Why I completed a Certificate in “Mindfulness for Children”.

I felt I could use a refresher on mindfulness and maybe get some additional lessons for my students out of it. I’m confident I got much more from it. I was able to connect Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Paolo Freire’s co-learner teaching methodology, meditation, affirmations, law of attraction, Eckhart Tolle’s teachings on being in the now (the essence of mindfulness), the power of positive thinking, storytelling, and Piaget’s pedagogy of play. All these together connect to creative thinking and problem solving; to self-esteem and self-awareness.

The program ran through many different anxiety busting and grounding meditations, as well as, mindset modifications exercises. It was primarily delivered under the guise of practices a parent might dimwit their child, but I could see how it could be sometimes simplified (made shorter and sillier) or expanded (incorporated into some art or writing exercise) for an elementary classroom. I didn’t really spend time considering the applications for a middle or high school class, but see no limitations for that to happen. As a matter of fact, the many exercises might help International Baccalaureate students with the reflection parts of their curriculum by giving them tools and methods to focus on what they are doing or recently did, and what they learned… also build some self-awareness about how and what was learned.

The CoE always asks for feedback on the programs and I mentioned that this could benefit from giving additional academic resources and sources for additional study, because as a teacher, I felt this was tremendously applicable to the classroom. It would then be a deeper Pro. Dev. for educators and allow parents access to a better understanding of how some teachers try to help their children.