Meditation in the classroom by Richard Handler

[Leo]

Meditation in the classroom, the new approach to 'emotional learning'
Canadian schools in forefront of adding psychology to the curriculum

By Richard Handler (Richard Handler - The Ideas Guy)
Richard Handler is a producer with the CBC Radio program Ideas.

Childcare playtime to become mandatory lesson in Manitoba
Teachers in Canada and the US are exploring the use of meditation to
help students not just develop focusing skills but to expand their
mental strength. Today’s students are living in a world of constant
mental stimulation, which can take a toll on his or her ability to
focus. To help combat this phenomenon, some schools are trying out a
new approach to education called “Social and Emotional Learning,” or
SEL. The goal is to help exercise the brain and increase a student’s
ability to stay focused throughout the day.

Exercises include being mindful of one’s breathing, self-regulation
and “deferred gratification,” or more simply, patience. This type of
education has already been adopted in many schools across the US and
Canada for students from Kindergarten to 8th grade, and according to
MindUP (one of the promoters of the program), the results are
promising.

As kids head back to school in September, some will find their
teachers focusing not just on developing their intellects but also
their "mental brawn," to help adolescent brains cope better with
today's digitalized world.
It seems that as our modern-day culture grows more frenzied, some
schools at least are trying to redesign education so kids can be
better equipped to function amid the constant bombardment of media
messages and gadgets with all their maddening stimuli.

Already students from kindergarten to Grade 8 in Vancouver, and in
nearly 175 schools in Canada and 75 in the U.S., are being given
training in brain lingo, according to a current article in Scientific
American Mind.

To increase what the magazine calls mental brawn, these brain
exercises are being provided so students can strengthen their ability
to stay focused and "persevere."

It turns out that stress creates a big barrier to learning, according
to cognitive scientists (and, frankly, common sense).
So, instead of schools just promoting hard work, the basics and the
three R's, there's a new pedagogical approach called "social and
emotional learning" — SEL for short — making the rounds.

In one program called MindUP, which is being promoted by the American
actress and celebrity Goldie Hawn through her foundation, elementary
school children are taught to follow their breath with "mindfulness"
exercises, which are basically scaled-down, kid-tailored versions of
meditation.

Actress Goldie Hawn is a big promoter of 'mindfulness' in schools and
has just published a new book, with British poet Wendy Holden, called
'10 Mindful Minutes.' (Joel Ryan / Associated Press)

The aim is to develop what is called "non-judgmental awareness," to
begin teaching a child to stay with a thought or feeling while
resisting the urge to run away from it.
That seemshard enough for an adult to do. But child ?

Students are also taught strategies for "deferred gratification" and
"self-regulation" — the psychological terms being used to replace more
old-fashioned words like self-control and patience.

The object of these exercises is to develop "executive function,"
another $10 term for the proper management of our thoughts and
feelings.

This occurs, anatomically speaking, in the prefrontal cortex, which is
the last portion of the brain to fully develop in humans and often not
until well into one's 20s.

Whether these exercises will help turn young children into cool little
Barack Obamas, well, this remains is to be seen.
There is a debate among researchers about how much of this kind of
early cognitive training really sticks.

Positive results in early remedial education programs in the U.S. such
as Head Start have been shown to "decay" when children are returned to
their regular classrooms.

Still, according to the optimistic MindUP folks and other promoters,
early results look promising, over the short term at least.

OK to be angry?
Of course it is just possible that that all this fancy brain talk
signals a cultural shift occurring, again, underneath our very noses.

In the countercultural sixties, for example, we were told to bare our
thoughts and inhibited feelings. Repression was the enemy, denial a
sin.

The expression of true and raw emotion even became a political
category deemed "authentic." So it was perfectly fine to become angry,
and those at whom we screamed deserved it anyway.

At one point it was discovered that expressing torrents of anger could
be useful in some cases, selectively applied.
But make it habit? Psychologists discovered that anger only begat the
desire to express more anger.

In fact, the whole safety-valve theory of emotion ended up being
revised. The mind was not a seething cauldron that had to be vented on
occasion for safety.

But in those heady days (oh, I remember) there seemed to be no limit
to the glorification of impulse and what we'd do to satisfy a need.
And besides, our burgeoning generational appetites sure helped keep
the economy humming.
But now, at least in some places, there's a longing for such old-
fashioned traits as maturity, character and self-control, often
wrapped in the hip jargon of social science and management.

Having a well functioning "executive function" is now seen as a net
benefit for all concerned — and good for your long-term health, too,
studies now suggest.

That means we must all now become the buttoned-down CEOs of our own
minds if we want to graduate and ditch those primal displays of
emotion.

Discretion and maturity must be valued, repackaged and taught in our
schools.

Let kids be kids
Now, I've heard it said on talk shows, that all this SEL stuff — all
the funny breathing and gratitude exercises (like writing down five
things every day that you are grateful for) — are just another way to
dampen the spirits of children who have too much energy to sit still.

Mindfulness
Some of the key concepts of social and emotional learning, according
to the latest edition of Scientific American Mind magazine, include:
• mindfulness, which it calls a "dispassionate focus on the present"
that helps to keep stress at bay;
• and metagcognition, or thinking about thinking, which may help kids
control their emotions better and in ways that can help with
learning.
One side says that these kids must be taught strategies to pacify them
in order to turn them into polite creatures ready to learn from
teacher.

The other side says give them a real gym, not brain gyms but physical
exercise to let some of the everyday stress out.
Let kids be kids, as one puzzled caller I heard on American public
radio put it.

The problem is, it's all true, every point that everyone makes. Sure,
kids need to be kids. But they also have to be taught strategies to
learn and concentrate.

For as long as education has been practiced, teachers have been
filling in for parents who are hard-pressed all on their own to do the
job of creating character and values for their kids.

So when your child comes back from school talking about their brain
regions — like the amygdala, the almond-shaped cluster of neurons that
functions as a clearing house for emotion, and the pre-frontal cortex,
the hub for executive function — think of this as just another sign of
today's complex world with all its often conflicting messages.
It is not only parents and teachers who must negotiate between the
poles of desire and restraint. It's all of us. So breathe deeply and
count to 10 and let all that sink in!