84 • PART II: MINDFULNESS IN EDUCATING FOR SELF-REGULATION AND ENGAGEMENT CHAPTER 5: THE MINDFUL CLASSROOM • 85
verbally through an awareness of their bodies from the ground up. If they are seated in a
chair, you begin with the connection of their feet on the floor, awareness of their legs and
hips, and a sense of themselves sitting on the chair. You can have them notice the chair, how
it feels, hard or soft. You can bring them to awareness of their spine and belly. You can guide
them into their shoulders, arms, and hands. As much as possible, bring their awareness to
the physical sensations that they feel. You can move through the body to the crown of the
head. I am careful not to mention “private parts” (e.g., the pelvic floor) of the body in school.
It can quickly distract the class without adding substantial benefit to the meditation. You can
easily speak of the sitting bones (i.e., ischial tuberosity) and teach students where they are.
The next foundation is mindful awareness of feelings in which bare attention is focused
on the feeling-tone that accompanies the experiences of each moment (Cook-Cottone, 2015;
Grabovac, Lau, & Willett, 2011; McCown et al., 2010). These are the feeling-tones of unpleas-
ant, neutral, or pleasant (McCown et al., 2010). For students, you can guide them to notice
what feels good or not so good. You can teach them broad definitions of the words pleasant
(i.e., things that feel good) and unpleasant (i.e., things that feel not so good) and ask them to
give examples. Have them notice that there are physical feelings (e.g., how my feet and toes
feel in my socks and shoes, pressing into the carpet on the floor), and then there are emotional
feelings (e.g., not liking how it feels to sit still for 3 minutes [unpleasant] and wanting to
wiggle and move [something that feels pleasant]). The emotional feelings tell us how we feel
about what is happening (Cook-Cottone, 2015). In mindfulness practice, these feeling-tones
are simply noticed as they arise and pass away. So, Joey, who feels unpleasant feelings about
sitting for more than 90 seconds, notices this rather than letting himself wiggle. He can share
with the class what this was like and how he stayed focused.
The third foundation is mindfulness of the mind (Cook-Cottone, 2015; McCown et al.,
2010; Siegel, 2010). Note, this is a difficult concept for young children. For students who are
younger than 10 or 11 years old, it may be best to move right to awareness of objects of the
mind. Objects are concrete, or tangible, and therefore a little easier for children who have
not entered formal operative thought to consider (i.e., the ability to think about the world in
more abstract ways). In the case of mindfulness of the mind, bare attention is focused on the
activity, or processing, of the mind, noticing shifts in states of awareness, concentration, and
distraction (Kabat-Zinn, 2013). It can be helpful to take some time and define the different
states for the students and have them give examples of how that is experienced by them. In a
curriculum my research team developed for children with fetal alcohol exposure, we aligned
the states of consciousness with animals or characters to increase understanding. We used
terms such as “hunting dog” for alert and engaged, and “sloth” for feeling slow and lazy. It
can be fun to work with the class and create these distinctions and methodologies for each
of them. You want to be sure to include states of arousal, engaged attention, distraction, and
Mind
Awareness
Mindful
Practice
Body
Awareness
Emotion
Awareness
Mind-Object
Awareness
FIGURE 5.1 Four foundations
of mindful practice.