Mindfulness in Schools: Conspiracy or Catalyst for Change?
WHAT’S THE ISSUE: Is mindfulness in schools a conspiracy or a catalyst for change? Mindfulness naysayers in education range from conspiracy theorists to leaders who claim mindfulness initiatives in education are ‘just a fad’. In 2019, The Guardian published an article by a man called Ronald Purser “The Mindfulness Conspiracy”. The article itself focuses on mindfulness initiatives in big corporations. However, mindfulness conspiracy theorists exist in education. There are middle leaders and teachers forwarding this article to their colleagues in schools, presenting it as if Purser’s weak argument constitutes ‘evidence’ of a mindfulness conspiracy in senior leadership teams.
The aim of this article is to:
- highlight three big misconceptions in Ronald Purser’s mindfulness conspiracy theory
- clarify any confusion teachers may have about what mindfulness is, and what it’s not
- help raise awareness about the value of mindfulness in schools
Mindfulness is obviously not a panacea solution to all work-related and school-related stress and well-being problems (complicated systemic and cultural problems do not have one-size-fits-all solutions – no surprises there). But schools that strive to build a culture of mindful teaching and learning set the foundation for a more humane school culture for both staff and students.
Healthy leaders get that when people (including themselves) practice mindfulness and compassion, they can co-create a school culture that is a healthy learning and working environment for students and staff. They do their part in helping to make the world a better place…by making their school community a better place to learn and work. And are more productive in helping to improve school systems, from the top down, for the benefit of all.
MINDFULNESS IN SCHOOLS CONSPIRACY THEORISTS
“Mindfulness is now central to a number of psychotherapeutic approaches, and mindfulness-based programs have been incorporated into elementary and high school curriculums – including research and teaching centers in major universities such as Duke, Brown, UCL, and the University of Wisconsin.”
Dr David A. Treleaven (2018) “Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness”
Mindfulness is being integrated into schools and therapy sessions worldwide, particularly in countries like the US, UK, and Australia. Yet mindfulness misconceptions still exist. In this section, I want to shine a light on three key misconceptions in the Ronald Purser’s 2019 “The Mindfulness Conspiracy” that’s making the email inbox rounds in some secondary school settings where mindfulness initiatives are being introduced. Because educators who resonate with mindfulness conspiracy theorists undermine the positive change efforts that mindful educators are trying to introduce in order to help improve their school community’s culture.
MISCONCEPTION NO 1: REDUCING MINDFULNESS TO THE JOHN CABAT-ZINN APPROACH
Mindfulness, at its core, simply means being aware of what you are feeling and experiencing right now, without judgment. You aren’t worrying about the future, you aren’t thinking about something in the past. You are here. In the present moment.
So if you are a person who values mindfulness, it basically means you are a person who values the state of being where you are actually present with the people who are with you, right now. You are not projecting onto someone else. You are not mindlessly reacting out of an unconscious pattern or programming from the past. You are conscious and aware.
Valuing mindfulness also means valuing being the kind of person who has a personal practice where they (literally!) practice being more aware of their:
- thoughts
- emotions
- body sensations
- environment
It’s about practicing being present in the here-and-now moment. It’s about practicing being aware of what’s going on in your internal environment (body sensations, emotions, thoughts), and external environments (social, cultural, systemic etc). Mindfulness practices welcome in a powerful – an empowering – level of cognitive, somatic, and social emotional knowledge depth.
The more aware we are of the various strands of the mindfulness movement worldwide, the more we can appreciate the complex and beautifully diverse nature of the mindfulness “movement”. Yes, the Kabat-Zinn approach to teaching mindfulness is spreading like hotcakes, and it is very popular (for good reason). But it still remains just that – an approach. There are others.
I believe Purser’s argument in “The Mindfulness Conspiracy” is problematic, because it takes a reductionist approach, reducing mindfulness to the Kabat-Zinn approach. The mindfulness movement that is spreading through individuals, corporations, schools, and institutions right now is multifaceted. There are many non-religious tools and techniques for reducing stress and experiencing more mindfulness that are not included in the Kabat-Zinn approach.
A plethora of secular mindfulness-based approaches are popular worldwide. From secular approaches to mindful movement modalities like Restorative Yoga and Yin Yoga (slower yoga), to the secular and scientifically proven Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT Tapping).
It’s not that they are better or worse than the Kabot-Zinn approach; they’re just different. There are options. Individuals, school communities, institutions, and organizations seeking mindfulness training have options. And I believe this is a good thing. We are all working towards the same vision – a more mindful, compassionate world in the workplace and in education.
Because if you’re truly walking the talk and doing your own mindfulness work, you’re not dogmatic. You do your own work, and you celebrate other people’s success without getting dogmatic or acting like your area of expertise or skills is the only way to achieve a goal. As the saying goes “all roads lead to Rome” – there is more than one method or approach that is effective to experiencing and re-experiencing mindfulness.
MISCONCEPTION 2: DEMONIZING KABAT-ZINN ALONG WITH ALL CEOs AND LEADERS
It’s hard to reconcile Purser’s distorted representation of Professor Kabat-Zinn with the facts. In a recent Forbes article by Rob Dube, Kabat-Zinn was quoted inviting us to:
“Imagine a community of people who wake up…They are not simply driven by the bottom line or greed. They understand the vast relationships. It’d be maximally wholesome, helpful, and minimally harmful to the environment and future generations…That requires consciousness. That requires mindfulness.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn
Is this the dangerous man Purser presents Kabat-Zinn to be? He places Kabat-Zinn on the same ethical position as ‘taker’ types of CEOs who only buy in to mindfulness as a way of boosting employee productivity, or as a way of impression management for their reputation through their marketing or branding campaigns.
Of course, there are narcissistic, self-serving leaders in middle and senior leadership positions in all industries who only truly care about beefing up their own bank accounts. Unsurprisingly, some of those kinds of leaders jump on the mindfulness bandwagon purely out of self-interest, because they know it helps improve concentration (and therefore productivity and profits). It also helps them secure a job if coming across as someone who values mindfulness is required for success in the job interview (and integrity isn’t one of their core values).
But I believe it’s inaccurate to assume that all CEOs and leaders who are trying to introduce mindfulness into their business or school are self-absorbed narcissists who only care about profits and productivity. And yes, influential business leaders like Arianna Huffington make the ‘mindfulness is good for business’ point a headline feature in some of their interviews and articles. But mindfulness goes beyond productivity and profit benefits; it’s personally empowering (which Arianna Huffington also emphasizes).
Eventually, someone who comes out of a mindless state of working to experience a more empowered, mindful state of working, will start to question how things are done. They may also begin to question some of their old limiting beliefs (like ‘all bosses are bad’). As a result, they may realize that there are takers, there are givers, and there are principled, balanced people who are able to engage in fair trade in the business and education sectors. And while they have worked for takers who do not engage in fair trade up until that point, they can become mindful of their desire to start consciously working with people who are able to engage in fair trade, moving forward.
This conscious level of awareness is one of the personal benefits of mindfulness. You move out of black-and-white thinking as you shift into a more nuanced, empowered, problem-solving approach that better supports your mental health and quality of life. You learn to set healthy boundaries when unreasonable requests are being made, even when they are being presented as a reasonable demand or expectation. You are aware of what’s actually going on, so you have the power to respond from an empowered, healthier state state of consciousness.
MISCONCEPTION NO 3: ASSUMING MINDFULNESS IS NOT POLITICAL
Later on in the article, Purser goes on to claim that “Proponents of mindfulness believe that the practice is apolitical”. This is untrue. I think it’s fair to say that many educators who practice mindfulness have no interest in taking part in petty politics in their school, educational institution, or organization. But I’ve noticed that educators who have a mindfulness practice are more likely to become a ‘quietly’ powerful and well-respected member of their school community, because of the positive influence and powerful impact of their personal presence. They have a positive impact on many people – and that’s powerful!
The assumption that mindfulness is not political also fails to appreciate the evolving history of mindfulness. Mindfulness began its modern mainstream trajectory into the worlds of business, psychology, and education after Kabat-Zinn created a mindfulness training approach that was secular, back in the 1990’s. As a result, mindfulness could now be taught to people in support of mental health and physical health, without posing a threat to anyone’s religious beliefs. Since then, a significant branch of the mindfulness movement proliferated into the world of psychology, counselling, and therapy using cognitive-based approaches to treating mental illnesses and trauma treatment.
This is because purely cognitive-based approaches have been found to work in the short term for treating mental illnesses. That is why integrating body-based mindfulness into cognitive-based therapies is now established practice in countries like the UK; they have found that mindfulness helps give cognitive-based therapies more long-term results. As for big ‘T’ Trauma therapy, such as treating PTSD or Complex PTSD, as Dr. David Treleaven points out in his book Trauma-Aware Mindfulness, it is impossible to be apolitical when you are a therapist treating victims with PTSD. Because statistically, they are more likely to come from systemically disempowered groups like women, ethnic minorities, minorities in terms of sexual orientation, and so on. By empowering trauma victims through effective mindfulness-based trauma treatment, trauma therapists help victims take back their power and start rebuilding their lives. This is a socio-political act.
Empowered trauma survivors are highly motivated to help others who are currently suffering from social, economic, or political injustice. You often see them rising up and becoming conscious leaders and activists in their local or global community. Dr Judith Hermann shares examples of how empowering trauma survivors is very much a political act in her seminal book, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse and Political Terror. So there are branches of the mindfulness movement that go beyond Kabat-Zinn’s original apolitical positioning in the world, as seen in the world of trauma therapy and the treatment of mental illnesses.
Ronald Purser oversimplifies the benefits of mindfulness when he makes sweeping claims like “mindfulness is nothing more than basic concentration training.” Mindfulness is far more than that. Mindful awareness is a powerful starting point for people who want to empower themselves in response to the socio-economic and socio-political systems of injustice in their daily lives.
Mindfulness is a catalyst for change – constructive change – in education. And constructive change is exactly what is needed in education right now. We are living in the aftermath of a pandemic that has brought old systems, old beliefs, and old ways of doing things into question. It is not at all surprising that mindfulness is growing training is in more and more demand – mindfulness opens us up to change, both on an individual level, and on a whole school systems level. That’s powerful.
MINDFULNESS IN SCHOOLS: INVESTING IN SUSTAINED SUPPORT
“Surely the rise of violence among our young people also raises serious questions about our education and mental health provision…all our politics and economics must focus on support for families as an absolute priority for our future well-being, for the future of all of us and for our world.”
Dr Sylvia Luca (2019) The International Journal of Nurture in Education, Vol 5.
Developing students’ SEL (Social-Emotional Learning) skills and improving student well-being in schools requires mindfulness. Any school that makes their student’s mental health and well-being a priority will require students to become more self-aware. Students who practice body awareness, emotional awareness, and metacognition are, by definition, embodying mindfulness. When a student keeps worrying about an upcoming test or exam, it affects their social skills. It affects their ability to learn They are not fully present in the lesson, or with their peers. How can you concentrate on your classwork or homework assignments if you aren’t fully present?
But before teachers can help their students be more mindful and pay more attention in class, they need to practice what they preach. Student well-being initiatives in schools and universities come in all shapes and sizes, but the key principle for meaningful whole-school impact is a top-down approach with a dedicated school budget/funding that makes teacher well-being a priority. As former Head of School and Middle School Principal, Kevin Hawkins in his excellent book, Mindful Teacher, Mindful School: “A focus on teacher self-care needs to precede everything else…enlightened leaders can recognize the value of teachers knowing how to manage their stress, relate more sensitively to colleagues, parents and students, and hone their classroom and behavioral management skills through enhanced self-awareness and classroom presence.”
Inspiring students to be more mindful, calm, and focused in class needs to come from an embodied place, where teachers are embodying mindfulness themselves. If schools do not have someone in-house who can lead teacher well-being and teacher mindfulness support programs, they need to build a relationship with part-time contractors and external consultants or invest in online learning opportunities for their staff to get the support their staff need.
How can teachers teach mindfulness skills to their students (let alone teach mindfully!) if they themselves do not practice mindfulness? Many schools offer (at best) a one-hour or two-hour Professional Development training event to their teachers every so often on the importance of mindfulness for their work. But there’s a limit to how much of an educational impact one can get out of an under-investment and out of one-off annual training events.
Meanwhile, schools that only offer study skills and time management training to help their students who are falling behind with work are forgetting this well-established biological fact: chronic stress disrupts our brain’s ability to access the self-organization part of the brain. If a student is stuck in a state of chronic stress and overwhelm, they might know, on a cognitive level, what to do to stop procrastinating and start doing their work (they’ve been taught time management tools and principles by their teachers and school). But emotionally, it feels like they can’t go ahead and do it. The mid-brain (our limbic system) houses the center for fear-based emotion (amygdala) and memory (hippocampus). When the amygdala gets triggered, it affects the hippocampus, which can compromise a learner’s ability to remember what they are studying or need to get done for school or college/Uni.
The reason for this disconnect between a learner’s “emotional brain” and their “thinking brain” is that they’re stuck in a state of chronic stress. They are stuck in the fight-flight-freeze part of the brain, and their amygdala gets triggered every time they think of the coursework, research project, or presentation they have to do. So they avoid it (flight) by getting distracted (gaming, YouTube, Netflix, social media, etc) and procrastinate. The capacity to be open to learning requires that the “emotional”, lower brain centers (the limbic system and the brain stem) feel safe, connected, and secure. Mindfulness can help a student with information processing, information retention, and with accessing the part of their brain that allows for higher-order thinking, self-regulation, and self-organization.
MINDFULNESS & MENTAL HEALTH: A CATALYST FOR CHANGE
“Mental health is more than just the absence of mental disorders or disabilities. Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”
United Nations (2018) “Mental Health: Strengthening Our Response”
Secondary schools that are embraced the new wave of psychology-informed interventions for boosting student well-being (and therefore mindfulness) are the ones who listen to their students (without dismissing or minimizing, due to vested interest and surface-level school reputation management efforts to “brush things under the carpet”). They genuinely see and hear their students, when they report feeling very stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed about assignments, deadlines, tests, and exams. And they are committed to doing something to help.
Part of a school leader’s and teacher’s duty of care is caring for the mental health (in other words, the well-being) of their students. And this goes beyond simply being a humane teacher or school leader. It’s about helping kids concentrate by providing them with tools and techniques that allow them to bring their stress response down. When kids are mindful of the fact that they are stressed and in the fight-flight stress response, they can self-soothe. You can teach them mindfulness based self-soothe skills. They can then concentrate and learn better.
Some schools already have an in-house or virtual school Counselor who students can go to when they are feeling stressed for private help and support. And more and more schools are now leading the way in integrating mindfulness, stress management education, and social-emotional learning into their school curriculum and staff Professional Development culture. This proactive approach to supporting student well-being isn’t just a “new fad” that’s going to go away.
The increasing interest in mindfulness interventions in schools is also emerging out of an interest to better support students in becoming the self-directed learners they have the potential to become. It’s helping schools to be in alignment with their declared school mission and values, and to build healthier school communities focused on empowering kids. Unsurprisingly, students who are more mindful grow up to become better independent lifelong learners.
Schools that help students improve their memory, concentration, and problem-solving abilities make developing their mindfulness skills and stress regulation skills a priority. Students can then move beyond surviving school for short-term academic achievement gains. Mindful students can flourish in work and life as adult lifelong learners who have a positive impact on their families and community.
About the author
Eleni Vardaki works with individuals and schools online to support parent, teacher, and student well-being. Her mission is to help bridge the gap between mainstream education and the well-being skills we need to thrive in the 21st century. She believes in doable, sustainable interventions for student well-being in school and family cultures that value both student and community well-being.
