Dear Parents and Guardians,
We are pleased to announce that Brown
School’s Mindful Education initiative
will be launched the week of 14 January 2008
in all classes and advisories. This
school-wide effort follows last year’s
successful pilot program. The Mindful
Education program will continue for the
remainder of the school year.
We want our
classrooms to be places where academic
practices and classroom strategies can
provide children with emotional comfort,
security, and satisfaction as well as
knowledge and academic skills. When teachers
use Mindful Education strategies to
reduce stress and build a positive emotional
environment, students gain emotional
resilience and learn more efficiently and at
higher levels of cognition. Mindful
awareness means paying attention in a
particular way—on purpose, in the present
moment, and without judgment.
The Mindful Education program is an
integrated curriculum designed to help
students develop, both in school and at
home, the ability to observe experiences
with increased attention and focus from a
reflective and nonjudgmental perspective. It
is a form of cognitive attention training
that aims to give children skills of focus
and attention so they may become more aware
of their own states of mind at any given
moment. The goal is to help children become
more aware and thoughtful of the choices
they make in all of their life experiences.
For example, students can use mindful
attention to help them make good choices in
a variety of situations, including
struggling with anxiety or stress over
schoolwork, dealing with disagreements with
friends, studying and taking tests, or when
faced with feelings of sadness,
disappointment, or anger. Mindful attention
encourages students to step back from a
situation and take the time to make a
thoughtful and reflective decision about how
to respond.
A few times during the week, we will spend
15 to 20 minutes with students engaged in a
social/emotional learning curriculum. A team
of prominent educational psychologists,
cognitive researchers, and educators drawn
from around the United States and Canada
developed the Mindful Education
program over the past few years through a
grant obtained by the Hawn Foundation. The
Foundation is also supporting our effort at
Brown School.
Mindful Education
trainers will be working with Brown School
teachers in an all-day workshop on January
11th in anticipation of the
launch of the program. Many of our teachers
have already received training through last
year’s pilot program. We would like to
invite you to an information session and
mini-workshop on the evening of January 10th.
The program will begin at 7:00 pm and last
about an hour and a half.
We are excited to be offering the Mindful
Education program to our students as an
additional component to help them meet the
social/emotional learning objectives
established at Brown School. Please feel
free to contact us with any questions
concerning the program, and we look forward
to seeing you on the evening of January 10th
for our information session and
mini-workshop.
Sincerely,
Marc A.Meyer Patti
Vitale
Associate Head of School Second Grade teacher
For Academic Affairs
Mindful Education Program
Coordinator
