Blog Post #6
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After reading through the articles and watching the film, I was able to recognize how important it is as a future educator to be aware of the social emotional, and mindfulness learning amongst children. Both the articles, and the film showed me the several different benefits from teaching these topics, and making sure each child can develop in a healthy and positive way.
Just as it explains in the article, "Why Is Mindfulness Needed in Education?", it is extremely important to address the overall health of not only the students, but the staff as well. Both the staff (educators, administration, and other members of the community) and the students have tons of responsibilities, and countless things to worry about including their academics, social expectations, and things going on outside of the classrooms they need to worry about such as a sport, or problems at home. In order to make sure these responsibilities don't become too much, we need to be mindful of our students emotions, and teach them how to cope with these societal pressures and responsibilities. There are many different ways to implement this in class, as it describes in the article "Nine Ways to Ensure Your Mindfulness Teaching Practice Is Trauma-Informed", as the author suggested to have a routine everyday to check-in with your students, as they can take a a deep breath, and share how they are feeling at the present moment, and as the educator you can do the same (Schwartz, 2019).
The film "Room to Breathe" also showed me why it is important to address the overall health of our students, and to be aware of the social emotional, and mindfulness learning amongst children as a future educator. The students initially were out of control, disrespectful, obnoxious, rebellious, and didn't show any signs of improvement until they started to address these problems by bringing in an expert. Different activities such as reflecting and discussing feelings in class were a huge positive for the students, as they really started to behave much better. These discussions included the students talking about what they wish for and what their admirations are in the future, and these discussions really helped the students to relax and taught them how to stay calm instead of being out of control as they were before.
The app I chose to download was named "Calm", and I chose this app over the other because I was really intrigued by it's description on the app store. Initially, I thought I would just download this app to share in this blog and then immediately delete it off my phone, but that couldn't be farther from the truth now. I've only had the app for a few days, but I really enjoy using it, as I often just keep the app open to listen to the calming sounds the app makes. This sound the app uses of water flowing down a stream makes me feel extremely calm and relaxed while doing work, and is a great outlet to regulate mindfulness. I think this app could help me as a future educator because I can play calm sounds or music while my students are doing work, or taking a test to make them feel more relaxed. I am planning on teaching elementary, and there's an entire library dedicated to calming kids down with different music, sounds, and stories, so this app can be very beneficial for me. My free trial ends in a few days, and I am seriously debating paying the yearly subscription because of how beneficial this app can be for me. Through the articles, and the film, I was able to truly recognize how important it is to be aware of not only social emotional, and mindfulness learning amongst children, but for myself as well. This app will definitely help me to gain this awareness, and also avoid being burned-out as an educator in the future.
Nick Incalcaterra
References:
Long, R. (director/ producer). (2012) Room To Breathe [film]. ZAP Zoetrope Aubry Productions.
Schwartz, K. (2019). Nine ways to ensure your mindfulness teaching is trauma informed. KQED Mindshift. Link
Why is Mindfulness Needed in Education. (n.d.). Mindful Schools. Link
Hi Nick,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post! This topic really fascinated me and I enjoyed actually getting to use different mindfulness apps as well. I downloaded the app, Headspace. I thought the same thing as you, that I would simply just delete the app after doing this assignment, but like you, I actually think I may keep it. I thought it was interesting to read about your different experience with another app, Calm. Just the app icon alone is very calming. I definitely want to try out that app as well, and I know that sometimes it is nice to have some calm sounds going on in the background while you're doing schoolwork or really anything. Sometimes background sound can keep people more mindful and more focused. I actually had a teacher in high school that played calming music while we took our tests to help calm us and keep us focused. I honestly forgot about that until I was typing up my blog this week. I also think it's good for us to keep these apps and use them even when we are educators ourselves, to prevent us from being burnt out. But overall, this weeks assignment really helped to show us how important mindfulness is, especially in the classroom. I would definitely incorporate some mindfulness apps in daily activities to help keep my students engaged and mindful.
-Jillian Guenther