Mindfulness and the Groundhog Day 2017

"Mindfulness and the Groundhog"

How are you? I work with student teachers who are in their fifth week of student teaching. We use the same teaching phases to describe our week: anticipation, reflection, disillusion, survival, rejuvenation, and anticipation. Many were between disillusion and survival on the roller-coaster ride of teaching. Student teachers came to class Wednesday night (I know, it is a little challenging to work all week, all day, and then come to a night class for 3.5 hours.) and were wound up and weary. However, their wound-up energy was one of a spirit of "I am ready to be a teacher."  I remember that feeling. I remember feeling, 'Okay, I can do this, turn me loose.'

With the energy in the room being a little stressful (Okay, maybe more than a little stressful.) I decided to share a "mindfulness activity." Note: I had shared earlier that we were going to do a mindfulness activity. The activity was to sit with your feet on the floor, back straight, eyes resting and just breathe. Deep breaths bringing good energy in, slow breath release to let stress and worry out. We only did this for about three minutes. Ahhh.

The energy in the room changed. People relaxed, and I was able to engage them in a discussion about creating an "Impact on Student Learning" project. We talked about mindfulness and how stress is taking over.

So how does this relate to Groundhog day? Well, the little rodent saw his shadow. He does this every year for us. In a playful way, we look forward to the celebration of the community that surrounds Punxsutawney Phil's "prediction." We are all mindful for a minute. Perhaps in a playful way, we should consider taking a moment everyday to breathe and see if the sun is shining.

There are two websites I would like to share. The first is Mindful Schools. The website focuses on helping teachers become more mindful and the link is mindfulschools.org. The second is a Mindfulness in Schools website called Mindfulnessinschools.org. There is research associated with the impact of mindfulness and professional development opportunities for teachers and schools. I believe, as teachers, we need to be more mindful of our own needs. Mindfulness is a way to connect with our selves to bring us towards anticipation and rejuvenation on our journey.