The administration has encouraged teachers to focus on mindfulness as a way to improve the school environment.

This stems from a change that seniors Amanda Champion and Allen Hosler along with two teachers, two parents, one counselor and Principal Brent Daniels discussed at the Challenge Success fall conference. In one of the workshops, an organization called Mindful Schools spoke about mindfulness.

Mindfulness is acknowledging surroundings and also being present in the moment, Daniels said.

“Many times you find yourself not in the moment but in the future or the past, and then that moment is gone,” Daniels said. “You’re not really able to fully engage in what you are doing.”

In December, the administration invited Mindful Schools to speak at the staff development meeting just before winter break. After the presentation, 19 staff members signed up for Mindfulness Fundamentals, a six-week online course. “Right now we are at the learning phase for our staff,” Daniels said. “The idea then will be for us to talk, after we have experienced mindfulness for ourselves, about what could that look like in our school community.”

The goal is to make a decision on what scale the mindfulness program will be implemented by the end of this semester, Daniels said.

When English teacher Mercedes Foster was approached about being a part of the Challenge Success team, she did not hesitate.

Mindfullness —being in the present moment; acknowledging what’s around you in a non-judgmental way – Brent Daniels

“Ever since I started working here, I have been interested in the whole student and what can make them have the best possible experience at school,” Foster said.

The group meets every month to discuss how to bring what they learned from the Challenge Success conference to the school to improve the environment.

They supported this year’s Readmont book, The Smartest Kids in the World, as a way to give people insight into what makes a strong student and a powerful education system, Foster said.

In social psychology classes, teacher Anne Aldridge-Peacock has started integrating mindfulness into the curriculum.

She took a class with Mindful Schools two years ago.

“[Mindfulness] fits right in line with social psychology and the idea that people are so stressed out and overwhelmed and often times thinking about the next thing as opposed to enjoying or even being aware of what’s happening in the present moment,” Aldridge-Peacock said.

Champion, who attended the Challenge Success conference as well as a mindfulness workshop, said that the teachers’ and staff’s focus on mindfulness is a part of the goal to make students’ experiences at school better. At the conference, they practiced mindfulness exercises designed to acknowledge the present moment.

“If you take time, even if it is five minutes a day, it really helps with focus and students can focus a lot better in class,” Champion said.

The role of mindfulness in the curriculum will be piloted next year. Since the staff is still learning about mindfulness, they do not yet know how it will be integrated.

If it is included in next year’s curriculum, activities could include meditation and exercises designed to make students aware of their physical surroundings.

“The work is challenging but I feel that the more and more we reflect and dig deeper and think about what we really want our school to look like as a community, that will determine what is the best direction for our students,” Daniels said.