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Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are being actively implemented in a wide range of fields – psychology, mind/body health care and education at all levels – and there is growing evidence of their effectiveness in aiding present-moment focus, fostering emotional stability, and enhancing general mind/body well-being. However, as often happens with popular innovations, the burgeoning interest in and appeal of mindfulness practice has led to a reductionism and commodification – popularly labelled ‘McMindfulness’ – of the underpinning principles and ethical foundations of such practice which threatens to subvert and militate against the achievement of the original aims of MBIs in general and their educational function in particular. It is argued here that mindfulness practice needs to be organically connected to its spiritual roots if the educational benefits of such practice are to be fully realised.
Although it has been given qualified approval by a number of philosophers of education, the so-called "therapeutic turn" in education has been the subject of criticism by several commentators on post-compulsory and adult learning over the last few years. A key feature of this alleged development in recent educational policy is said to be the replacement of the traditional goals of knowledge and understanding with personal and social objectives concerned with enhancing and developing confidence and self-esteem in learners. After offering some critical observations on these developments, I suggest that there are some educationally justifiable goals underpinning what has been described as a therapeutic turn. Whilst accepting that "self-esteem" and cognate concepts cannot provide a general end or universal aim of education, the therapeutic function--the affective domain of learning--is more valuable and significant than is generally acknowledged. This claim is justified by an examination of the concept of "mindfulness" which, it is argued, can be an immensely powerful and valuable notion that is integrally connected with the centrally transformative and developmental nature of learning and educational activity at all levels. The incorporation of mindfulness strategies within adult learning programmes may go some way towards re-connecting the cognitive and affective dimensions of education.
Thanks largely to the work of Kabat-Zinn and associates applications of mindfulness-based practices have grown exponentially over the last decade or so, particularly in the fields of education, psychology, psychotherapy and mind–body health. Having its origins in Buddhist traditions, the more recent secular and therapeutic applications of the basic notion of impartial present-moment attention have been shown to have far-reaching implications for all aspects of learning and education. It is argued that mindfulness practice has much to contribute to the neglected area of affective education in the UK system and that – in addition to enhancing learning in the crucial sphere of the education of the emotions – it can also provide a foundation for more general cognitive development. In addition to philosophical arguments, reference is made to research studies of mindfulness-based educational practices in America and Britain.