Three Breaths and Begin: A Guide to Meditation in the Classroom - Softcover

Meyer, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1608685721 ISBN 13: 9781608685721

Verlag: New World Library, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

LEARN THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF MEDITATION IN THE CLASSROOM

Meditation can be a potent practice for creating focus and facilitating learning in the classroom, for kindergarteners, grad students, and everyone in between. Longtime schoolteacher William Meyer has taught a variety of meditation techniques to students, fellow teachers, and parents with remarkable results. In Three Breaths and Begin, Meyer details how teachers can incorporate mindfulness into their curricula every day. He covers every aspect of teaching meditation, from creating a dedicated space in the classroom to meditating on field trips, in sports settings, and even in the midst of tragedy. Offering numerous ready-to-use scripted meditations, this insightful, practical, and loving guide will benefit anyone interested in the well-being of students — and, most of all, the students themselves.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

William Meyer has taught history, economics, and humanities in urban and suburban high schools, where he has also led meditation in a variety of forms. He works with other educators to incorporate meditation into the classroom. He holds an MA in education from Harvard and is finishing his PhD at NYU.

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Three Breaths and Begin

A Guide to Meditation in the Classroom

By William Meyer

New World Library

Copyright © 2019 William Meyer
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-60868-572-1

Contents

Introduction, 
Chapter One HISTORY, 
The Breath Meditation, 
Chapter Two TOOLS, 
The House Meditation (Body Scan), 
Chapter Three SPACE, 
The Rooting Meditation, 
Chapter Four SILENCE AND SOLITUDE, 
Meditation On Silence, 
Chapter Five THE CLASSROOM, 
The Staircase Meditation, 
Chapter Six MEDITATION CLUB, 
The Pond Meditation, 
Chapter Seven HIGH SCHOOL, 
The Gratitude Meditation, 
Chapter Eight FIELD TRIPS, 
The Heart Meditation, 
Chapter Nine TRAGEDY AND TRAUMA, 
The Candle Meditation, 
Chapter Ten ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, 
A Unit Plan for Elementary School Students, 
The Chakra Meditation for Kids, 
Chapter Eleven TEACHERS, 
Alternate Nostril Breathing, 
Chapter Twelve THE CURRICULUM AND THE COMMUNITY, 
The Vortex Meditation, 
Conclusion THE INTERIOR, 
The Doorway Meditation, 
Frequently Asked Questions, 
Appendix of Activities and Meditations, 
The Mandala Activity, 
College Admission Essay, 
College Essay Meditation, 
The Earth Meditation (Alternate Rooting Meditation), 
The Light Meditation, 
Acknowledgments, 
Glossary of Key Terms, 
Notes, 
Bibliography, 
Resources, 
Index, 
About the Author, 

CHAPTER 1

HISTORY

One fall afternoon, when I was six years old, my grandfather came to my first-grade classroom to share stories and photographs from his recent trip to Egypt. He told many memorable stories from Egyptian history that day, but it was the one about the discovery of a young pharaoh's tomb in the Valley of the Kings that stuck in my mind.

My grandfather explained that at the turn of the twentieth century, Egyptologists had spent years exploring the valley, looking for the remains of any and every ruler they could find. By 1907 many had left the area, convinced that all of the major discoveries had already been made. One young British archaeologist, Howard Carter, was certain that a major discovery still remained to be made in the region. With the backing of a wealthy Englishman, Lord Carnarvon, Carter dug in the valley for more than a decade, interrupted for a time by the outbreak of the Great War in Europe. After the war he returned to Egypt and continued his expedition.

Four years passed, and Carter was no closer to making any new discoveries. Lord Carnarvon threatened to cut his funding if he didn't have something to show for his work. Then, just by chance, only a few weeks before he would have run out of money and returned to England in disgrace, Carter stumbled upon a single step, buried beneath the rubble of the valley floor. Soon his team started digging in the spot, and eventually they uncovered twelve more steps. At the bottom of this set of stairs was a sealed door. What followed would be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in the history of the world.

As my grandfather described King Tut's tomb and the treasures Howard Carter unearthed that fateful November day, we all held our breath in anticipation of what might be found. Of course, we didn't understand the full significance of the discovery in either the history of Egypt or the history of the field of Egyptology. But we sensed that the opening of the tomb was not only a window into the life of an unknown boy pharaoh; it was also a window into a lost chapter of Egyptian history.

Like the discovery of that tomb, meditation is a doorway into a world of riches and treasures — not out in the deserts of Egypt, but right here within the center of our classrooms. For years now we have neglected many of the gifts and talents of the students around us, sometimes by choice but more often by the inability of our education system to understand how to engage more than just the mind. That deeper engagement is something the Egyptians, along with many other ancient peoples, recognized: the true power of the individual resides not in the head, but in the heart. In these next pages I hope to briefly outline the history that has shaped education policy in the United States, including the landscape of assessments that characterizes learning today. More importantly, this chapter will introduce the tools that mindfulness and meditation offer for uncovering the treasures beneath the surface of the mind.

EDUCATION HISTORY

As a high school history teacher, I often try to impress upon my students the importance of recognizing that history is not a static idea captured in a textbook, but a living and breathing entity that is constantly reshaping our lives. Over the past four decades, dating back to the publication of A Nation at Risk, in 1983, the US education system has witnessed an increased standardization of the K12 curriculum. The focus of policy and teaching has moved away from the holistic, child-centered approach proposed at the start of the twentieth century and instead turned toward one driven by the underlying desire to produce better and higher test scores. Unfortunately, this movement has only accelerated in the past two decades, with a barrage of state and national exams ushered in through initiatives like No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Race to the Top, and the more recent Common Core. All this has left teachers as well as students lost in a barren landscape of testing and rote memorization.

As a result of all this assessment and policy shift, students have their minds stuffed with information but are rarely given opportunities for emotional or inner development. Most teachers would agree that the result is high school graduates who are shortchanged and stilted — not just in their intellectual development but also in their emotional and inner capacities. Understanding the context of these reforms in the history of education and their consequences, both intended and unintended, is fundamental to understanding how we got where we are today, and how meditation can act in shifting that narrative.

ACCOUNTABILITY AND STANDARDIZATION VS. THE INNER LIFE OF THE CHILD

Few teachers would deny that students are constantly being overtested, overassessed, and overevaluated in a top-down effort to maximize performance and scores. Students no longer find themselves at the center of the classroom; rather, they are now secondary to the scores and numbers they produce. The result is more and louder calls for better results, more homework, and longer school years, all at the cost of meaningful and deeper learning.

Recently, we've seen a wave of programs and trends challenging these forces. Some schools are introducing programs like mindfulness and yoga, and some are even reintroducing century-old electives on civic responsibility. Some students are being asked to explore deeper questions of who they are, who they want to be, and what they want to do. A larger part of this new movement is driven by concerns about student wellness and mental health that are ever more pervasive, with increasing self-reported rates of student stress, anxiety, and depression. Today we teachers find ourselves not just struggling to meet the demands of our administrators but often trying to navigate the mental health crises plaguing our students.

At the same time, mindfulness has become one of the most popular solutions to these problems. The first major effort to use mindfulness in the curriculum began in the United...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: New World Library
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1608685721
• ISBN 13: 9781608685721
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: New World Library; https://www.newworldlibrary.com; ; 14 Pamaron Way; Novato; CA; 94949; USA
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