Mindfulness Tools for Educators
This school year I was pleasantly surprised to find a Mindulness Tools for Educators course offered to faculty at one of my schools.
It was such an enjoyable and eye-opening class, and took just two hours to complete. As someone who is already familiar with meditating (I’m a big fan of walking meditations and the 10% Happier app), I was really pleased to learn so many new things.
My main takeaways were:
- The Headspace channel on YouTube is pretty impressive. We used it multiple times during the course, and even though I love my current meditation app I will likely be using this free channel in the future, as well.
- One-minute meditations are surprisingly impactful. I typically do 10-minute meditations a few times a week, but I’ve never tried a one-minute meditation. Headspace has many 1-2 minute meditations and they’re very effective for bringing you back to the present, and for someone like me who wants to get the most done in a short amount of time, these meditations fit perfectly into my daily life and busy schedule.
- Mindfulness practices come in many forms, and the more mindful you are, the more this positively impacts the people around you. For instance, if you’re more mindful as an instructor, it has positive impacts on your students as well. Not only can you share journaling, deep breathing, and meditation practices with them (you can even incorporate short exercises into your face-to-face or online classes for better student performance), but mindfulness improves your own focus, your attitude, your teaching, and therefore improves your classes and your students’ experience.
Here’s the takeaway for me. After completing the Mindfulness Tools for Educators course, I have a few more ways to quickly and efficiently improve my life and the lives of others, so I’m very happy with the two short hours I spent learning more about meditation, journaling, etc.
If you haven’t already done so, I highly recommend taking a look at the faculty development course offerings at your school. These courses are usually free and many offer a lot of value!
Happy teaching, learning, and thriving!