Focused Awareness – Mindfulness in Life & Academia
- Jan
- 30
mind·ful·ness
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1. the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something.“their mindfulness of the wider cinematic tradition”
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2. a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.
When I read the title for this topic, it was the second definition that came to mind at first. I am not an expert mediator or anything but I dabble in that mindfulness practice and definitely have seen the benefits. I have found that being mindful of what’s going on in your mind and body can really open your eyes to what is really going on and why.
I enjoyed reading the chapters of Ellen Langer’s book on mindful learning. I had never thought about applying those same concepts to learning and my classroom. We need to move our students from just mindlessly “absorbing” the information to actually thinking about how they are learning and acquiring knowledge. By thinking and being mindful of how our students learn, as well as ourselves, can take our teaching to another level. I’ve actually been reading a lot about metacognition in teaching and trying to learn how to really work these concepts into my teaching in order to help my students move this knowledge from their short-term to long-term memory for future use. I think active learning activities help in this process as well and keep students from just mindlessly memorizing the required information to just get through the class.
I am really loving the Mike Wesch videos. We have a very similar teaching style which I enjoy because for the most part I work with people in engineering who have a very different style. I had so many realizations during the newest video but I’ll save those for the “Authentic Self” week since I skipped ahead in class a little 🙂 He was so right in that we are initially born without fear of failing or learning. When we fall, we get back up and try again – smiling and laughing. At some point in our lives, however, we learn that failure is bad and become afraid of it. If we can become more aware of this fear and maybe even of how we developed this fear, it could change the way we approach learning for both ourselves and our students.
That focus is so important in our everyday life. If we just go through our days without intention, without connection, without reflection, we are can be just absorbing information without context. I think that’s something that is missing in most cases of our lives – reflection and mindfulness. I know they provide me with moments of clarity, understanding, and purpose to what I’m doing, why I’m do things that way, and what that might mean or affect things in the future.
Great post, Qualla! I share your belief in the importance of reflection… I think it is a key part of being an educator. It is through looking back and reflecting upon what we have done that we can make our teaching better tomorrow. 🙂
Qualla,
Great post. Here just some follow-up thoughts. While I purchase the idea of mindfulness in the learning process, we are challenged with having to deprogram a room full of students who have spent the past 18 to 30 years of their life in mindless system. If educators are going to take a turn in the mindful direction, I think we have to find a way to do so on a large scale. Sir Ken Robinson ended his talk referring to the needed effort as a revolution, and I think that’s the route we would have to take. With the mindful approach, I envision students complaining when they don’t receive a clear rubric for their assignments. And nowadays, student complaints carry heavy weight. Maybe that’s the starting point…surveys and other current measures of successful instruction.
“If we just go through our days without intention, without connection, without reflection, we are can be just absorbing information without context.” AMEN. Self reflection is so important in education. If we do not center down and truly think about what it is we are learning and why it is important, the knowledge is likely to be temporary. Great post. I think I, too, could do a better job of connecting myself with the material and being intentional about the knowledge I absorb.
In my research area, we have a saying and that is, “context is everything.” Context is so darn important if I can’t give some sort of application to a theory I’m lost. I do not function well in the abstract world.
I agree with you so much that something that we all could get better with is our abilities to reflect and be mindful. Being open and aware of the possibility of many perspectives and novel application is essential nowadays (it’s not a bad idea just because it hasn’t been done before). Making time to reflect is also important, we can’t just go-go-go, sometimes we need to slow down and chill.
http://gph.is/1X5vRNX
I thought your entire response was well written and thoughtful, but I particularly identified with the end of your blog post when you said:
“That focus is so important in our everyday life. If we just go through our days without intention, without connection, without reflection, we are can be just absorbing information without context. I think that’s something that is missing in most cases of our lives – reflection and mindfulness. I know they provide me with moments of clarity, understanding, and purpose to what I’m doing, why I’m do things that way, and what that might mean or affect things in the future.”
The intention/connection/reflection is a great way of putting that. It’s actually something you could use as a writing exercise for students, not just in an effort to get them to be more mindful (although that’s obviously a goal), but also to get them to think (and be mindful) about the ways audience and purpose factor in when drafting a piece of writing.
Dude. Thanks for the idea!
You’re welcome! 🙂 I hadn’t even thought about that as a writing prompt!