Mindfulness Training for Teachers
- kalieoku
- Mar 17, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 18, 2020
Recent research has confirmed that mindfulness practice can be a powerful stress-management tool for teachers.
Mindfulness is "paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgementally" (Kabat-Zinn, 1994).
Mindfulness training (MT) programs for teachers can effectively manage stress and the socioemotional demands of teaching. Mindfulness training is now an emerging form of teacher professional development.
"MT is hypothesized to promote teachers' 'habits of mind,' and thereby their occupational health, well-being, and capacities to create and sustain both supportive relationships with students and classroom climates conducive to student engagement and learning."
This blog post is based off information from the research article, "Mindfulness Training and Teachers' Professional Development: An Emerging Area of Research and Practice" (Roeser et al., (2012) from the Child Development Perspectives Journal, published by The Society for Research in Child Development.
Teaching is Demanding Work
Teachers must problem solve on the fly as they interact with students with varying levels of development. Tending to students in an equitable and non-biased way requires great awareness, empathy, and mental flexibility. Furthermore, teachers must always use developmentally-appropriate language and behave respectfully. They must express enthusiasm, interest, intentionally expressed displeasure, and at the same time, they must regulate distressing emotions like frustration and fear in front of their students.
Teachers cannot step out of the classroom to compose themselves during stressful times. They must self-regulate in the presence of their class.
"Between 25% and 30% of teachers rate their jobs as either very or extremely stressful" (Kyriacou, 2001; Unterbrink et al., 2007).
Occupational stress is particularly grueling for teachers who have just started their careers, with rates of leaving the profession as high as 46% in the first 5 years (Jalongo & Heider, 2006).
Teachers demonstrate relations between chronic occupational stress and symptoms of mental and physical health problems (Johnson et al., (2005); Kyriacou, (1987).
Teacher's work lives are saturated with complex interactions with students, caregivers, colleagues, and administrators that require a lot of attentional and emotional resources.
"For instance, teachers must often shift the focus of their attention in the classroom from particular students and their cognitive and emotional needs, to an overview of the entire classroom, and back again" (Roeser et al. (2012).
Cultivating habits of mind can help teachers become more flexible, attentive, and responsive to children's needs proactively. Recent studies show that mindfulness training can help with stress reduction, emotion regulation, health, and prosocial dispositions. These are key components of effective classroom management.
What are Habits of Mind?
There are four key domains of professional knowledge a teacher should know.
Subject-matter or content knowledge
Pedagogical knowledge concerning developmentally appropriate methods
Developmental knowledge concerning developmentally appropriate content
Habits of mind or professional disposition.
Mindfulness training focuses on the last domain, habits of mind. Habits of mind are defined as "those dispositions toward behaving intelligently when confronted with problems, the answers to which are immediately unknown" (Costa & Kallinick, 2011).
"Such habits include tendencies to gather data through all of the senses, to be aware of and reflect on experience in a nonjudgemental manner, to be flexible when problem solving, to regulate emotion and be resilient after setbacks, and to attend to others with empathy and compassion" (Roeser et al. (2012).
Mindfulness training programs can cultivate such habits of mind in a way that facilitates emotional regulation, stress reduction, and healthy social interactions (Kabat-Zinn, 1994; Mind & Life Education Research Network, 2012).
What does Mindfulness Look Like?
Mindfulness is usually taught through structured contemplative practices in which attention is focused on present-moment somatic and mental experience in the form of bodily sensations, feelings, mental images, and thoughts.
Such practices include body scans, in which participants focus their attention progressively throughout the body to bring awareness to the somatic experience, meditation on the breath to develop concentration, and meditation on present-moment experience to bring awareness to the body. A closely related practice is loving-kindness meditation which focuses attention on cultivating positive emotion towards oneself and others.
Mindfulness programs for teachers include these practices, plus explicit instruction on emotions, stress, and classroom management. Mindfulness programs often include daily or weekly meetings, group practice, discussion, and homework assignments.
Teachers may be asked to keep mindful emotion diaries in which teachers are invited to document their emotions, emotional triggers, and how they coped in their classroom during particular instances. Group meetings with these diaries may spark discussions about how mindfulness could help.
Another component of a mindfulness program for teachers could be to intentionally offer kindness and compassion toward their most challenging students to whom they may rarely pay attention to. This act can strengthen teacher-child relationships, equitable treatment, and positive role modeling in the classroom.
This diagram from Roeser et al., (2012) shows the trickle-down effect of mindfulness training for teachers. Mindfulness training can improve teacher's habits of mind, which can in turn improve teacher's occupational health and well-being.
Improvements in teacher health and well-being will likely lead to greater occupational engagement and satisfaction, with lower rates of absenteeism, occupational burnout, health care use, and leaving the profession due to stress and burnout.
These improvements should support positive teacher-child relationships, and promote student's feelings of belonging in the classroom. Tending to student's emotions and needs should thereby enhance their levels of engagement and learning.
"When students have supportive relationships with teachers, feel they are valued members of learning community, and are positively involved in classroom activities, we hypothesize that they will be less likely to be disruptive, oppositional, or silently alienated and therefore will require fewer disciplinary referrals" (Roeser et al., (2012).
Taken together, these processes should form "self-amplifying 'virtuous' cycles," characterized by positive reciprocal relationships between teachers' and student's enjoyment, engagement, and satisfaction with teaching and learning together" (Roeser et al., (2012).
Providing teachers with the attentional and emotional resources to create and maintain emotionally supportive classroom climates is essential. Mindfulness programs for teachers is one effective way to support healthy habits of mind.
Examples of Mindfulness-Based Programs For Teachers
Promotes:
Attentional regulation
Emotional regulation
Curiosity
Compassion and forgiveness for self and others
Supports participants by:
Re-connecting to personal and professional meaning and purpose
Finding balance and cultivating emotional intelligenceImproving mental and physical health
Research results show that participants who complete the program experience:
Reduced occupational stress and burnout
Reduced feelings of anxiety and depression
More focused attentionIncreased working memory capacity
Greater mindfulnessHigher levels of self-compassion
Utilizes three primary instructional components:
Emotion skills instruction
Mindfulness and stress reduction practices
Listening and compassion exercises
Encourages strategies that improve classroom management, teacher-student relationships, and instructional strategies.
References
Costa, A. L., & Kallinick, B. (2011). Describing 16 habits of mind.
Johnson, S., Cooper, C., Cartwright, S., Donald, I., Taylor, P., & Millet, C. (2005). The experience of work-related stress across occupations. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 20, 178-187.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life.
Kyriacou C. (1987). Teacher stress and burnout: An international review. Educational Review, 53, 27-35.
Mind and Life Education Research Network. (2012). Contemplative practices and mental training: Prospects for American education. Child Development Perspectives, 6, 146-153.
Roeser, W. R., Skinner, E., Beers, J., Jennings, A., P. (2012). Mindfulness teaching and teachers' professional development: an emerging area of research and practice. Child Development Perspectives, 6, 167-173.
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