through the next 5 slides, allowing time to read through each description]
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So let’s now ask ourselves a few very key questions:
If you had to list 6 or 7 essential skills or states (emotional, practical, intellectual
or other) that children today might need to take with them on their journey
through adolescence and adulthood, what would they be?
How will they need to be and what will they need to be able to do?
You can do this as a ‘popcorn’ exercise – just asking them to call out their ideas,
and writing them on a whiteboard or piece of paper.
If this is a longer session (ie more than an hour) you might like to ask the group to
work in smaller groups and draw up a list of 6 essential skills. You can then ask
them to feed these back to the wider group and see if there is a consensus, and
if/how these might sit alongside the mindfulness skills listed on the slide.
Hopefully, what will emerge are some of those skills listed on this slide.
Mindfulness can help support and sustain a sense of well-being, but there is a lot
more potential there in terms of essential skills and states that mindfulness can
foster. Systematic, reliable research (namely Randomised Control Trials) has
provided evidence for the impact of mindfulness on the capacity for…
[Click through the 7 factors]
If we can provide the means to foster some of these skills and states, how might
this affect a young person’s life as they move forwards into adolescence and
adulthood?
What effect might this have on society?
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At the end of the day mindfulness training is about flourishing: not just
about moving AWAY from negative states of mind or experiences, but
learning how to deal with these skilfully.
As Jon Kabat-Zinn famously said:
“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
In other words, life is guaranteed to throw you ‘curve balls’ – we will all
experience difficulty at some stage in our lives, but if we can develop
skills that allow us to ride through the stormy times, or even change our
relationship with them, the potential for flourishing is increased
immeasurably.
But mindfulness isn’t just about dealing with difficulty; it also increasing
our potential to turn TOWARDS more positive, healthy, peaceful,
nourishing experiences.
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This brings us back to teacher embodiment.
Teaching can be a very tiring and stressful job, so as part of caring for the
children in your classroom, you have a responsibility to care of yourself.
Research shows that any relational based curriculum is only successful if
the adults are cultivating these same qualities within themselves. This is
what is called “Empathic Concern” – where the teacher embodies and
models kindness, compassion, emotional self-regulation, a sense of
wellbeing, in order to create a mindful classroom.
This is why we ask that anyone who trains to teach mindfulness to young
people has an established practice of their own.
You can say more about this in terms of the prerequisites for training to
teach Paws b or .b if there is interest. Information about this can be
found on the MiSP website:
http://mindfulnessinschools.org/prerequisites-for-training-courses/
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And if you were in any doubt about the extent to which your own state of
wellbeing might affect a child’s experience in the classroom, Haim Ginott’s
words act as a very salutary reminder….
[Allow them time to read the quote or read it aloud]
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So with this thought ringing in our ears, let us now turn our attention to what we
need in our own Mindfulness Toolbox. If we were to teach mindfully, how would
we do this?
Some of these may be familiar ideas you use already in the classroom. Others
might be more of a departure from the norm.
As before, you can do this as a ‘popcorn’ exercise – just asking them to call out
their ideas, and writing them on a whiteboard or piece of paper.
Again, if this is a longer session (ie more than an hour) you might like to ask the
group to work in smaller groups and draw up a list of 6 essential techniques or
approaches needed to engage them . You can then ask them to feed these back
to the wider group and see if there is a consensus, and if/how these might sit
alongside the those listed on the slide.
Hopefully, what will emerge are some of those skills listed on this slide.
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Ultimately, this is much of the intention behind Paws b.
With these 6 themes, students learn how to aim and sustain attention as well as
recognise the role attention plays in their school work, their relationships, and in the
way they communicate, both at school and at home.
Through the use of practical exercises, film clips, audio files and worksheets, the
children are engaged and encouraged to explore skills and techniques that, once
learned, will always be with them.
Each lesson includes Home Practice to help support the student to make connections
between the mindfulness practices and the application to their everyday lives.
There have been many reports where siblings and parents are inspired to practise, too!
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So let’s finish with a short film clip of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn speaking about
Mindfulness in Education, and explaining the ways in which there is both
a need and recognised benefits of having mindfulness within schools.
[Click to move to next slide, and then click on Play]
[You only need to play up to 3.23 Re-emphasize what Jon says about
those who teach it needing to take care of it, which is why Mindfulness in
Schools Project has prerequisites of “teacher as practitioner”]
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At this point you might want to invite any questions, or simply thank them for listening.
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Notes
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Notes
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