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"Presence" as described in this paper is a quality ofattention, which takes advantage of the space between
perception and cognition. Presence "de-condition[s]
the 'human mind and spirit/" (Kesson 2000,93) and allows the possibility of seeing others without cultural/personal codes as lenses—the project of thinking
gaze differently. As such it is a pragmatic vision immersed in the mundane of daily activity. Presence is
mystical and intellectual, but may not be achieved
through mysticism or intellectual knowledge. It is the
practice of a kind of non-action, a practice of seeing
what is happening by listening to what conditioning
shunts to the background, what Serres (1995) has called
"noise." By the practice of this particular quality of attention, the contemplative leads the imagination into
the creation of new modes of meaning making. Presence "is not a belief or opinion, but a practice, [which]
when a person has learned it and has practiced it, it becomes grasped and valued" (Helminski 1992,12).
This paper explores the experience of presence in
the classroom practices of teachers in classrooms
from kindergarten to high school.
Can an organic partnership of qualitative and quantitative data confirm the value of mindfulness practice as an assignment in undergraduate education? Working from qualitativeevidence suggesting the existence of potentially measurable mindfulness effects expressed in
ruler measures, a previous study calibrated a mathematically invariant scale of mindfulness
practice effects with substantively and statistically significant differences in the measures
before and after the assignment. Current efforts replicated these results. The quantitative
model is described in measurement terms defined at an introductory level. Detailed figures
and appendices are provided, and a program of future research is proposed.