On this occasion, our collaborator Katia Rosenbaum talks to us about Mindfulness and the importance of its application in the educational sector.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a meditation technique that can be understood as an awareness of the different facets of our experience in the present moment. It is Full Attention, a technique to direct our attention inwards, allowing us to experience deeper and calmer levels of thought, to go beyond the thought process itself and experience pure subjectivity or pure consciousness – the source of thought.
An Approach to Mindfulness, Full Attention
This quality of consciousness is the basis of all creative life, as it allows us to be honest, pragmatic, and awake, living with a deep sense of initiative. Full Attention is a meditation technique that promotes self-observation in the present moment, without judgment. By reducing the judgment we have about our own actions and thoughts, a space opens between the events that occur and the responses we give, allowing us to act with greater awareness and without reacting automatically.
The world-renowned quantum physicist Dr. John Hagelin explains that the meditative state is a fourth state of consciousness that differs from being awake, dreaming, and sleeping. It is a state of rest even deeper than sleep and, at the same time, it is a state in which electroencephalographic brain activity is ordered – maximum EEG coherence. This is important because it correlates with increased levels of IQ, creativity, learning abilities, psychological stability, moral reasoning, and emotional maturity, thus making meditation a very powerful tool for education.
Mindfulness in the Classroom
Both children and adolescents mobilize an enormous amount of energy that is often difficult to channel. The lack of attention and concentration, or other symptoms such as apathy, depression, or the recurring difficulty in relating to peers, can be manifestations of increased conflict in school coexistence. There are tools we can use for managing negative emotions: breathing techniques, yoga classes, and didactic exercises that can be learned and used in schools.
Among the different possibilities, just five minutes of daily meditation in the classroom give us the tools we need to work on our students’ Emotional Intelligence through Full Attention. Sofía Godio Báez, a yoga and breathing instructor from Art of Living, explains that a child who learns to meditate is more aware of what is happening to them and has more power over their negative emotions. Furthermore, they learn to acquire the necessary tools so that, for example, when they are teased, they are not affected and can remain centered more easily.
It is not about any kind of effort, but rather about allowing oneself to be carried to a level beyond thought, experiencing the very source of thought, which is Being, pure subjectivity and awakening. When that happens, our perception, which is normally very limited and actually restricts itself the more we concentrate, begins to relax and expand until it experiences the unlimited, and there a flash of maximum EEG coherence occurs, as explained by Dr. Hagelin. It is a simple and pure technique that allows one to experience unlimited consciousness, the principle of unity as the basis of the diversity of the universe. The long-term result of meditation could be to consciously live the scientific truth of the unity of life. And that fundamental experience transforms the brain and physiology.
By cultivating conscious attention, we can learn to have much more sensitivity to the reaction process we experience almost permanently in response to the different situations that affect us in life. Like adults, if children do not know how to identify their emotions and/or manage what is happening to them, they will not be able to perform other life tasks in a focused or efficient manner. When an emotion begins to dominate a child, it will affect all other facets of their life. Sofía Godio states: “A mind without stress is a more attentive, creative, and available mind”.
The Advantages of Mindfulness for Students
Mindfulness prepares students to awaken curiosity, autonomy, discovery, experimentation, and the development of positive emotions, increasing their motivation towards the learning process. According to Godio: “The ways in which we can apply this knowledge to the educational field are truly exciting; the transformations that can occur in schools are incredible. Children spend so many years there, and when we ask about their purposes, I would like to highlight the maximum development of the mind, body, and behavior. Including meditation sessions that allow for the experience of pure subjectivity, developing the brain, intelligence, creativity, and maximizing the brain’s potential; that is what education should be doing. And in many schools, this has already begun.”
This is a path from a present in crisis towards the education of the future. Soon we will be living in a different world. The student becomes the engine of their own experiences. And as Maria Montessori says: “If help and salvation are to come, it will be the children who bring it, for children are the builders of man and society.”
The use of Mindfulness in the classroom is related to Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy. If you find it interesting, do not hesitate to ask for information about our Master’s in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy!rusbank.net