mindfulness in the classroom

Mindfulness is a practice that continues to pop up in different contexts for me for the last year or more. It seems to be a method to reprogram our brains to eject old habits that interfere with our goals and aspirations and replace them with habits that can create in us the person we wish to be. I first became aware of this ability to intentionally rewire our brains when I read The Shallows. It seems that there are similarities between rewiring our brains through distractions vs meditation and is not unlike the rewiring that people have to go through when engaged in physiotherapy to relearn how to walk or talk after a stroke or suffering other types of nervous damage. It seems to me that we should be able to take these same insights from physical therapy and observations about how computer and internet use affect our brain - affects our thinking - and apply them to improving our ability to learn and perhaps our ability to teach by creating learning environments that foster students' ability to stay on task and focus. This post on Faculty Focus suggests some approaches for promoting mindfulness in our classrooms and personal lives.

Resources

Carr N. 2011. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. WW Norton & Co. http://www.theshallowsbook.com/nicholascarr/Nicholas_Carrs_The_Shallows.html

Roush KL. 2015. Moving from Multitasking to Mindfulness. Faculty Focus (March 9). http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/moving-multitasking-mindfulness/