Chapter 12

Supporting Educational Goals through Cultivating Mindfulness

Approaches for Teachers and Students

Patricia Jennings, Linda Lantieri, and Robert W. Roeser

In East Harlem, first-grade public school students, several with attentional problems, practice a mindful listening activity. The voice on the CD invites them to listen to some sounds, reminding them not to name the sound out loud, but to say it silently to themselves. Focusing their attention, the students move mindfully in response to each sound they hear; when they hear the sound of a bird chirping, they quietly and gently move their arms up and down like a bird flapping its wings. They sustain this attentive and focused silent movement for the full six minutes of the guided activity.

How is it possible to gather the rapt attention of a class of first graders, especially one that has several students who are especially challenged with attention problems? What teacher skills and dispositions are necessary to achieve this? What kinds of curricula can support events like this happening more frequently in more classrooms? This chapter introduces a new movement in education that aims to apply contemplative or mindfulness-based approaches in schools to help both teachers and students hone the foundational skills of self-awareness, self-regulation, attention, and caring for others, and thereby promote and sustain healthy environments for teaching and learning. Furthermore, this approach may fill an important role in school-based prosocial learning and prevention efforts.

While the above story is true, it is atypical for an inner-city classroom where inequities in highly trained personnel and material resources often contribute to poor learning conditions and cycles of disengagement and failure. These challenges, however, are not limited to the inner city but are also found in suburbs and rural areas (Roeser, Urdan, & Stephens, 2009). Due to the stresses of modern life, families are in crisis, and growing numbers of students come to school unprepared to learn and behave appropriately (Gilliam, 2005). In addition, an increasing number of students come to school each day with learning and mental health problems that put them at risk for future disorders (Romano, Tremblay, Vitaro, Zoccolillo, & Pagani, 2001; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000) and curtailed educational attainments (Roeser & Eccles, 2000). There are also concerns about the extent to which today’s children and youth experience high rates of early substance use and violence (Eaton et al., 2008; National Institute of Drug Abuse, 2009; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001).

As schools face these mounting concerns, the escalating rate of teacher burnout and turnover further aggravates the crisis (National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 2007). Nearly 50 percent of all new teachers leave the profession within the first five years (Ingersoll, 2003). The increasing demands of testing and the emotional challenges associated with handling difficult student behaviors are both major contributors to teacher stress and burnout (Montgomery & Rupp, 2005). Accountability linked to high-stakes testing may intensify teacher distress, especially among those who serve children at most risk of school failure (Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 2003). Stressed and exhausted teachers often resort to negative or coercive responses to provocative child behaviors. Thus, the problem becomes a vicious cycle: increasing behavior problems among children and increasing stress among teachers fueling one another (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009).

As a function of these challenges and others compounding diverse issues associated with normal psychosocial development, the roles of educators and schools in our society are changing, and the charge to schools to address the nonacademic needs of students is greater than ever. Historically, schools have been called on to perform important socializing functions with respect to inculcating cultural norms, moral education, and the nonacademic needs of students (Dryfoos, 1998). These functions are more relevant than ever for educators given the diversity of the school-aged population today, as well as the statistically significant kinds of academic readiness and emotional/behavioral vulnerabilities that characterize a statistically significant minority of those in the school-aged population (Roeser & Eccles, 2000). Public schools are still among the few places in our society where young people of diverse backgrounds gather on a daily basis and learn not only the three Rs, but also how to negotiate relationships with peers and adults from the mosaic of cultures that comprise our society. By virtue of their central role in the lives of children and families and their broad reach, schools have come to play a more central role both in the prevention of mental disorders and the promotion of well-being (Greenberg et al., 2003).

As a result of the challenges and unique characteristics that exemplify the school-aged population today, educators, policy makers, and parents are searching for new forms of evidence-based educational approaches to improve students’ academic readiness, motivation, and performance as well as to enhance students’ development of self-regulation and social skills that foster success in school and in life. The need for school-based programs that simultaneously attend to children’s academic and social-emotional needs is even greater with regard to children exposed to numerous risk factors such as poverty, violence, and divorce; school is often the most stable environment available for these children.

Over the past several decades, various initiatives, movements, and policies in the field of education have paved the way to include the social, emotional, and ethical development of children as part of an expanded vision in our nation’s public schools of what it means to become a fully educated citizen. One example of such an initiative is the social and emotional learning (SEL) movement (Elias et al., 1997). SEL is a process for supporting individuals across the life span to develop the fundamental skills for a successful life. For more information on this movement, please see chapter 11 in this book: “Social and Emotional Learning and Prosocial Education: Theory, Research, and Programs.”

Today, a new and unique movement is emerging within mainstream education that may support prosocial education implementation while reinforcing social and emotional competencies in both students and teachers. Growing numbers of educators are exploring the use of contemplative or mindfulness-based approaches to teaching and learning to reduce teacher and student stress, enhance classroom climate, and cultivate students’ ability to focus their attention and to promote care and concern for others. Drawing upon research in neuroscience, cognitive science, developmental science, education, and scholarship and practices from contemplative traditions, teachers are experimenting with the added value of bringing a more mindful and caring approach to the classroom—one that values and promotes inquiry, reflection and present moment awareness, and harmonious relationships with others (Garrison Institute, 2005).

There is growing evidence in adulthood that engagement in contemplative practices such as mindfulness strengthens the brain functions that are responsible for emotion and attention regulation, empathy and compassion, and resilience in the face of life stress (Davidson et al., 2003; Davidson & Harrington, 2002; Davidson & Lutz, 2008; Kabat-Zinn, 2003; Lutz, Brefczynski-Lewis, Johnstone, & Davidson, 2008; Lutz, Slagter, Dunne, & Davidson, 2008; Singer & Lamm, 2009). A mindfulness-based educational approach involves the introduction of secularized contemplative practices in educational settings to support the development of such skills in teachers and students alike. The combination of the teaching of specific skills to teachers and students with sustained practice over time, and the related development of a caring learning community in which these skills are practiced together, may provide value-added benefits to prosocial-based education programs like SEL that have similar aims but place less emphasis on sustained repeated practice of skills over time as a community.

What are contemplative practices, and what skills do they promote? Traditional contemplative practices, which can be taught in a thoroughly secular way, involve the conscious focusing of attention repeatedly over time in one of three ways: (1) one-pointed concentration on an intentionally chosen object (e.g., the breath, sounds, physical movement) promotes the ability to focus, quiet, and calm the mind and body; (2) open and receptive awareness of whatever arises in the mind, the body, or one’s environment promotes the ability to gain insight and clarity into sensory and mental phenomena; and (3) attention focused upon particular thoughts and feelings involving expressions of caring for oneself and others promotes empathy and compassion (Lutz, Dunne, & Davidson, 2007). These three basic ways of employing attention willfully, consciously, and repetitively over time for the benefit of oneself and others are at the core of what defines a contemplative practice (Roeser & Peck, 2009). There exist myriad practices that train these basic habits of mind/heart/body, including various forms of sitting meditation; movement activities such as yoga and tai chi; and conscious, calm, and concentrated engagement in the arts or with nature, among others (Caranfa, 2006; Hart, 2004; Kesson, Traugh, & Perez, 2006).

Although the idea of introducing contemplative activities into secular educational settings is new to mainstream education, alternative methodologies such as Montessori and Waldorf have long included contemplative activities as part of the curriculum and take a mindful and care-based approach to a wide variety of curricular activities such as music, art, language, and science (Montessori, 1936; Steiner, 1907). These forms of education have much to offer with regard to developing the qualities of attention and caring (Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006), thus offering a significant new dimension to the programs and strategies that promote healthy development of the whole child.

In the remainder of this chapter, we explore theoretical, scientific, and practical issues associated with the introduction of contemplative or mindfulness-based practices in education today. We begin by introducing the field of contemplative neuroscience and contemplative clinical science and how the study of the effects of contemplative practices on the minds and bodies of adults provides a sound scientific basis from which to explore the use of contemplative practices in education with teachers. These same principles and strategies are beginning to be successfully applied to enhance developmental and educational goals for students as well. After a brief review of the research on the effects of contemplative practices with adults, we explore how contemplative practices might help teachers reduce stress and improve performance, and we summarize the small amount of research that currently exists on the use of mindfulness-oriented programs with teachers. We then turn to a discussion of how contemplative practices may also be a novel way of realizing diverse educational goals for students—goals that are academic, social, emotional, and behavioral in nature. What is the state of research at this time regarding the use of contemplative practices with children and youth? What are the hypothesized outcomes of such programs for students, and how might such outcomes relate to key educational goals today? We conclude with some thoughts on key issues that need to be addressed in the future by educators, scientists, and practitioners who are interested in developing a mindfulness-based approach to education that is motivating, effective, and developmentally appropriate for students of different ages and diverse cultural backgrounds.

Contemplative Science

For the past twenty years or so, scientists, historians, philosophers, and contemplative scholars and practitioners have been collaborating to create a new transdisciplinary field of inquiry called contemplative science. The aims of contemplative science are to advance our understanding of the human mind and, relatedly, to advance our understanding of how training the mind through the use of particular contemplative practices can lead to improved health, better learning, greater happiness, and increased prosocial behavior (Davidson & Harrington, 2002; Goleman, 2003; Harrington & Zajonc, 2006; Hayward & Varela, 1992; Houshman, Livingston, & Wallace, 1999; Ricard, 2006; Wallace, 2007). Work in this area has aimed at bringing together the rigorous methodologies of modern science with the hard-earned philosophical and experiential insights into mind and mental training offered by the world’s contemplative traditions to produce new fields of science and new forms of human services.

Within the umbrella of contemplative science is contemplative neuroscience, a subfield of inquiry concerned in particular with understanding changes in brain function and structure that come about as a function of contemplative practice (Davidson & Lutz, 2008). Contemplative neuroscience is grounded in the concept of neuroplasticity, the notion that the brain is the key organ in the body that is designed to change in response to experience and training of various kinds. Marrying the idea of neuroplasticity with the kinds of mental training offered by contemplative practices, contemplative neuroscientists are working with both novices and advanced practitioners to learn just how much we can train the mind and change our brains/bodies in the directions of greater attentional focus, greater emotional calm, greater awareness and insight, and greater caring for others (Begley, 2007; Siegel, 2007, 2010). A related movement has been contemplative clinical science, the study of the application of mindfulness practices to the alleviation of a variety of health and mental health conditions (e.g., Kabat-Zinn, 2003).

Mindfulness Approaches with Adults: Hypotheses and Research

Research in contemplative neuroscience and clinical science has revealed specific ways in which contemplative practices can affect the body, the brain, and the mind in adults in ways that are beneficial for health and well-being. For instance, mindfulness training with adults is associated with enhanced memory, increased ability to concentrate, and increased ability to use our attention in ways to regulate emotion (e.g., by learning how to “observe” negative feelings or thoughts without reacting to them; Hölzel, Ott, et al., 2011; Jha, Krompinger, & Baime, 2007; Luders, Toga, Lepore, & Gaser, 2009; Slagter et al., 2007). Mindfulness practice can also increase our capacity for empathic and compassionate responses to others (Fredrickson, Cohn, Coffey, Peck, & Finkel, 2008; Lutz, Slagter, et al., 2008).

Early efforts to explore how mindfulness training might prove to be beneficial for people in secular contexts were pioneered by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. In the 1980s, as a means of helping patients who seemed unable to benefit from traditional medical approaches, Kabat-Zinn introduced mindfulness-based interventions as a way to reduce stress for patients with chronic illnesses and thereby provide them with complementary medical relief (Kabat-Zinn, 1990, 1994). For over twenty-five years, he and other researchers have refined and tested the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program and have found it to be useful for numerous health and mental health problems in which stress plays a major role (Bishop, 2002; Kabat-Zinn, 2003). By teaching people skills by which they could become more nonreactive to stimuli like pain and life stressors, these researchers found that individuals could improve their life quality by reducing unnecessary stress and suffering. This approach was seen as revolutionary within the medical field because previously such patients had been intractable to healing through traditional approaches, and more importantly because it promoted patient well-being through the cultivation of skills that allowed them to develop a new relationship with their disease or discomfort different than a relationship based on avoidance, resistance, or denial. This ability to be present with whatever was happening moment to moment, paradoxically enough, is associated with relief from stress and suffering.

The role of mindfulness training in fostering attention and emotion regulation has also been associated with physical health in nonclinical samples of adults. For instance, Dr. Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin at Madison has spent his career studying how emotion is processed in the brain. Curious to know whether the traditional eight-week MBSR training might change the way healthy participants’ brains functioned, he examined them before and after the training and compared the results to those randomly assigned to a control group. He found that participating in the training resulted in a shift of brain activity from the right hemisphere to the left that lasted up to three months after the training period, a change associated with more positive affect (Davidson et al., 2003). These brain changes were also associated with improved immune function. These results support the hypothesis that mindfulness-based approaches promote improved emotional functioning and self-regulation.

Practicing mindfulness can also support the self-regulatory processes that buffer against psychological distress (Jimenez, Niles, & Park, 2010). Providing a better understanding of the underlying brain changes that may support this buffering effect, Hölzel and colleagues (Hölzel, Carmody, et al., 2011) found that participating in MBSR affected the brain in ways that are associated with improved self-regulation. MRI brain scans taken before and after the program found augmented gray matter in the hippocampus, a critical area for learning and memory, and a reduction of gray matter in the amygdala, a region associated with anxiety and stress. Participants assigned to the control group showed no such changes.

By teaching individuals how to manage stress and regulate emotional distress more effectively (Shapiro, Schwartz, & Bonner, 1998), mindfulness practice also has implications for our awareness of the needs of others and our capacity to respond to others empathically (Singer & Lamm, 2009). Research has shown, for instance, that individuals who can manage distress in response to a person who is suffering and in need are more likely to show empathy and compassionate behavioral responses toward that person than are those who get overly distressed by the suffering and therefore withdraw as a means of regulating their own distressing emotion (Eisenberg et al., 1989). In addition, mindfulness practice appears to strengthen the neural circuitry associated with emotion regulation and empathy (Hölzel, Carmody, et al., 2011; Lutz, Brefczynski-Lewis, et al., 2008); and adults who practiced a loving-kindness meditation, a technique used to increase feelings of warmth and caring for self and others (Salzberg, 1995), show increases in positive daily moods, life satisfaction, and a sense of life purpose compared to those who did not do this practice (Fredrickson et al., 2008).

Mindfulness Approaches with Teachers

Teaching can be experienced as highly stressful, and given the research that has begun to document the positive effects of contemplative practices with adults, there has been growing interest in providing such practices to teachers. Teachers report that trying to regulate intense emotional responses to provocative student behaviors contributes to burnout (Carson & Templin, 2007). Teachers know that it is inappropriate to express harsh, negative emotions to children, but they sometimes find it difficult to recognize how they feel and to regulate these emotions without suppressing or denying them. Trying to cope with strong emotions day in and day out can lead to emotional exhaustion. This exhaustion can lead to a callous, cynical attitude toward students, parents, and colleagues. Eventually teachers may grow to feel that they are ineffective and drop out of the profession (see Jennings & Greenberg, 2009, for a review of the teacher stress literature). Teachers who experience burnout are less likely to demonstrate sympathy and caring for their students, have less tolerance for disruptive behavior, and are less dedicated to their work (Farber & Miller, 1981). Teachers who practice contemplation regularly may be able to better regulate their emotional reactivity, thus reducing emotional exhaustion and burnout.

In order for the introduction of contemplative practices in education to become a value-added piece of teacher formation and professional development, we propose that the introduction of contemplative practices in education be grounded in existing educational theory and practice. In that way, the desired outcomes of such training for teachers will extend beyond their personal well-being to the improvement of their classroom management skills, their relationships with students and colleagues, and their ability to implement SEL programs and many of the other prosocial program approaches represented in this volume (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009).

A key hypothesis at the heart of this new movement is that contemplative practices like mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation can enhance the skill sets and mind-sets teachers need to be effective and caring educators in the classroom. Dr. Robert Pianta and his colleagues at the University of Virginia studied thousands of classrooms throughout the United States and found that effective learning environments share a set of common elements (Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2003). These include low levels of conflict and disruptive behavior, smooth transitions, appropriate expressions of emotion, respectful communication and problem solving, strong interest and focus on tasks, and teacher supportiveness and responsiveness to individual differences and students’ needs. Given what we know about optimal learning environments, the question arises: How does a teacher create, maintain, and manage such a classroom, especially when faced with growing numbers of children with learning and behavior problems? Pianta and numerous other researchers have found that one key is in the relationships the teacher forms with students (Pianta, Hamre, & Stuhlman, 2003)—relationships based upon awareness, responsiveness, empathy, and compassion—the very skills that regular contemplative practice supports. As we noted earlier, student learning and behavior problems are often rooted in difficulties with self-regulation, and positive teacher–student relationships can help build such self-regulatory skills in students (Morrison, Ponitz, & McClellan, 2010). In contrast, when teachers and other adults react to disruptive behaviors with coercive and punitive responses, students may develop reactive coping strategies that evolve into power struggles with teachers and peers.

However, attuned, aware, and responsive teachers can do much to alter the course of events that lead students to unhealthy outcomes (Birch & Ladd, 1998; Goodenow, 1993; Resnick et al., 1997). They make all the difference for students who are unable to effectively manage their emotions. Such teachers can help these students to appropriately navigate social and emotional challenges, and this has a positive influence on the classroom as a whole. In addition, when teachers practice mindfulness or another contemplative activity regularly, it may give them a sense of greater “psychological space” (Lewin, 1943) by helping them recognize and effectively manage their own emotional responses so they can make conscious choices about how to respond appropriately rather than reacting unconsciously to provocative behaviors. Teachers who have a regular contemplative practice may be more able to take these behaviors less personally and show warmth and compassion at the same time they firmly set limits.

When teachers are responsive to students’ needs and reactions, they become what Vygotsky called a “scaffold” (1978) to support the children’s ability to concentrate on the lesson through the power of joint attention. Furthermore, greater awareness of children’s needs and reactions may enhance teachers’ ability to recognize and create “teachable moments,” those times when a student is primed to learn something new or to integrate the understanding of a concept at a more abstract level. Finally, greater awareness of the classroom social and emotional dynamics helps teachers recognize and provide opportunities to coach children through situations that are socially and emotionally challenging and be an exemplary role model of self-regulation and appropriate behavior.

With greater awareness of classroom dynamics, teachers can better manage their classrooms because they are proactive rather than reactive. They notice what is going on around them in an uncanny way. They can maintain a broad, overall awareness of their classroom while they focus their attention on helping one child. This ability is associated with effective classroom management (Marzano, Marzano, & Pickering, 2003). These teachers can anticipate conflict situations before they arise and recognize their students’ signals of restlessness or boredom. Regular contemplative practice may help teachers develop the attentional skills that can help them consistently perform at this level of awareness even in the midst of normal classroom chaos.

In summary, a series of hypotheses about how contemplative practices might enhance the kinds of skill sets and mind-sets that underlie not only teacher well-being but also quality teaching have been developed. In order to test these hypotheses, a series of teacher-focused mindfulness programs have evolved over the last decade or so. Below, we provide a brief overview of these programs and the preliminary research efforts that are under way to investigate their feasibility and effectiveness for teacher well-being and the quality of teaching.

Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB)

In 2000, academics, practitioners, and scholars from various fields and contemplative traditions, including the Dalai Lama, met in dialogue on the topic of “destructive emotions” and how contemplative practices might prove beneficial as antidotes to such emotions (see Goleman, 2003). The interaction led the Dalai Lama to ask whether or not mindfulness practice could be beneficial to Westerners to promote effective emotion regulation, empathy, and compassion for others. As a result of this discussion, Paul Ekman (at the University of California–San Francisco) joined with contemplative Alan Wallace to develop and research a mindfulness program called “Cultivating Emotional Balance.” Although not specifically designed for teachers, it was tested with teacher-participants in studies conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area. CEB incorporates didactic and discussion elements in conjunction with experiential training in mindfulness, compassion, and their applications to social and emotional life.

CEB was tested on a sample of eighty-two female teachers (pre-K–12) utilizing a randomized, controlled trial design. Results at both posttest and five-month follow-up indicated that the training significantly reduced teachers’ self-reported rumination, depression, and anxiety and significantly increased their self-reported emotional self-awareness. Increases in emotional self-awareness were also found using a non-self-report measure, as were increases in compassionate responding to a stimulus involving human suffering. These results provide preliminary evidence that increased mindfulness is a promising practice for increasing teacher’s well-being (Kemeny et al., in press).

Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE)*

In 2007, the Garrison Institute supported the development of a new intervention that would integrate mindfulness practices and emotion skills training in ways directed toward supporting teacher social, emotional, and instructional effectiveness as a means of improving the context for academic learning (Jennings, Turksma, Brown, & Snowberg, 2011). CARE was designed specifically for teachers and focused not only on the teachers’ personal development and stress reduction, but also on how teachers could transfer the skills of the program to the classroom in ways that support healthy student–teacher relationships and classroom climates.

The CARE program model is a comprehensive system involving thirty contact hours in a group setting presented as a series of five six-hour sessions designed to promote and support teachers’ social and emotional competencies and well-being over the course of a school year (see table 12.1 for the CARE program schedule). Following best practices in adult learning, CARE introduces material sequentially, utilizing a blend of didactic, experiential, and interactive learning processes. Core components include emotion skills instruction, mindfulness/stress-reduction practices, and caring and listening practices.

Table 12.1. CARE Program Schedule

Fall						Spring Booster
Session 1	Intersession	Session 2	Intersession	Session 3	Intersession
2 continuous days (6 hrs. each)	2 weeks of phone coaching (one 30-minute call/week)	1 day (6 hrs.)	2 weeks of phone coaching (one 30-minute call/week)	1 day (6 hrs.)	Local group support activities	1 day (6 hrs.)

Emotion Skills Instruction

CARE incorporates didactic instruction with experiential activities to help individuals understand, recognize, and regulate emotional responses. Reflective practices and role-plays are employed to support teachers’ recognition of their emotional states and exploration of their habitual emotional patterns, tendencies, and reactivity profile. Self-induction of positive emotions as a means of promoting well-being and resilience is also taught (Cohn, Brown, Fredrickson, Milkels, & Conway, 2009). These practices are intended to help teachers reappraise emotionally provocative situations, resulting in better self-regulation and responsiveness (as opposed to automatic reactivity) in an effort to help them be more sensitive to student needs, more aware of classroom emotional climate, and more able to regulate their emotions when managing provocative behavior and providing emotional support through direct instruction, modeling, and classroom practices such as coaching students through conflict situations.

Mindfulness/Stress-Reduction Practices

To support emotion regulation, reduce stress, and help teachers be more aware and engaged with their teaching and their students, CARE introduces mindful awareness practices that begin with short periods of silent reflection, body awareness, breath awareness, and awareness of thought and emotion. Activities also bring mindfulness into aspects of daily living such as standing, walking, listening to others, and so forth. Through these activities, teachers learn to bring greater awareness into the classroom to enhance their relationships with students, their classroom management, and their curricular implementation—for example, applying mindfulness to the use of “wait time” during classroom discussions (Chin, 2007) and practicing mindful listening when mediating a conflict between students.

Caring and Listening Practices

To promote empathy and compassion, CARE introduces “caring practice” and “mindful listening.” Caring practice involves a silent reflection during which one generates feelings of care for self and others by mentally offering well-being, happiness, and peace—first to oneself, then to a loved one, then to a neutral colleague or acquaintance, and finally to a person whom one finds challenging, such as a difficult student, parent, or colleague. This activity practiced over time produces increases in daily experiences of positive emotions, which produce increases in life satisfaction and personal resources such as social support and decreases in illness symptoms and depressive symptoms (Fredrickson et al., 2008). The practice also enhances prosocial responding, self-care, and well-being (Jain et al., 2007). Mindful listening exercises develop the skill to simply listen to another and notice but not act upon emotional reactions, such as urges to judge the other or offer advice. It provides the skills to more effectively listen to students and be more reflective and sensitive to their needs, especially during conflict situations where a teacher’s calm, supportive presence can help students learn to resolve conflict peacefully.

The first prototype of CARE was piloted in 2007 with twenty-two public school teachers in Denver, Colorado. The CARE model utilized two two-weekend sessions separated by one month during which facilitators provided coaching to the teachers by phone once per week. The teachers completed an evaluation survey at the conclusion of the training. The results of this initial evaluation were positive. Most of the teachers felt that CARE helped them to more effectively manage the emotions of teaching. The program helped them to be more calm and present in the classroom and to better handle challenging situations. All of the teachers rated the training as beneficial to their professional lives.

In 2008 and 2009, further pilots were presented at a private K–12 school in the Philadelphia area and two retreats held at the Garrison Institute in Garrison, New York. In 2009, an independent agency conducted a program evaluation of CARE by inviting the eighty-five participants from these programs who had valid e-mail addresses to complete an online survey. Forty-one (48 percent) responded within the two-week period that the survey was open. Again the results were positive. Ninety-six percent were satisfied or highly satisfied with the program content, program design, and skill of the facilitators. Sixty-seven percent felt that the training helped them to better establish and maintain supportive relationships with the children they work with, and 68 percent reported that they are better able to manage classroom behaviors effectively and compassionately as a result of the CARE program. Fifty percent reported that their students’ on-task and prosocial behavior was improved since the CARE training (Jennings, 2011).

In 2009, Pennsylvania State University and the Garrison Institute received federal funding (U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences) to complete the development and preliminary evaluation of CARE in the context of whole school districts. During year 1, thirty-one teachers participated in the program. Teachers were assessed pre- and postintervention, and they participated in focus groups. Results from the first year of this project showed statistically significant pre–post improvement in all of the dimensions of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006; Greenberg, Jennings, & Goodman, 2010) and reductions in stress associated with general hurry and task-related hurry as measured by the Time Urgency Scale (Landy, Rastegary, Thayer, & Colvin, 1991). During focus group conversations, participants reported that they were overwhelmingly satisfied with their experience in the CARE program and had adopted new habits that were helping to improve their relationships with students and their classroom climate. They also reported that students’ academic performance and behavior had improved (Jennings, Snowberg, Coccia, & Greenberg, 2011).

During the second year of the project, fifty-two teachers were matched on demographic variables and randomly assigned to CARE or a wait-list control condition. Self-report data were collected from both groups pre- and postintervention. Comparisons between the CARE treatment group and control group were made during the postintervention period using covariance-adjusted means. Mean comparisons were made on each self-report instrument after controlling for its baseline measurement collected upon recruitment into the study, during the preintervention period. Statistically significant treatment effects were found on measures of self-efficacy, mindfulness, time-related stress, burnout, emotion regulation, and physical symptoms. Teachers assigned to the treatment group participated in focus groups postintervention, and this group also reported high levels of satisfaction and gave similar reports of improvement in their teaching efficacy and classroom climate.

Stress Management and Resilience Training (SMART)-in-Education Program: A Mindfulness-Based Program for Educators

In 2008, the Impact Foundation supported the development of a “best practices,” secular, mindfulness-based program for teachers with the aims of reducing stress, cultivating resilience, and reconnecting teachers with their deeper values and goals (see Cullen & Wallace, 2010). The resultant program is the fruit of an extended collaboration between contemplatives, educators, curriculum writers, scientists, and program developers.

The SMART curriculum incorporates many features of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn (1990), including core teachings (what is mindfulness, what is perception, responding versus reacting, the cycle of stress) and core mindfulness practices aimed at cultivating mindful awareness of the body and mind such as the body scan, meditation on the breath, meditation on the stream of consciousness as it arises moment to moment, and mindful yoga (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). Approximately 65 percent of SMART is MBSR. In addition, the SMART program includes features not found in MBSR: about 20 percent of the program is devoted to emotion theory and the application of mindfulness to awareness and regulation of specific challenging emotions (fear, anger, unforgiveness), and the remaining 15 percent to forgiveness and loving-kindness practices aimed at mindfulness in the context of interpersonal relationships. Applications of the teachings and practices to key aspects of teachers’ professional and personal lives are made throughout the program through (1) facilitated discussion of weekly practice, (2) exercises aimed at the transfer of SMART material to the classroom (e.g., practice of loving kindness for a “challenging” student), and (3) teachers’ interactions and connections with one another as part of the group.

The SMART program consists of 34.5 hours spent in group meetings of about twenty-five to thirty teacher-participants. The program is led by an MBSR-trained, SMART-trained instructor. The weekly sessions are 2.5 hours in length and run for eight continuous weeks. SMART also includes a half-day Saturday session at the beginning of the program and a full Saturday silent retreat nearer the end of the program. Participants are requested to do fifteen minutes of home practice per day for the entire duration of the program.

In 2009 and 2010, Roeser and his colleagues conducted randomized, controlled trials in Canada and the United States aimed at assessing the feasibility and efficacy of the SMART program with regard to mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based social-emotional resilience among public school teachers. The sample for these two studies, when combined, included 118 mainly female (89 percent) public school teachers who were randomized to condition. Study 1 included 60 elementary (65 percent) and secondary public school teachers (54 women, 6 men) from an urban school district in western Canada. Study 2 included 58 elementary (74 percent) and secondary public school teachers (51 females, 7 males) from a suburban school district in the western United States. In terms of teaching experience, teachers in the combined sample ranged from having taught from one to thirty-five years in the classroom (M = 14.9, SD = 8.5, Mdn = 13, Mode = 6). There were no significant differences in years of teaching experience between research sites. Measures were assessed at pre/post/three-month follow-up and included surveys, computer-based behavioral tasks, interviews, and health screens.

Results showed that participants receiving SMART demonstrated statistically significant reductions in occupational stress and burnout, reductions in anxiety and depression, and increased mindfulness at program completion and at three-month follow-up in contrast to wait-list controls. Behavioral measures showed increases from baseline to postprogram in a measure of focused attention/working memory in the Canadian sample among those receiving the training compared to controls. No significant differences in biomarkers of stress (blood pressure, diurnal cortisol) were found. Mindfulness changes at program completion mediated reductions in occupational stress and burnout at three-month follow-up (Roeser, Cullen, et al., 2011).

In a second study of these data, the influence of the SMART program on mindfulness-based social-emotional resilience in the form of public school teachers’ efficacy beliefs regarding social-emotional dimensions of teaching; dispositions toward forgiveness; and compassion for themselves, others, and “their most-challenging student” was examined. Results showed that SMART was associated with increases in teachers’ efficacy for regulating emotion on the job and forgiving others, in their dispositions to forgive others at work and generally, and in their compassion for themselves as teachers compared to wait-list controls. Linguistic analyses of interview data collected postprogram revealed that teachers who underwent the training expressed more positive affect when discussing their most challenging student than those in the wait-list control group. Mindfulness changes at program completion mediated increases in efficacy for handling social-emotional issues at work at four-month follow-up (Roeser, Haimovitz, et al., 2011).

In a third study in 2010, Benn, Roeser, and colleagues conducted a randomized, controlled study of the efficacy with regard to stress reduction of a five-week, thirty-four-hour summertime version of the SMART program (mindfulness training: MT) with regard to stress reduction for parents and educators of children with special needs. The sample included thirty-seven special educators (ten teachers, eleven teaching assistants, and sixteen other professional staff) and twenty-three parents of children with special needs who were randomly assigned to condition. Participants completed surveys on a variety of standardized measures before (baseline), after (post-MT), and two months following (follow-up) MT. Results showed that participants were able to attend the majority of the sessions, and that those receiving MT showed statistically significant increases in mindfulness, self-compassion, and personal growth and significant reductions in stress and anxiety upon program completion and at two-month follow-up compared to controls. Relational competence also showed significant positive changes, with medium to large effect sizes noted on measures of empathic concern and forgiveness. Group differences in teachers’ self-reported mindfulness at program completion mediated group differences in outcomes at two-month follow-up (see Benn, Akiva, Arel, & Roeser, 2011).

In a fourth study, Harrison, Taylor, Denne, and Roeser (2011) compared the efficacy of a thirty-four-hour version of the SMART-in-Education program (SMART34) to a shortened twenty-hour version (SMART20) that was requested by the district due to concerns about the length of the program. Key outcomes of this study included teachers’ self-reported mindfulness, occupational stress, and occupational burnout. The study included sixty-eight self-selected elementary and secondary teachers from the same public school district in Colorado, forty-eight of whom were initially assigned to treatment or control for the thirty-four-hour version, and an additional arm of individuals later added who took the twenty-hour version of SMART. Feasibility and efficacy data were drawn from MBSR instructor- and teacher-self-reported survey data. Results showed that both programs were feasible in terms of outcomes and that both programs produced equivalent increases in mindfulness and reductions in stress compared to controls. Fewer symptoms of burnout were reported at the conclusion of SMART34 compared to the SMART20 program.

Results from these trials provide initial evidence of program feasibility and efficacy for educators and parents. However, studies of the SMART program warrant further investigation using (1) behavioral, observational, and third-person outcome measures to account for self-reporting biases in these results, as well as (2) active control groups to account for generic intervention effects in these results. Current studies of the SMART program using spousal reports on the target participant, video recordings and observations of classroom practice, and new omnibus indices of biomarkers of stress (e.g., allostatic load) to get around the former kinds of biases are under way.

Inner Resilience Program (IRP)

The Inner Resilience Program was established in response to the effects of the events of September 11, 2001, on educators and students in lower Manhattan. Developers soon realized that the program being implemented in these schools had broader implications for the field of education in general (Lantieri, 2008).

The IRP program includes weekend residential retreats for school staff, professional development workshops, individual stress-reduction sessions, and parent workshops at school sites. The program offers opportunities for teachers to nurture their inner lives through weekly yoga classes and monthly sessions in which school staff are introduced to many self-care strategies, including a variety of contemplative practices. IRP has also developed and piloted a K–8 curriculum, Building Resilience from the Inside Out, and offers training and implementation support around this curriculum comprised of stress-reduction practices for students.

The program’s mindfulness-based approaches aim to create healthy environments for teaching and learning by assisting both teachers and students to hone the skills of self-regulation, attention, and caring for others. It was hypothesized that the IRP would reduce teacher stress and increase job satisfaction and positive work relationships. Such teacher wellness outcomes were, in turn, hypothesized to have a positive influence on the climate in teachers’ classrooms. Positive climate, as well as the curriculum that teachers would deliver to students on stress reduction, in turn was hypothesized to help students increase their own mental focus and reduce stress, frustration, and related acting-out behaviors.

A randomized controlled study was conducted to assess the effects of IRP with a sample of fifty-seven New York City public school teachers and their students. Twenty-nine teachers were assigned to the treatment group, and twenty-eight teachers were assigned to the control group. The treatment group’s intervention consisted of approximately sixty hours of IRP program and ten hours of training to prepare teachers to implement the curriculum in their classrooms. Both teacher and student outcomes were measured before and after the intervention.

As hypothesized, results showed statistically significant program effects on teachers’ self-reported wellness, including reduced stress levels, increased levels of mindfulness, and greater perceived relational trust among treatment compared to control teachers. Additionally, some support was found for student effects as well. A total of 855 third- and fourth-grade students completed the study, with 471 in the treatment group and 384 in the control. Students of IRP teachers reported reduced frustration levels over time compared to students of control teachers as measured by a selection of items from the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire (EATQ; Capaldi & Rothbart, 1992). An analysis of high-risk students showed that these students seemed to benefit the most in terms of student outcomes among the students of the IRP teachers. These differential effects of the program on high-risk students merit further investigation (Simon, Harnett, Nagler, & Thomas, 2009).

In sum, novel forms of professional education and development for educators involving mindfulness training are emerging, including but not limited to those mentioned here. These programs aim to transform not only the health and well-being of the teacher by cultivating mindfulness-related skills and mind-sets, but also the social nature of the classroom environment and the ways that teachers interact with students, especially those who are challenging. By helping teachers to learn how to “respond” versus “react,” all of these programs aim to produce the kinds of mindful classroom environments alluded to in the opening of this chapter. Research has just begun, and there is a need for additional randomized trials that assess teachers’ health and mental health outcomes, as well as the quality of their teaching and the social and academic outcomes of their students.

Adults’ embodiment of the qualities of mindfulness and caring in their everyday behavior is critical to applying contemplative and/or mindfulness-based practices in education in a way that can benefit children and youth. We described how the Inner Resilience Program combined a teacher and student intervention. Next we address the state of knowledge regarding this work with students. What innovative programs (in addition to IRP) are exploring these issues today?

Mindfulness Approaches with Children and Adolescents: Hypotheses and Research

In addition to the increasing prominence of the work on contemplative practices in clinical psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience with adult populations, the translation of contemplative practices to clinical and educational settings with children and adolescents, and the science of the use of these practices in such settings, has also been developing (e.g., Birdee et al., 2009; Black, Milam, & Sussman, 2009; Garrison Institute, 2005; Roeser & Peck, 2009). This work has proceeded more slowly, however, as the translation of activities designed for adults to use with children and youth is rather complex. As developmental science has clearly demonstrated, children are not just “little adults.” Depending upon their age and developmental stage, their mind-body processes are not as well-elaborated or efficient as those of adults, and therefore the techniques that would best help to unfold as-yet unmanifest potentials are a delicate and complicated pedagogical challenge. The crucial question is, therefore, what contemplative activities are appropriate and effective for children at particular developmental stages?

The research base for the use of contemplative practices such as mindfulness training and yoga is still in a nascent state at this time. The truth is that we know very little about the potential benefits or side effects of using these practices with young people in clinical or educational settings. Nonetheless, a considerable amount of pilot research has now been conducted and is at least suggestive of program benefits and an absence of program harm. For instance, the conclusion of Birdee and colleagues (2009) on the state of knowledge regarding the use of yoga in treating children with a variety of pediatric conditions is typical of the field currently. The authors conclude, “Most published controlled trials were suggestive of benefit, but results are preliminary based on low quantity and quality of trials. Further research of yoga for children by using a higher standard of methodology and reporting is warranted” (Birdee et al., 2009, p. 212). Below, we highlight a few of the key studies that have been completed to date.

Yoga Training

In one of the few published studies involving yoga with school-age children (ages eight to thirteen), Telles, Hanumanthaiah, Nagarathna, and Nagendra (1993) found that participation in a ten-day training in physical postures, voluntary regulation of the breath, maintenance of silence, and visual focusing exercises was associated with greater performance on a test of physical steadiness compared to controls. Understanding the effects of cultivating physical balance and somatic awareness on emotional balance and mental awareness is an area for future research (e.g., Wallace & Shapiro, 2006). In another study on yoga, Mendelson and colleagues (2010) used a randomized trial design to examine the efficacy and academic, social-emotional, and behavioral effects of a mindfulness-based yoga program for primarily lower-socioeconomic-status students in grades 4 and 5. Four urban public schools were randomized to an intervention or wait-list control condition (N = 98 fourth and fifth graders). It was hypothesized that the twelve-week intervention would enhance coping skills and improve both mental health outcomes and social adjustment. Findings indicated that the intervention was feasible and acceptable to students, teachers, and school administrators. Further, the intervention had a statistically significant positive impact on problematic coping responses, including how often children report they have ruminative thoughts, intrusive thoughts, impulsivity, and problems in managing their emotions.

In terms of mindful awareness practices for children and youth, while many programs are being developed in both clinical and educational settings, and there are many claims of effectiveness, few have been carefully studied. One example of research directed toward helping adolescents who were being treated for a variety of mental health difficulties found that participants who engaged in regular treatment and a mindfulness-based stress-reduction program adapted for adolescents showed reduced symptoms of anxiety, depression, and somatic distress and increased self-esteem and sleep quality compared to adolescents who received regular treatment alone (Biegel, Brown, Shapiro, & Schubert, 2009). A workbook of the program’s mindfulness-based stress-reduction activities was recently published (Biegel, 2009).

Mindfulness-based programs specifically designed to be presented to students in schools are also being developed. Below we review three promising programs designed to be integrated into both elementary and secondary schools as part of the regular curriculum.

MindUP

MindUP is a classroom-based program for elementary school students aimed at fostering social-emotional well-being and prosocial behavior, as well as decreasing acting-out behaviors and aggression, through mindfulness training (Hawn Foundation, 2011). The MindUP program consists of fifteen lessons of approximately thirty minutes each and two core daily practices—mindful breathing and attentive listening. These core practices are done three times a day for three minutes.

A quasi-experimental, pretest/posttest, control group design was used to evaluate the program (formerly called Mindfulness Education or ME) among 246 fourth- to seventh-grade children drawn from twelve classrooms. Six intervention classes were matched with six comparison classes where the average age, gender, and race/ethnicity of the classes were equivalent. Overall, both teachers and students reported satisfaction with the program. In addition, results revealed that children who participated in the ME program, compared to children who did not, showed statistically significant improvements on teacher-rated attention and social competence and decreases in aggressive/dysregulated behavior in the classroom. In addition, children in the ME program self-reported greater optimism and mindful attention than those not in the program (Schonert-Reichl & Lawlor, 2010). While the results of this study are promising, it is not possible to infer that the intervention caused these effects, since the study did not employ random assignment and relied on the reports of teachers who were delivering the intervention and therefore were potentially biased. The program was revised, expanded, and renamed MindUP. Randomized controlled trials of the revised MindUP program are currently under way.

Inner Kids Program

Modeled after classical mindfulness training for adults, the Inner Kids program introduces exercises and games to promote awareness and attentional regulation (Kaiser Greenland, 2010). The program presents brief periods of sitting meditation (approximately three minutes); activities; games that promote each week’s theme (sensory awareness, attentional regulation, awareness of others, or awareness of the environment); and a five-minute modified body scan exercise performed lying down.

Inner Kids was evaluated in a randomized controlled study of sixty-four second- and third-grade children ages seven to nine years. The program was delivered by the program developer in thirty-minute sessions twice a week over eight weeks, for a total of sixteen sessions. Compared to controls, participation in Inner Kids was associated with enhanced executive functioning (EF) reported by participants’ parents and teachers compared to parent/teacher reports of those in the control condition (Flook et al., 2010). An interesting finding is that children assigned to the treatment group who measured low on EF at baseline showed greater gains in behavioral regulation, metacognition, and overall global executive control than those with higher baseline EF.

Learning to BREATHE

A promising program designed for adolescents is the Learning to BREATHE curriculum (Broderick, 2010). Learning to BREATHE (L2B) is a mindfulness-based prevention program aimed at cultivating emotion regulation by facilitating cognitive awareness of sensations, thoughts, and emotions by encouraging cognitive strategies that lead to decentering from thoughts and feelings in ways that allow for simple observation and decreased experiential avoidance; by learning to diffuse the intensity of emotions and the subsequent drive to act on them automatically; and finally, by reducing negative rumination, which has been shown to be a risk factor for the development and maintenance of disorders. Program development was guided by knowledge of adolescent development and the kinds of issues and experiences they might find motivating and developmentally relevant (Broderick & Blewitt, 2006). L2B was designed to be integrated into the standard high school health curriculum and meets the Pennsylvania State standards for health curricula.

A study was conducted with a class of 120 seniors from a private girls’ school who participated in L2B as part of their regular health curriculum. These students reported decreased negative affect and increased feelings of calmness, relaxation, and self-acceptance compared to junior students who were assigned to a wait list. Statistically significant pre–post improvements in emotion regulation and decreases in tiredness and aches and pains were also found. However, since participants were not randomly assigned to the program (or wait list), it is not possible to draw a causal inference from these data. An evaluation conducted at the conclusion of the program indicated a high degree of program satisfaction (Broderick & Metz, 2009).

Relaxation Response Curriculum

Benson and his colleagues developed a Relaxation Response (RR) curriculum (based upon a program designed for adults; Benson, 1975) in which students, as part of their health education class, were taught about stress, its effects, and effective ways to manage it. Students were trained in a two-step meditation technique consisting of (1) choosing and then focusing awareness on a single object (e.g., an image, word, phrase) and (2) adopting a stance of nonjudgment and non-self-consciousness with respect to efforts to maintain their awareness on the object of meditation.

In one randomized experiment, results showed that, compared to controls, exposure to the RR curriculum was associated with an increase in adolescents’ feelings of esteem over time (Benson et al., 1994). A second study with middle school students looked at how length of exposure to the RR curriculum over the course of a three-year period was related to changes in students’ academic achievement, attendance, and work habits (Benson et al., 2000). Results showed that students who had more than two exposures to semester-long classes in which teachers had been trained in the relaxation response curriculum showed higher grades, better work habits, and more cooperation than students who had two or fewer exposures. However, the lack of randomization, the absence of a control group, and the fact that the student outcomes were rated, in part, by teachers who were not blind to the conditions of the study mitigate against drawing firm conclusions about the efficacy of the RR curriculum with middle school students. Although promising, more rigorously controlled research with non-self-report measures is needed to establish the effects of the RR curriculum.

In summary, contemporary reviews of evidence on the viability and effects of using contemplative practices such as yoga and other contemplative approaches with children and adolescents all arrive at the same conclusion: signs are promising in terms of student acceptance of these practices, but the research base still suffers from too few peer-reviewed papers; scant details about programs; failure to employ rigorous research methodologies (e.g., blindness to condition, random assignment, use of non-self-report methodologies, use of blind reporters/observers); and general lack of agreement on the active ingredients of programs and ways to measure their effectiveness (Birdee et al., 2009; Black et al., 2009; Garrison Institute, 2005; Roeser & Peck, 2009). Future studies will be needed to firmly establish the feasibility and effectiveness of all of these approaches in schools.

In addition, despite design limitations, these studies support the feasibility of using contemplative practices with school-age children and adolescents, though this must be done with attention to developmental factors and carefulness that the practices taught are not perceived as religious in nature. The basic idea is that, given the relative plasticity in the brain systems that subserve these functions during childhood and adolescence, training positive mental habits like mindfulness and nonreactive emotional regulation early in life might pay statistically significant dividends for both preventing problems and promoting well-being across the life span (e.g., Greenberg et al., 2003; Roeser & Peck, 2009). For instance, we now know that the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain behind the forehead that governs many of the forms of self-regulation upon which much of the meditation research has focused, develops throughout childhood and adolescence, not reaching the level of adult development until around age twenty-five (Nelson & Bloom, 1997). This long period of development represents a key “window of opportunity” for educational training of the “executive functions” and “emotion regulation”—two sets of key self-regulatory processes that are integrally related to learning and school success (Blair, 2003). A key hypothesis in the field today is that developmentally appropriate practices promote the development of executive cognitive and emotional control.

In addition to the research on the Inner Kids program cited above, preliminary support for the hypothesis that contemplation may promote these important skills was found in a small pilot study by researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles. They found that a mindfulness-based intervention given to a group of adult and adolescent ADHD sufferers improved the particular attentional skills that play an important role in both inhibition and self-regulation (Zylowska et al., 2007). This new research suggests the need for further investigation of this exciting new area of education.

Developmental Issues

A crucial question that has not been addressed by research to date is what contemplative activities are appropriate and effective for children at particular developmental stages. Based upon knowledge derived from developmental science, an understanding of how executive functions develop needs to be considered when embarking upon the design of a curriculum or intervention involving contemplation and/or mindfulness-based practices for children. In particular, such practices require consideration of the development of intentional direction of attention (and inhibition) and metacognition (the development of the ability to think about thinking).

As mentioned earlier, contemplative or mindfulness-based practices involve focusing attention in various ways. The most basic is a simple focus of attention on the breath. One is instructed to attend to the breath and to bring one’s attention back to the breath when one’s mind wanders off into the stream of thoughts that typify normal waking consciousness. This type of mindfulness practice requires a mature degree of inhibition and metacognition: the ability to recognize and monitor one’s thinking and redirect attention back to the breath. There is much to be learned about metacognition and its development. Certainly, children cannot be assumed to have the same capacity to monitor and direct their thinking as do adults. Degrees of awareness of thought become available during early and middle childhood (Flavell & Miller, 1998). Furthermore, although the ability to inhibit normal attraction to distracting stimuli develops rapidly during middle childhood, it is not fully developed until adolescence (Kuhn & Franklin, 2006). Therefore, short periods of mindfulness practice (three to five minutes) may be appropriate for children during the primary grades as they begin to show evidence of greater levels of inhibition and the ability to notice and regulate their thinking. Longer practice sessions may be appropriate for adolescents whose executive functions more closely resemble those of an adult.

However, it may be more appropriate for children and adolescents of all ages to begin with a focus on sensory input such as listening to a bell, the sounds of nature, music, or poetry, or to focus on the bodily movements involved in the practice of yoga, art, and dance and the movements involved in the activities of daily living found in Montessori and Waldorf curricula. Children as young as three years of age can actively engage in and successfully perform these types of sensory and movement activities (Lillard, 2005). What differentiates a contemplative approach to educational activities from the typical one is the intentional use of the activity to promote deep concentration, awareness, reflection, and a sense of being fully present to the moment. For example, often the lesson begins and ends with a moment of silent reflection, and the teacher models this deep level of concentration as he or she demonstrates the activity.

Conclusion

Scientific research is beginning to demonstrate the effectiveness of contemplative practices in enhancing health and well-being among adults, including both patients and doctors (e.g., Krasner et al., 2009). Since there is good evidence that engagement in contemplative practices can have positive effects on the health and well-being of adults, it makes sense that researchers and practitioners have explored the use of these practices with teachers with the aims of reducing stress, enhancing well-being, and improving performance. By introducing teachers to contemplative practice first, this may prepare them to introduce contemplative practices and experiences to their students, either through direct instruction or by mindful teaching as found in both Montessori and Waldorf methodologies.

At the same time, growing numbers of clinicians and educators are experimenting with the use of contemplative practices with children, though there is very little research that has examined what practices are most appropriate at each stage of development, and there is not yet a clear understanding of how best to implement these practices in a classroom setting. While more research is needed to better understand the developmental issues in contemplative education for students, we can apply our current understanding of children’s development to the advancement of evidence-based practices. While contemplative practices that involve focusing attention on sensory stimuli or bodily movement may be appropriate for children of all ages, practices that require metacognition and high degrees of attentional inhibition may not be appropriate for younger children but may be more appropriate during the early adolescent period forward.

To conclude, given the challenges that teachers and schools face today, mindfulness-based educational practices hold promise. They may provide the space, time, and skills for deep reflection and the integration of challenging life experiences. For example, one contemplative approach commonly utilized in classrooms is the “peace corner,” a quiet place set aside where students can retreat when they need to calm themselves (Lantieri, 2008). One New York City fourth-grade teacher described how her classroom peace corner has helped her students deal with their challenging life experiences:

My students love the classroom peace corner. They brought beautiful photos, postcards of warm and exotic places, and stuffed animals to decorate it. One student who lost an uncle after a long battle with cancer found that peace corner was a safe place to grieve. He died in Ecuador and the family could not afford to go to the funeral. When another child was evicted from her home the peace corner brought her much comfort. Her family now has another home, but during this troubling time, she was able to find a way to deal with those unpleasant feelings at school so she could be more ready to learn, despite the trauma of homelessness. This simple addition in our classroom has allowed my students to seek peace amidst the turmoil they face in their lives daily. I believe we must acknowledge and make space for processing the incredible challenges and painful obstacles our students face. I am so happy that my children have collectively forged a safe place to begin to heal, survive, and appreciate the joy we have in supporting each other!

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*The research reported here on the CARE program was supported by the Institute of Education Science, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant #R305A090179 to Pennsylvania State University. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.