Mindful in the Hall

A significant body of research suggests that for adolescents, enhanced mindfulness is one of the most productive paths toward both academic success and overall wellbeing. Cultivating mindfulness in students achieves multiple key objectives: it calms the mind, and it enhances self-awareness, emotional intelligence, confidence, and resilience in the face of stress, busyness, and the pressure to perform.

Stressed in the Middle

National trends are showing us that students are often stressed, anxious, and suffering in classrooms all while trying to pay attention in school, get good grades, make and keep friends, have a presence on social media, and be perfect. These challenges often become particularly acute in middle school, which is a time not only of crucial intellectual development but also of significant social and emotional change. It takes great energy to be a middle schooler, but add to that the intensity of 21st-century life, and it can be paralyzing.

For a student to focus and think, decide and remember, learn and encode, the brain cannot be distracted by anxiety, fear, or danger. As middle school educators, we see on a daily basis that we must quiet the brain to allow the work of school, social growth, emotional development, and the evolution of the whole student.

Additional Benefits of Mindfulness

• Brain plasticity, which allows changes in the wiring and firing of the brain
• Improved attention, visuospatial memory, working memory, concentration, and sleep
• Increased emotional stability, social tolerance, happiness, gratitude, empathy, grit, resilience, and perseverance
• Reductions in stress, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and hostility

Our Program

• Weekly instruction and strategies focusing on posture, breath, body awareness
• Preparing students for learning by teaching executive functioning strategies, time management, time estimation, organizational, and study skills
• Weekly advisory to develop relationships with students and set goals
• Literacy Strands in each grade: Digital, Environmental, Health, and Civic
• Leadership experiences through Columbia Connections
• Creation of quiet spaces to allow introspection
• PEAK outdoor programs that are educational, connected to curriculum, and allow for leadership experiences
• Instill confidence through self-defense instruction, CPR, creating a positive digital footprint, and self-regulation with social media
• Yoga classes for students, faculty, and parents
• Professional development for teachers, students, and parents

Mindful in the Hall

• Teach students to be present in the moment, to control their breathing, and to understand the science of the brain to know that they can affect the wiring and firing of their brains.
• Inspire middle school students to embody greater awareness of themselves and those around them.
• Work to reduce stress and dysfunction through an increased development of executive function skills.
• Create middle school experiences that balance the intensity of middle school students with their natural energy and need for peaceful growth.
• Inspire middle school students to be grateful and giving without making them feel guilty.
• Engage middle school students with issues of social justice in ways that play on their natural desire for and understanding of fairness and empathy.
• Teach and model resilience and self-regulation through relationships that translates into student grit.
• Work to expose students to experiences that uncover their skills and passions to create mentally nimble students.