I actually had a whole other blog post typed out and ready to go. That blog focused on blame and helping our student learn new skills before expecting them to use the skills. It was good. But this one is better! (Maybe I'll pull it out at a later time)
Over the weekend I listened to a podcast with Hypnotherapist Tom Silver, it was interesting and made me really think about various aspects of my own personal life and work life.
Before I go any further, no, I am not going to suggest we hypnotize our students to get them to do what we feel they should be doing.
Mr. Silver made some interesting points about training our brains. If we take a second to think about brain training than we realize that is exactly what we are doing with mindfulness.
One of the ideas from Mr. Silver that really resonated with me was how we use our words. The words we use to train our brains, and the brains of those we are talking with, to respond in specific ways. For example, if someone were to ask us if the dinner they made was good and we respond "it's not half bad" we are training their brain to question what half was good and what half was bad.
Think about this with our students. Think about this in your personal life. How often do you respond in the negative?
ex: How are you doing today?
.... how many of you answered in your head "not too bad"??? So then we train our brain and the brain of others to linger on the questions about what is bad, since your day isn't "too bad" the implication is that there is some bad.
ex: Thanks for the help.
... "no problem" .... so now we enter the question of "so you thought helping me might have been a problem?" I know I am guilty of this one.
Mindfulness; taking time to breathe and slow down, helps us respond in positive ways. We can begin to train our brains and the brains of others to be positive.
How great would it be to experience positive after positive after positive interactions? Having more positivity in our students begins with us being the positive force they train from.
While researching my mindfulness around May 4th, I found a lot of mindfulness that is taught to students using Star Wars. In fact, my kindergarten aged nephew is currently doing a remote learning Jedi Knight training (mindfulness class) through 4H. Yoda was not of the dark side trying to teach Luke to be a positive force. Yoda told us all "Do or Do Not, there is no Try" Either we are positive to teach our students to be positive, or we aren't.
Our mindfulness practice for our students has to begin with us.
I have found that as we enter what society refers to as "the terrible twos" Leila is having meltdowns and throwing fits. I know, from research and understanding that this stage is more about a young child not having all of the words to express feelings and wanting to do big things they are told not to do. This leads to tears, crying, and tantrums. I have been asked when I plan to start mindfulness with Leila. My answer; I already have.
It all starts with my own practice. Leila sees me doing yoga and joins in. Leila sees me laying on the floor, still and calm and she joins in. When she cries I tell her she can cry, that it's ok to be upset, teaching her that she can have feelings and accept them. Then I pick her up and take over exaggerated big deep breaths; I want her to feel my breathing. The other day I timed it. I let Leila sit and cry on her own and she cried for about 5 minutes... would have been more if I let it continue. I picked her up, held her very close and started breathing deep. She stopped crying in about 10 seconds, no kidding, I timed it. She could feel my breathing and her breathing started to sync-up and her body could not help but calm down.
We can't pick up our students and hold them close and let them feel our breathing, but we can show them the way with our actions and words.
Mindfulness is a way to train positivity and acceptance and be present and understand. The more we practice and present this to others, the more others will begin to reflect it back.
