Page 8 - 2019 BPS NEWS

Teaching Mindful Over Matter
By: Nicki Hensley, BPS News
They say you can’t live a positive life with a negative mind.
Brevard Public Schools is on the cutting edge of incorpo- rating mindfulness in the classroom as a way to reduce instances of anxiety, stress and depression in students.
To be mindful is to be conscious or aware.
The practice of mindfulness dates back to 1979 when
Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, brought his internationally renowned work in mindful to the world of medicine as an alternative to pain management and stress reduction. Today, mindful- ness is practiced in emergency rooms and trauma centers worldwide. In fact, it is required for Harvard Medical students to have mindfulness training for trauma cases.
The success of mindfulness in healthcare settings sparked a “mindfulness movement,” which has quickly become
a popular and proven method for improving children’s attention and emotional regulation in schools.
Many educators are seeing the benefits of spending a few mindful minutes in the classroom and are using mindful as an alternative to discipline. Baltimore Inner City Schools uses the practice of mindful breathing as an alternative method to detention and suspension (read more here).
“If your system is not in homeostasis, you cannot learn,” says Valerie Kelly, a Speech Language Pathologist at Manatee Elementary School and a Certified Mindful Instructor.
Mrs. Kelly is one of only 80 certified mindful instructors in the nation and one of three in the state of Florida. In the four years that she has dedicated herself to bringing mindful into the classroom, she has spent $15,000 of her own money for training and has achieved 300+ clinical hours, the equivalent of a graduate degree.
Manatee, Saturn and Palm Bay Elementary are leading the way in bringing mindful into Brevard schools, to offer an alternate approach to fostering the social emotional
development of students. Mindful instructors meet
with classes for 15-20 minutes, twice a week. Lessons are designed to teach students problem-solving and coping strategies such as empathy or conflict resolution. Teachers have the option of implementing mindfulness in their classrooms and parents have the option to opt their children out of these sessions should they desire.
To learn more about the practice of mindfulness in schools, visit: www.mindfulschools.org.
On February 2, 2019, BPS an Interactive workshop for Mindfulness will presented at Space Coast Health Foundation, free to adults (over 16) from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. BPS teachers will be able to access the mindful teaching program through ProGOE: ECET2 (Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teachers and Teaching) Section: 401478.
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