Schools bring mindfulness to the classroom to help kids right now

Schools bring mindfulness to the classroom to help kids right now

Schools bring mindfulness to the classroom to help kids in the Covid-19 crisis

Mindfulness in schools is increasingly being used to help students with mental health and academic performance, but research on its effectiveness is not yet conclusive

Doug Worthen guided his small class of ninth graders at Middlesex School through an exercise designed to focus their attention. On his screen, he saw the students sitting outside or at desks and lounging across their beds as they joined their weekly mindfulness class online. One by one the students clicked off their cameras, each square became a white and gray icon and Worthen began the meditation.

“Notice where your attention is,” he said, prompting them to guide their attention back to their “home base” — the sounds around them or body sensations — when it drifted.

At the end of the meditation, the students were guided to open their eyes. They turned their screens back on and Worthen posed a question to the group. “I learned that my attention isn’t very stable,” a student said. She estimated that her attention was focused on her home base 14 percent of the time.

In this required 12-week “Introduction to Mindfulness” course taught by Worthen, a full-time mindfulness instructor, students at the private boarding school in Concord, Massachusetts, will learn how to develop awareness of their thoughts and body sensations, sit with difficult CONTINUE READING: Schools bring mindfulness to the classroom to help kids right now