It is time to go back to school!
Let’s take a look at how we can help you this term.
One of the most common questions that we are asked by teachers from schools is:
‘Do you have any advice on how we can start to introduce mindfulness and meditation to our students.’
We can visit your school and provide a practical presentation for both students and teachers.
I will detail how we can help you with this in the second half of the post.
Firstly I just wanted to touch on the importance of the teachers leading by example.
Following the advice from Einsteins famous quote:
“Example isn’t another way to teach, it is the only way to teach.”
Mindfulness is a way of life.
To be able to help students be calmer and more present in their daily lives, then they need to see an example.
This means to bring mindfulness into a school, the practice needs to begin with the teachers.
Not just engaging in a brief workshop or reading one book, but to have a daily practice.
Of course it is not possible for all teachers to necessarily do this if they are not motivated, but for those who are engaged to try to establish a daily practice and start to integrate the experience with their actions.
It may just be one teacher to begin with, one seed within the school, this is enough.One teacher with a daily practice and long term view, can be very powerful.
Reflecting on the well-being of the staff and students both now and in five/ten years time, what can we do now to move forward to this goal, gently and gradually.
You may consider one of the below visits that we offer, a live experience in the school or using our online resources. Or it may simply be having a conversation with one of us at the Meditation in Schools Project to decide on a plan of action over a period of time. At the heart of that plan of action, of course will be your practice.
This can happen now and doesn’t require any budget or permissions, you can start being mindful right now, that doesn’t cost anything other than your attention.
I believe that to be very empowering and exciting for staff in schools, wherever you are you can make a start, (even with these one minute mindfulness exercises), keep a positive vision and move forward.
Now let’s take a look at how we can help by visiting your school.
If we visit your school it can be either in a morning or afternoon assembly or in a smaller classroom setting.
This can be for one hour, where essential information is shared around the background of mindfulness, benefits of practice, how we can practice and opportunity to try several practices.The sessions are light and engaging with opportunity for discussion and questions.
Or we can spend longer at the school either for a half day or a full day, giving more students the opportunity to practice. When we visit for longer we try to incorporate a staff session either at the beginning or end.
Sometimes we visit the school on a staff inset day where we focus exclusively on the staff and helping them to establish a practice and share best practice for integrating our resources into the classroom.
We are emphasising the importance of staff training if a school is keen to share practices with students
We do charge for these visits, please contact us for our current prices.
If you are currently struggling to find funding for a live visit we also have a growing body of free online resources which staff can start to use.
Also we run a mindful eight week online community course at a very reasonable price, if you wish for your staff members to learn some essential practices for themselves to start with.
In the future you schools circumstances may change and be in a position to invite a speaker into the school.
We are here to help you in whatever we can to bring calm into your classroom!
Don’t hesitate to get in touch.