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Contemplative education includes practices that aim to help a person cultivate conscious awareness, especially internal self-awareness and awareness of one's connection to the world. Such practices include meditation, movement, and the contemplation of nature. Exploration is under way to determine if these practices might assist young people in their development, as they do in adulthood.
<p>…a meeting convened … to identify priorities for providing guidance to educators and policy makers on appropriate assessment strategies and systems in order to promote and ensure high-quality educational opportunities that foster the social-emotional development and academic performance of preschool and elementary-school children…</p>
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Tish Jennings, author of the book Mindfulness for Teachers, states that stress has become such a problem for professors that “50% of teachers are leaving the profession within five years.”Jennings has found that classrooms can turn into “pressure cookers” as a result of teachers not dealing with their emotions in constructive ways. Teachers have so many outward considerations to focus on while managing a classroom that they are unable to tune into themselves, which can greatly interfere with the student’s education. In this short video, Jennings emphasizes the importance of mindfulness-based exercises in relieving stress for teachers.
<p>Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE for Teachers) is a mindfulness-based professional development program designed to reduce stress and improve teachers’ performance and classroom learning environments. A randomized controlled trial examined program efficacy and acceptability among a sample of 50 teachers randomly assigned to CARE or waitlist control condition. Participants completed a battery of self-report measures at pre- and postintervention to assess the impact of the CARE program on general well-being, efficacy, burnout/time pressure, and mindfulness. Participants in the CARE group completed an evaluation of the program after completing the intervention. ANCOVAs were computed between the CARE group and control group for each outcome, and the pretest scores served as a covariate. Participation in the CARE program resulted in significant improvements in teacher well-being, efficacy, burnout/time-related stress, and mindfulness compared with controls. Evaluation data showed that teachers viewed CARE as a feasible, acceptable, and effective method for reducing stress and improving performance. Results suggest that the CARE program has promise to support teachers working in challenging settings and consequently improve classroom environments.</p>
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<p>Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE) is a professional development program designed to reduce stress and improve teachers' performance. Two pilot studies examined program feasibility and attractiveness and preliminary evidence of efficacy. Study 1 involved educators from a high-poverty urban setting (n = 31). Study 2 involved student teachers and 10 of their mentors working in a suburban/semi-rural setting (n = 43) (treatment and control groups). While urban educators showed significant pre-post improvements in mindfulness and time urgency, the other sample did not, suggesting that CARE may be more efficacious in supporting teachers working in high-risk settings. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure and 1 footnote.)</p>
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<p>This article focuses on how mindfulness training (MT) programs for teachers, by cultivating mindfulness and its application to stress management and the social-emotional demands of teaching, represent emerging forms of teacher professional development (PD) aimed at improving teaching in public schools. 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. After defining mindfulness and its potential applications in teacher education and PD, this article discusses emerging MT programs for teachers, a logic model outlining potential MT program effects in educational settings, and directions for future research.</p>
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The present study, which takes place in a high-poverty section of a large urban area of the northeastern United States, is based upon the prosocial classroom theoretical model that emphasizes the significance of teachers' social and emotional competence (SEC) and well-being in the development and maintenance of supportive teacher-student relationships, effective classroom management, and social and emotional learning (SEL) program effectiveness. These factors, as well as teachers' classroom management and instructional skills contribute to creating a classroom climate that is conducive to learning and that promotes positive developmental behavioral and academic outcomes among students. Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE) is a mindfulness-based professional development program designed to reduce stress, promote SEC and improve teachers' performance and classroom learning environments. From 8 elementary schools the authors recruited and consented 55 teachers (90.2% female, mean age = 39.41). They had relatively low attrition (7.2%) which was largely balanced across treatment and control conditions, resulting in a diverse sample of 51 teachers (53% white). All were regular lead teachers working in a self-contained classroom setting. The results reported here are from an IES-funded 4-year efficacy and replication study of CARE. The data are from the teacher self-report collected from the first year cohort of the cluster randomized controlled trial. After the teachers completed self-reports they were randomly assigned within schools to receive the CARE intervention or to a wait-list control group. After the treatment group received the CARE program, the same self-report battery was administered to both groups. A figure is appended.
The authors propose a model of the prosocial classroom that highlights the importance of teachers’ social and emotional competence (SEC) and well-being in the development and maintenance of supportive teacher–student relationships, effective classroom management, and successful social and emotional learning program implementation. This model proposes that these factors contribute to creating a classroom climate that is more conducive to learning and that promotes positive developmental outcomes among students. Furthermore, this article reviews current research suggesting a relationship between SEC and teacher burnout and reviews intervention efforts to support teachers’ SEC through stress reduction and mindfulness programs. Finally, the authors propose a research agenda to address the potential efficacy of intervention strategies designed to promote teacher SEC and improved learning outcomes for students.
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