In June 2023, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a new policy that would go into effect this fall. Each public school student engaged in two to five minutes of mindful breathing each morning until they chose to opt out. At a time when the youth mental health crisis was a big news story, it seemed like a win. Research has suggested that mindfulness can have a beneficial effect on adolescent anxiety and depression. Now more than a million students in NYC public schools are getting their daily dose.
Yet for those in the world of mindfulness, there was a backlash. Although mindfulness can be a powerful tool, it is one that is usually taught by experienced practitioners. Asking overwhelmed teachers to add another lesson to their plate on a topic they’re unfamiliar with has the potential to backfire. Programming that is implemented by teachers going through the motions with bored students is usually not a recipe for success.
Asking overwhelmed teachers to add another lesson to their plate on a topic they’re unfamiliar with has the potential to backfire.
Positive and negative weights
As a PE teacher and director of mindfulness at a PK-8 school in Massachusetts, I had my concerns from afar. I am well aware of my abilities and limitations. If, for example, research revealed the benefits of singing, and if there was a mandate to practice it, for a few minutes at the beginning of each class, my lack of skill would result in some seriously out of tune kudos. There’s a reason people are encouraged to teach their strengths.
Kimberly Daniels, a school counselor and director of mindfulness at Greenwich Village School in Manhattan, sees the mandate as a positive first step. Both Daniels and I worked with Full School Mindfulness to coordinate the position of director of mindfulness at our respective schools. I wanted to approach it as someone who understands the benefits of bringing mindfulness into schools and as a practitioner of research-backed implementation, concerned with these practices.
“At first, I was like, this is really, really cool,” Daniels said. “It’s being seen as something that all schools should be doing. It’s a weird thing to mandate, but if it’s raising awareness in all public schools in New York City, that could be a good thing.”
Asking more of teachers than ever before
The reaction among teachers, however, was more of a mixed bag. “I think a lot of teachers rolled their eyes because it was one more thing they were being mandated to do,” Daniels said.
Once the program was up and running, Daniels was able to become a thought partner with the teachers at her school and provide resources and ideas. “When it first came out, I talked about it in a professional development session at my school,” Daniels recalled. “We were able to come up with different things that teachers could do in the classroom. A lot of teachers really liked the idea of ​​mindfulness.” However, this position is a rarity in the public school system, and other schools lack the support of an educator trained in the discipline.
Is there help needed?
Another major problem was the overall lack of accountability and support from the Department of Education. It’s one thing to announce a mandate and then provide training, resources, and professional development on the topic, as might be the case with the introduction of a new math curriculum. It’s another thing to mandate a plan without teachers following through and supporting it.
Such a mandate can function more as a form of welfare: allowing the powers that be to get positive press and check a box without actually exerting influence. Is it a coincidence that the federal corruption investigation of Mayor Adams came only a few months after this announcement? In the end, such an empty mandate only serves to promote the interests of administrators and politicians who can claim such initiatives as feathers in their cap while a generation of students is alienated by half-hearted welfare initiatives.
Such a mandate can function more as a form of welfare: allowing the powers that be to get positive press and check a box without actually exerting influence.
Furthermore, such unsupported measures do not take into account the potential harms of practicing mindfulness in environments such as inappropriate trauma responses. There is evidence that mindfulness practices can trigger trauma, and a classroom teacher who is forced to teach it may not have the necessary training or experience to recognize and respond to students who are traumatized by the practice.
Also, if a teacher doesn’t buy into mindfulness programming but has to introduce it anyway, they can do so in a way that discourages apathy rather than interest. As a basketball coach, I certainly don’t want people who don’t have a passion for the sport to introduce students, but that’s perfectly fine with the mindset. Students who first encounter the practice in a classroom setting where it is being pulled out without much enthusiasm.
what now
So what would be the better approach? Daniels believes that a more lasting impact will come from adopting a social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum that focuses on mindfulness. The SEL curriculum includes programs and lessons designed to help students develop the “soft” skills that are really necessary for relationships and healthy functioning in the world.
“If you don’t have your mindset practiced and it’s not something you’re ever interested in, I think it can be difficult for teachers,” Daniels said. “But if it were an actual curriculum that you’re properly trained in, it would have more impact than two to five minutes a day.”
Mindfulness is an incredible tool for blocking awareness. Yet it cannot simply be a means of washing fitness, and it requires the same academic principles as any other discipline, be it art, chemistry, or the social sciences. All these subjects are taught by teachers trained in a specific philosophy or curriculum.
Despite the potential benefits of mindfulness becoming more accessible and widespread, access may not be worth the risk without teacher follow-up, support, and training. Finally, to be most effective, mindfulness practice must be thoughtfully implemented by individuals with experience in the discipline. In other words, we need to be mindful of mindfulness programming.
