Why Teachers Need Mindfulness Training

Being mindful of our emotions is being aware of our feelings and realizing how they impact us. Although some may believe that exercising the practice of mindfulness blurs the line between teacher and therapist, Argos Gonzalez a teacher who practices the use of mindfulness in the classroom could not disagree more. For he says these exercises help students regulate their emotions and train their attention. Adding mindfulness to the classroom seems to offer a solution to common problems that affect learning. These two articles clearly express that training teachers in the practice of mindfulness would be extremely beneficial to all school districts.

A student who walks into school every day doesn’t always get to control their social and emotional feelings, most of the time students are going to be learning in high-stress situations they can’t control or cope with correctly. This is why Argos Gonzalez a teacher at Arturo A. Schomburg Satellite Academy believes that bringing mindfulness into the classroom is helpful in teaching students how to, “. . . train their attention, quiet their thoughts, and regulate their emotions …(11)” Gonzalez has been trained in mindfulness and serves as a friend, mentor, teacher and therapist to his students. He is best fit to guide his students through mindfulness and has even improved as a teacher by applying mindfulness in his own life. By giving students the chance to breathe deeply and focus their attention on themselves rather than what’s going on can greatly affect that students way of combating their stress. The statement that being mindful of our emotions is being aware of our feelings and realizing how they impact us at times can really resonate with a student who goes into school every day with these high-stress situations, and teachers like Gonzalez are there to guide and teach students the right ways to handle such situations.

The students at Robert W. Coleman go to a “Mindful Moment Room” in order to calm down. The “Mindful Moment Room” allows kids to take a moment in their day to focus on their problems before they are encouraged to face them, many times with a better outlook. In the article Instead of Detention, These Students get Meditation by Deborah Bloom we’re told that “Before the Mindful Moment Room, students who got into trouble were sent to detention or to the principal’s office. But since making the meditation room available, Thompson said, she rarely sees children for disciplinary issues anymore (15). ” Students who go through mindfulness end up being less disruptive, with Robert W. Coleman seeing zero suspensions compared to four in the past year. It also sees students returning to their classrooms calm and ready to learn. With these types of proven results, a system such as this is most definitely worth implementing into our schools. Teachers are in a foremost position to help students.

Mindfulness has a positive effect on students’ lives and allows them to focus on their work. Mindfulness doesn’t only benefit the students. With it, teachers can even take these learned practices to help with the strains of teaching. Gonzalez even says that “ My intention as a mindfulness instructor is to give the student some very simple and basic tools so they can learn to self regulate (16). ” It also guides teachers to become better educators as they learn more about their students. Additionally, rather than valuing cognitive learning more than non-cognitive intelligence, mindfulness stresses the emotional needs of students. Education reformers have long maintained that there is a fundamental connection between emotional imbalance and poor life prospects. As noted in Mindfulness Meets the Classroom, non-cognitive intelligence can be “the foundation of good character, resilience, and long-term life fulfillment. ” Though less obvious than other measures of a good education, the elements of emotional intelligence are important and must be taught. While the U. S. education system focuses on the academic skills of learning, Mindfulness seeks to address the type of intelligence that displays long term life fulfillment.