Mindful Practice: The Socio-Emotional Well-being of Students and Staff

(Reflection of Christopher Russo, Assistant Superintendent in Portland and Reynolds and currently the Director of the American School of Asuncion, Paraguay.)

Life is inherently challenging--and that's how it should be, but sometimes the roller coaster ride has deep lows and steep highs that can send the mind tumbling. For staff, students, maybe for all of humanity, how we respond to those challenges greatly impacts the outcome. And we do have more control than we think. This is where mindfulness can empower the individual to navigate challenge with confidence, compassion, and composure.

Portland and the West Coast as a whole has often embraced progressive and innovative educational practices. Many schools and districts embrace mindful approaches complimenting existing socio-emotional curricula. The focus is not to "clear the mind of thought/emotion" or "ignore thought and emotion" but rather teach students to recognize, acknowledge, and not react to that thought/emotion without first having a basic understanding of it.

Every day students come to school needing to work through a myriad of challenges, some personal, some academic, and depending upon the strength of the thoughts/feeling the accessibility to learning can be profoundly impacted. In those schools who embrace mindfulness, the students are taught to recognize the thoughts and feelings with a sense of gentle curiosity, rather then letting it/them take hold and immediately consume. If you are angry, note that you are angry, recognize it for what it is, and through that recognition, understand that it doesn't have more than a temporal impact. It's like stepping back and taking a deep breath and realizing "it's only like this now."

Some techniques used, of course similar to mediation, focus on breathing. Through the breath, deep breath, you increase the level of oxygen and resultingly can lower heart rate and then that flight response is tempered in a thoughtful and measured way. Another tool is to help students become passive observers of their own emotion and thought, guiding them to imagine themselves as an outside participant, one who is compassionate and curious to understand the why and how the thought/emotion can disruptive. It can be as simple as a person asking his or herself, "why do I feel like this?"

I am constantly amazed at the impact being mindful--the onus moves from the educator to the students. Students readily embrace the responsibility to course-correct. Resultingly, discipline or need for intervention diminishes significantly. Students have a powerful tool with which to self-regulate.

Interestingly, I find this useful in my personal life with family and friends, and supportive when used with staff and colleagues. Kids aren't the only ones who can benefit from being "mindful and compassionate!" Sometimes I feel we are too hard on ourselves, especially educators. To this day in moments of anxiety or strong emotion, I lean into mindful practice to calm the disruption and refocus, whether it's a challenging day with my boys or a day of high pressure and stress at work.

Or maybe like when a pandemic hits! Or the world is at unrest...

Perhaps it's been the last 10 years or so that there has been a focus in education to better support socio-emotional intelligence and health in students and staff--to move beyond the "don't do" curricula/conversation dependent more upon the sit and get or directive pedagogy/discipline to a "you can do--you have the tools within" pedagogy that actively empowers individuals to self-realize and change behavior and response.

I bring mindfulness up now as just the other day I was listening to my wife, Diana, speak to some of her elementary children through a ZOOM call--it was a day where the confinement of quarantine and the isolation from peers was weighing heavily on their little beings. I heard the words of mindfulness permeate the interaction and could feel the anxiety and worry shift to empowering acknowledgment and confident self-actualization. Diana listened and reminded them of the tools they have always had at hand, and guided them to self-realize and actualize their responses and not to let the negative feelings/emotions overwhelm. It was powerful yet simple and the children did the work!

Times like these, our current state of reality perpetuates a sense of unrest. Mindful practice can shape perspective and guide both child and adult to a more positive space of being.