Promoting Balance and Harmony Through
Meditation in the Classroom!
I have become more aware of this since my presentation and participation at the
Well
one of the presenters at the Ahimsa center was Dr. Jarman from FAU. Dr. Jarman has worked
closely with Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the “father” of positive
psychology and author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal
Experience. Dr. Jarman presented
on how meditation can promote success in school through better attention span
and focus. Luckily Dr. Jarman is based
right here in South Florida and so I got in
touch with him and invited him to my class. When I mentioned this to my class,
they were overjoyed!! So I took this opportunity to ask my students to
write reflective journals for 10 days on
the sources of their ‘stress’. The goal
was to generate adequate amount of self
knowledge on the topic, so that the session would be more effective.
Dr. Jarman came to
my class yesterday. I had invited the Principal and another teacher who was
interested in the topic. The main idea that Dr. Jarman shared with the students
was that the mind needs to be seen as a separate entity and needs to be guided.
He told the students that every time we try to pay attention and focus on
something, the mind tends to distract us. So we need to observe that, be aware
of it and then bring the focus back to where it needs to be. To illustrate
this, we did a breathing exercise where we simply focused on our breathing for
7 minutes and in the meantime observed where the mind was taking us. Every time
the mind took us away from the focus on breathing, we had to bring the focus
back on the breathing. In this way, we were guiding the mind to focus, and were
not allowing it to distract us. After the 7 minute-session, we discussed our
experiences and realized just how difficult it can be. Dr. Jarman emphasized that despite this we
need to continue with the process : focus, observe
the distraction,, label the thinking and bring it back to focus. In this
way we can strengthen the mind and develop more focus.
It is a simple
process, yet quite revealing at a deeper level. It forces one to be aware of
the thinking process. Dr. Jarman also mentioned how the mind is good at
building stories and thus creating stress. When this happens, we should cut the
stories short and focus on what we are doing and what needs to be done. So
after some reflection, the students learnt that instead of worrying about all
the tests and all the assignments they have to do (the stories!!), they can just focus on one
assignment at a time, do it well, and then move on to the next. This means, if
distractions come along the way, then we have to bring the focus back to the
task.
The session ended
with students reflecting on their list and sharing how this meditative process
can help to bring their
focus back to the moment. The students also learnt that they need to :
- be aware of the stories that the mind can create and cut them short in order to avoid panic/stress and the fight or flight mode! Aka Stress!!
- make time to meditate, exercise, organize, reflect in order to be more productive even when very busy;
- have a level organization in order to keep the focus on what needs to be done;
- build mental strength by being aware of thoughts, consciously labling them and bringing the focus backto where it needs to be.
In the end, we all
felt we learnt how our mind works and how we need to train and control it and
not let it control us! We will continue our discussion on this in my 7th
period class and assess how well we manage our time and assignments. We may not
have reduced the work load but at least we have some tools now with which to
address it. Most importantly, we learnt that the mind can make the load lighter
by being focused!
I would like to thank
Dr. Tara Sethia and the Ahimsa Center (http://www.csupomona.edu/~ahimsacenter Ahimsa
