Mindfulness and Yoga in Schools A Guide for Teachers and Practitioners

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CHAPTER 4

THE MINDFUL LEARNER: THE ROLE OF

MINDFULNESS IN EDUCATING FOR

SELF-REGULATION AND ENGAGEMENT

Learning to listen to [and see] ourselves

is a way of learning to love ourselves

Joan Borysenko (Goldman, 2009, p. 104)

This chapter introduces you to the basic principles of mindfulness as they can be applied
to student self-regulation and engagement in schools. Mindfulness is conceptualized as a
central feature of contemplative education (see Chapter 1; Waters, Barsky, Ridd, & Allen,
2015). Mindfulness is central to each of the 12 principles of embodied growing and learn-
ing (see Chapter 3). The first principle, worth (i.e., I am worth the effort; see Chapter 3,
principle 1), is a good starting point, maybe even the most important starting point.
A student that does not believe that he or she is worth the effort will be very difficult,
if not impossible, to motivate in the classroom. In our fast-paced, achievement-oriented
culture, it can be easy to lose a sense of inherent self-value. Our students spend their
waking day listening and watching as mass and social media tell them what is impor-
tant, attractive, and valuable. They get “liked,” “reposted,” “retweeted,” and “shared”
for being attractive or externally conspicuous in some way. Worse, the social media
acknowledgments are all counted and compared in an empirical manner (i.e., they can
do the math to find out how seemingly socially valued they are). It is a virtual world in
which a video of self-induced vomiting may appear to, in terms of shares and likes, be
more valued than an act of kindness. I used to be shocked when I would see the explicitly
sexual and overtly provocative material posted by some of the most kindhearted dedi-
cated, and sensitive students. However, these types of posts are so common now that I no
longer find them surprising. The pressure seems to be so great that the students, even
very young ones, spend a substantial amount of time in creation of a social media iden-
tity to secure social capital (i.e., perceived social value), leaving the embodied, sensing,
and learning self behind.
For many students, the focus on external value is echoed across their interpersonal
and social experiences. At school, although we likely worry less about their appearance