Mindfulness and Yoga in Schools A Guide for Teachers and Practitioners

28 • PART i: A ModEl foR SElf-REgulATion And EngAgEMEnT

less committed to raising his young siblings than he was. Teachers did not like working with
Benjamin as he seemed resistant and disinterested in class. Things took a turn for the worse
when his mom began living at his grandmother’s house. She was out of control with her
substance use, creating a chaotic home environment when layered on top of the grandmoth-
er’s drinking. Benjamin was terrified that child protective services would remove him and
his siblings from the house and separate them. At school, he was increasingly distracted and
irritable. This escalated into a confrontation with his teacher, which resulted in an in-school
suspension. Like Alesha, Benjamin had no pathway for developing the coping skills that
he needed to negotiate the stress at home and effectively manage the school environment.
For many students, intelligence and learning skills are only a small part of what they
need to learn. Duckworth et al. (2007) suggest that there are two questions. Citing James
(1907), the Duckworth team asks: (a) What are the human abilities? and (b) By what means
can one unleash these abilities? (Duckworth et al., 2007). Yoga and mindfulness cannot
increase IQ or innate abilities (i.e., the first question). They can, however, help students
unleash their abilities. Helping students develop an effective sense of self is critical to long-
term academic engagement and achievement. Risk and disorder commonly co-occur with
ineffective self-regulation and care within the internal system (see Chapter 1, Figure 1.3, and
Figure 2.1). Further, risk and disorder can be exacerbated by stress, trauma, reactivity, lack
of support, and disengagement within the external systems. Often, there is also an absence
of integration and attunement linking each of the aspects of self (e.g., cognition, emotional,
physiological) and the external experiences of family, school, community, and culture. As
illustrated in Figure 2.1, there is little differentiation between each aspect of the self and
essentially no effective attunement and connection between them. There is no clear sense of
self within the inner experience or within the context of the outer world. There is no perse-
verance, distress tolerance, self-regulation, or grit. The student feels overwhelmed within
the academic environment and has no tools, as illustrated by Alesha and Benjamin.

Reactivity/

disengagement

Ineffective

regulation &

care

Cognitive

(thoughts)

Microsystem

(family)

Macrosystem

(culture/

society)

Exosystem

(school/

community)

Emotional

(feelings)

Physiological

(body)

Ex

te

rn

al

(^) s
sy
et
m
nI
et
nr
al
s
ys
te
m
spheres of influence
Self
as
ineffective
learner
figuRE 2.1 The self as ineffective learner.