I have chosen to argue for the inclusion of "mindfulness" in the school curriculum.
The audience that I will be trying to persuade are the educators in the schools.
They should care about this because the current system is broken and does not work for a majority of the school populations. If taught correctly, this method has the capability of providing a solid foundation for students to learn to handle their emotions and conflicts in a more constructive manner. It can also help with children who have attention problems in focusing them in a more meaningful way.
The children/students will gain the ability to focus their minds towards learning, gaining the ability to handle conflicts better and the ability to more thoughtfully relate to their peers as well as the school staff.
Some of the reasons I will give to the staff on why they should agree with me are:
that students learn better when they are able to calm their minds and focus on learning.
there will be less class time taken away from teaching if the teacher does not have to deal with behavior issues as frequently.
when kids are more able to handle their emotions in a more calm manner, they are less likely to engage in destructive behaviors.
Some of the reasons that teachers may disagree with me are:
1. that teaching "mindfulness" takes away from valuable class time.
2."mindfulness" may not be as effective if there is no support at home for the program.
3. that it may cost too much to implement.
The answers to those objections may be:
True, however, once implemented even in the most early stages, mindfulness is effective in focusing the student better towards the standard curriculum.
Well, yes, but if the teacher is positive and effective the students could use what they learn at home as well to help them in their relationships with parents and siblings.
Not in this case, because it actually costs very little to implement. Really the only cost is a small time commitment on the teachers part in learning this method so that he/she can teach it to the students. There are grants that are becoming available and some have been used in Pennsylvania and New York.
Support for the answers to objections: The following quotes are from Shambhala Sun - A Real Education (The Mindful Society/May2012) Each of these quotes support in some way my ideas.
"The scope of the work that Greenberg and his colleagues have been doing covers all age groups and all facets of the developmental environment of children in ways that break new ground in how mindfulness might be defined. While children who are three or four cannot practice mindfulness per se, they still have inherent mindfulness, which they can discover and benefit from. Greenberg works with a curriculum in Head Start programs that has been shown to improve children’s readiness to become students in a classroom."
"One of the practices they use is the turtle. “We tell a story about a little turtle who has lots of problems,” he says. “The turtle sometimes gets very sad or very mad, but then the turtle goes into her shell, where it’s very quiet and she can take some deep breaths and calm down and think, ‘What’s going on with me? How am I feeling?’ Then, we teach them to do turtle, which is just crossing their hands across their chest and taking a deep breath. When children are upset, teachers and parents can prompt them to use turtle as a way of calming down and using their thinking skills.”
" Greenberg founded a program in his center called the Program on Empathy Awareness and Compassion in Education (PEACE), which focuses on ways to promote pro-social behavior. He and colleague Patricia Jennings have also done groundbreaking work with the Garrison Institute’s initiative on contemplation and education. The teacher training program that Jennings directs as part of the initiative recently received a second major grant from the U.S. Department of Education to study the effects of mindfulness and related practices with classroom teachers. The first grant worked with teachers in and around Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The second grant— approximately $5 million over four years, divided among Garrison, Fordham University, and Penn State—will take the program into New York City schools."
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