You’ve got a lot to teach this year and only 180 days to fit it all in … so should you really be teaching mindfulness on top of all the core competencies your students need this year?
It’s certainly popular. Teachers fromHouston, TexastoLaCrosse, Wisconsinhave added in regular mindfulness practices for students, helping kids learn to calm the body and mind with everything from yoga to meditation. But what’s the fuss about teaching mindfulness in schools?
We dug into the research!
Benefits of Mindfulness for Students
The concept of mindfulness for kids, and specifically mindfulness in the classroom, has been around long enough that there’s a growing body of research on what effect it really has on the students.
Stress Reduction
A smallstudy of sixth-gradersperformed by MIT researchers at a Boston charter school shows promising news when it comes to teaching mindfulness in schools a reducing student stress.
MIT researchers gave half the students eight weeks of mindfulness training while a control group didn’t get the mindfulness activities. The former group reported lower stress and fewer negative feelings than their peers. But here’s where things get really interesting: When the researchers looked at brain imaging studies of some of the students, they found evidence to confirm what the students were saying! Before their mindfulness training, students saw higher stress levels in their amygdala when they saw images of people showing fearful faces. After the mindfulness training, those stress levels were decreased.
The MIT study isn’t the only one to linkteaching mindfulness in schoolsto stress-reduction benefits either. In a Johns Hopkins study, students in Baltimore elementary schools did yoga several times a week and started off their day with a two-minute-long mindfulness exercise. The result? Less rumination and fewer intrusive thoughts.
These stress-relief resources could be just the ticket for your classroom:
teaching resource
Stress Management Techniques for Students PowerPoint
An editable PowerPoint presentation to use when teaching your students about stress management.
Better Test Scores
In another MIT study, researchers asked some 2,000 students in middle school to fill out a questionnaire that would evaluate their mindfulness. They then compared the students’ responses to their test scores and grades. The result showed a pretty key benefit of mindfulness for students: Those with more mindfulness tended to have better grades and test scores.
Self-Efficacy
Wondering how to motivate your students to take more responsibility for themselves and their education? This could be another benefit of mindfulness education, at least from the looks of a smallstudy completed in Europeamong school kids. The children were found to have improved school-specific self-efficacy and self-regulation after taking part in mindfulness activities in the classroom.
Better Behavior
Along with better self-regulation, teaching mindfulness in school has been linked to better behavior management overall. In Richmond, California, for example, researchers found that teachers reported better behavior in their elementary classrooms after just seven weeks ofmindfulness being incorporatedinto the day. Kids were paying more attention in class too!
思考about adding mindfulness in your classroom? Check out our full array ofmindfulness activities for kidsto get started in your classroom, or try some of the resources below:
teaching resource
Affirmations - Classroom Display Cards
Brighten up your classroom and inspire your students with this set of 25 affirmation cards.
video
Mindful Breathing Activity for Kids
A calming, square-breathing exercise to introduce kids to mindfulness in the classroom.
teaching resource
瑜伽姿势对孩子——任务卡片
16 kid friendly yoga poses to display and use in the classroom for daily gross motor and fitness activities.
