David Docherty
Programme Officer
Education Team
Big Reading Challenge for November 2018
Mindful teaching & Teaching Mindfulness: A guide for anyone who teaches Anything
by Deborah R. Schoeberlein & Suki Sheth
If you want to find out how to access the book through NAU visit our Big Read area (which also includes links to all of our other Big Reads for the year).
You can also visit the library on NAU to find thousands of journals, articles and e-books on a range of education topics all of which are free to use for all NAE staff.
How mindful are you as a teacher? How often do you take the time to really talk to your students? What’s this mindfulness business and how does it apply to teaching? I’m sure these are all questions that you’ve considered before.
In her book on mindful teaching, Deborah Schoeberlein will take you through her ideas for the practical application of mindfulness in education. She’ll show you how to tune into what's happening both inside and around you and your students. Mindful Teaching and Teaching Mindfulness emphasizes how the teacher's personal familiarity with mindfulness plants the seed for an education infused with attention, awareness, kindness, empathy, compassion, and gratitude. The book follows a teacher from morning to night on a typical school day, at home, during the commute, and before, during, and after class. This book is perfect for teachers of all kinds: schoolteachers, religious educators, coaches, parents-anyone who teaches anything.
But... you may still be stuck on one of those questions, why should we consider mindfulness in education? No two people are the same and just as there is no one answer to how to teach it is the same for how to teach mindfulness. But hopefully we can agree that when we walk into a classroom we need to be able to differentiate between the individual children sitting in front of us and show real empathy to their mindset for learning. This is no easy
task, but as teachers we are presented with the perfect opportunity to get to know these children, and that is something we should cherish.
Empathy isn’t an easy skill to acquire. We may witness one group of students excel in maths, or show an interest in global affairs and another show little to no interest in the subject. It is in these instances that we need to understand why this is the case, and what better way to do so than to ask. This relates back to a subject we looked at last term: what separates a good teacher from a great teacher? By showing empathy and by talking to your students you can work out how to get their attention and find out what works best for them.
In summary, we need to demonstrate empathy in our everyday teaching as a means of understanding our students and find out not only what they are like academically, but what they are like as an individual. Check out our course on Building a Student-Centred Classroom on NAU and uncover the full potential of your students!