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How Meditation Can Help Teachers in Schools

Posted by Mindspace in Education, Teachers on Feb 6th, 2010 | No Comments

How Meditation can help Teachers in Schools
Teacher from London area

I trained to be a teacher in my mid thirties and feel privileged to work with young people.

I have met many inspiring colleagues. I have also experienced the stress caused by the demands of the school’s exam and inspection systems and witnessed colleagues breaking down and imploding or exploding in anger at children already traumatised by angry adults at home.

I would love to change the punitive exam system we work within. I would love to change the culture of fear in education. I would love to change the unhappy experiences children have, whether they are through poverty in the form of social deprivation or the more subtle emotional poverty I see in children who appear to have everything materially.

I cannot change the world. I can change myself. Meditation is a way to help me to do that.

Every encounter we have with a colleague or child in which we are centred and grounded and acting with kindness, makes a positive contribution to the atmosphere and culture of the school.

Meditation is a way of changing our own eco-system and by doing so influencing those around us.

Last week, I was working feverishly through mountains of paperwork and emails, in-between seeing students and trying to juggle a meeting bounced on me with very little notice. Feeling fraught and frazzled I decided to use 15 precious minutes to listen to the MindSpace Meditation.

No-one came into my tiny airless office in those 15 minutes but perhaps if they had they would have sensed a change in the atmosphere: Calm in place of the usual coiled up tension in the room.

I went into the meeting smiling, focused, calm and assertive: Many difficult emotions were thrown around: I was contradicted; I witnessed a colleague being treated with thinly veiled hostility whilst others in the room looked uncomfortable and embarrassed. I understood that the person shouting was under huge pressures. Had I not been centred and calm following the meditation, I would have found the experience emotionally draining and upsetting. As it was, I was able to continue the afternoon’s work with focused energy instead of feeling angry and undermined: Those 15 minutes seemed like a long time but they bought me back hours of positive and productive time.

Mediation can help teachers by enabling them to connect with their inner desire to be a positive force in the lives of their students and teach effectively: Meditation can provide resilience. Meditation can help teachers carry on doing what they love to do.

How Meditation Can Help Children in Schools

Posted by Mindspace in NEWS, Teachers on Jan 17th, 2010 | No Comments

How Meditation Can Help Children In Schools – by Adrian Hyde
(Primary School Teacher in the Dudley Borough, West Midlands)

As a Primary teacher of over 15 years it has become more and more noticeable that children over the last few years seem to be facing greater challenges to their well-being.

It seems that they are being influenced more and more by technology without sufficient guidance. Technology has increased the amount of information they have to process each day and whilst not all bad there is information that maybe they shouldn’t have to be processing or should be having some support with.

Family time is being squeezed by pressures of work and parents also spending more time with their own various forms of technology.

Comparing today with my own primary school days there is so much more that children have to deal with and often by themselves. Generally there life is more cluttered and there is less space for an innocent daydream or just moments of freewheeling – all things which a healthy mind should be able to do.

So how could meditation help in schools? By providing a structured opportunity for children to allow their minds to relax, de-clutter and find space.

Children respond remarkably well to the opportunity to meditate or chill out – children quite like the idea of meditation, to them it’s cool and different.

Responses from children in primary school whom I have seen experience a meditation are overwhelmingly positive. Their feedback on these sessions is that it felt; relaxed, calm, peaceful, quiet and it changed the feeling in the classroom to a better one.

Even with a challenging class those children whom you might expect to be difficult actually respond very well to the calm environment created – it may well be just the escape they need from a mind that has some turmoil.

On an emotional intelligence course I learned that people generally exist in 3 zones;

the comfort zone in which we have no stress and are totally relaxed.
the challenge zone where we are tested in a healthy way that helps us develop.
and finally the stress zone which is pretty paralysing and very uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, some children are in or very close to the stress zone when they arrive at school in the morning. So what happens at school to help them?

‘Stop fidgeting!’ ‘Stop chatting to your friends!’ ‘Stop daydreaming!’ ‘Your targets today are to learn about ‘equivalent fractions and percentages!’

Are we asking why children are behaving the way they do and more importantly are we doing anything about it?

Perhaps our first target of the day should be that you should all do nothing for 10 minutes except listen to your breathing?

Teachers & Lecturers

Posted by Mindspace in Teachers on Jun 12th, 2009 | No Comments

Although teaching can be one of the most rewarding and satisfying vocations there is also a stress load that can accompany this work which can affect us both physically and mentally.

Mind Space Education visits schools to offer children the practices of meditation and well being – our be-spoked approach means we can offer separate sessions/workshops for Teachers and Lecturers.