Boosting Education: Essential Meditations for Teachers 

Teachers are superheroes, but those in the teaching profession are also often under a lot of stress. In many parts of the world, we are just coming to understand mindfulness's importance and vast potential in educational settings. Mindfulness supports the personal well-being of teachers and their professional practice by providing a flexible tool. A calm classroom enables both educators and students to focus, even if they ordinarily have difficulty paying attention to topics, and can benefit emotional intelligence and mutual compassion. In this article, we'll discuss:

• The reason meditation and mindfulness can be beneficial for educators
• Ways to implement mindfulness practices in the classroom
• Specific meditations for teachers and students 
• Mindfulness meditations specifically designed for educators

Does Mindfulness Meditation Have a Role in Education?

There is great value in incorporating mindfulness meditation in the classroom. According to the Child Mind Institute, this value is multifaceted: it supports teachers and students from a health and pedagogical perspective. With an emphasis on reducing stress and increasing self-regulation, emotion regulation, and focus, mindfulness programs have been successful with students because implementing as little as a few minutes to focus on breathing can help bring a sense of increased calm. As mentioned here, many mindfulness techniques can be implemented in the classroom.

So where to start?

A Few Guided Mindfulness Meditations for the Classroom

If you are an educator looking to use mindfulness in the classroom, the good news is you do not need to have a vast education in meditation or mindfulness training. There are straightforward and accessible yet effective mindfulness meditation practices for everyone. Below are a few simple ways to introduce mindfulness to the class. You can begin any of these by asking the students to take five deep and even inhales and exhales. With each round, make the breathing deeper and slower. 

• Listen to a mindful meditation track together. It might be good to start with one that is on the shorter side so that the students have time to build their capacity.
• Increase attention in the classroom with a simple mindfulness exercise that you can do in any classroom. Invite the students to look around for a while, then settle their gaze on something. Invite them to pay total attention to whatever they are looking at (wall, table, chair, desk, lamp) and invite them to examine this item. Is it shiny or matte? Does it have a color? Texture? Ask if they can notice something new about that item. You can repeat this exercise a few times.
• Invite them to have a mindful discussion and practice attentive listening. Provide a topic and ask the student to pair up. Once they are in pairs, have one student talk about their topic and invite the other to remain completely silent and to pay attention as closely as they can. Then switch partners. This often works best if it's a timed exercise, and I'd recommend a full minute.
• Try mindfully walking by using either the classroom space or by taking the students outside. Ask the students to take slow, mindful steps, feeling every aspect of the movement, from the way the foot hits the floor to the bend in the knees to the temperature of the air on their skin. Invite them to move as slowly and intentionally as possible.
• Mindful breathing and belly breathing are very accessible practices that is often supported if you ask the class to close their eyes, inhale with intention, and exhale with intention. Guide the class through a few rounds of this, and ask that they breathe normally and notice what they can about their breath. Tell them to focus on a calm inhale and calm, extended exhale. You can ask the students to focus on the softness of their bellies as they inhale and exhale, watching the way the belly expands and contracts.
• Mindfulness with deliberate movements, such as yoga poses or qigong stances is another way to incorporate the practice in class. If there is space, you can even guide the class through a few gentle stretches, inviting them to notice any areas of tension or ease and to breathe with the movement. This is an especially beneficial technique when working with highly energetic students.
• Mindful eating is another fantastic activity. This is often done with a raisin, though just about any food that is small will work. The activity begins by participants placing the food on their tongue, feeling the weight of it and noticing the flavor and shape. Taking time with this step before slowly, mindfully chewing and taking note of all the sensation that happens with a simple bite. After this activity, it’s good to debrief and ask the students what they noticed. If this particular activity seems difficult the first time, you may want to have a few extra bites of food on hand, asking the participants to see if they can notice something new each time.

How Can Mindfulness and Meditation Help Educators?

Let’s be honest: teacher stress is real. Teachers are tasked to find optimal classroom management and truly make an impact, while also considering their cognitive wellness. We all know a teacher who has changed our lives for the better. But teaching is not easy, and simple stress management techniques can help immensely. If you're wondering how to be a more mindful teacher yourself, begin with small changes and remember the goals.

To create a calm classroom, teachers must cultivate emotional intelligence, patience, focus and motivational skills to best deliver lessons and listen to students. They also need to have the communication skills to keep the attention of a room full of students with unique personalities. 

Because mindfulness is a nonjudgmental awareness, it can benefit teachers in many ways. Leaders of their classrooms, teachers can sometimes find difficulty relating to the varying personalities and belief systems of their students.  

Teachers can take a few approaches to cultivate more classroom attention, and it often begins with increasing the feelings of acceptance and compassion that mindfulness practices evoke. Mindfulness contributes to the emotional intelligence of an educator by also relieving stress. Teachers can benefit greatly from a simple mindfulness practice.

Mindfulness in education can enhance teacher-student relationships and improve classroom learning. When teachers are more present, so too are their students.

Mindfulness Exercises for Teachers

A few mindfulness exercises teachers can easily implement include the following:

• Pausing: Patricia A. Jennings, author of Mindfulness for Teachers, suggests a few techniques, including simple pauses after posing questions to a class. Jennings suggests that because students process information at different speeds, pausing for three seconds before calling on anyone gives people with different learning styles an opportunity to process.
• Practice a guided meditation before class. This is a great way to begin if you do not have a lot of experience because it allows you to simply listen and find clear instructions for how to get into a more mindful state.
• Using mindful attention to slow down delivery. By purposefully spending time with your material, rather than trying to rush through, you may find yourself repeating information less often and better delivering the material. To accomplish this, remember to breathe deeply between topics so you can take time with transitions.
• Process difficult emotions with mindfulness. Teachers often care a lot about students, so it can feel frustrating or disappointing when you feel as though you’re not getting through to an individual student. This happens from time to time, and mindfulness can help. By reflecting on your emotional state when interacting with a disengaged or difficult student, you can learn to be less reactive. Mindfulness is about compassion and awareness, so while reflecting, do not judge your own emotions; rather, meet them with simple watchfulness and empathy. By doing so, you will find your next interaction with the student is less emotionally charged.

The benefits of mindfulness exercises for teachers inside and outside of the classroom will help in many ways. By practicing ways to bring yourself into the present moment with mindfulness activities, you can reduce stress and the likelihood of teacher burnout. Stress levels naturally go down because mindfulness helps us to find more emotional calibration, focus, and patience.

By using breath, meditation, and mindfulness practices with your students, you can also build a trusting and safe classroom environment that will make it easier to build better relationships in the classroom. Mindfully teaching means taking care of yourself and your students so that you can be the superhero you are.

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