With our Educating Mindfully Curriculum, we invite whole school communities to learn, heal, and grow together.
Over 40 studies are now being published a month on the wide-ranging benefits of mindfulness--from its ability to get us in the ready-to-learn state, heal from trauma, and keep a check on our implicit biases--to its ability to increase our resiliency, emotional self-regulation, creativity, and executive functioning.
COSEM’s Educating Mindfully Curriculum guides teens, educators, and parents in accessing the transformative power of mindfulness. It teaches them a wide-variety of trauma-sensitive and evidence-based mindfulness practices, helping to create a compassionate, inclusive, equitable, and safe learning environment where all members can reach their fullest potential.
Our Curriculum Includes Annual School Community Access to the Following:
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32 forty-minute video lessons fully encompassing IL SEL standards and CASEL competencies
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The first 16 by Dr. Matt Dewar and the second 16 by Tovi Scruggs-Hussein; each including:
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20-30 minute topic talk
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5-10 minute mindfulness practice
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5-10 minute reflection assignment (for students to submit to teachers and/or to use for group discussion)
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16 forty-minute video yoga classes
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Led by several high school teachers who are also certified yoga instructors; each including:
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30 minutes of physical poses and movements linked with the breath
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10 minute reclined body scan or other guided relaxation practice
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Several choices of assessment tools that schools can use to evaluate student and staff growth
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Access to COSEM's Mindful Learning Center, with 60+ learning sessions from past conferences, for your staff
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Lessons added and refined each year for continued whole school community learning
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Option to receive 20 PDs or CEUs for staff who complete all 32 lessons
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Access is from July 1 through June 30 through a password-protected webpage with links to Vimeo videos and .pdf assignments (different reflection assignments for students, staff and parents)
Our curriculum design is in the works and will be ready for the fall semester.
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More details can be found on this Google Planning Doc and will be added to this webpage once they are finalized.
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Please send any ideas and feedback our way by filling out this Google Interest Form by June 23. We’ll use the email provided to keep you updated on curriculum development during the summer.
Approximate Timeline:
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June 10-See below for the recording of our June 10 Curriculum Design and Input Session
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June 24-We'll set curriculum pricing after a vote at our Board meeting
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July 1-Finalization of most curriculum design elements; start curriculum sales
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July 8-Several curriculum video lessons will be ready for viewing
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July 15-Lesson titles posted, with objectives for each lesson listed, and also showing the aligning SEL competency(ies) of each
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July 22-Intro video ready; for showing to your staff to prepare them for using the curriculum
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July 29-Schedule a Q and A session so that everyone is confident to start the curriculum in mid-August (or later)
Instructors:
Your expert mindfulness guides will be Dr. Matt Dewar and Tovi Scruggs-Hussein, both certified health and English teachers with decades of personal mindfulness practice and in-the-trenches experience teaching mindfulness to both students and teachers. Matt is currently the well-being coordinator at Lake Forest High School in Illinois and soon-to-be-published author of The Mindful Breathing Workbook for Teens with New Harbinger. Tovi, a former award-winning urban principal in California, is currently an educational services facilitator that provides leadership development through emotional intelligence competencies, racial healing and equity, and family engagement to educational leaders and teachers.
Curriculum Inspiration:
The spark for our curriculum came from a request from several PE Department Chairs for help with incorporating stress resiliency and SEL lessons into their current class curriculums. We are gearing our curriculum for use in high school PE classes, as remote learning lessons this fall or as homework assignments in future years, but it can be used in many, many more ways, including:
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Your whole staff and student body can do a lesson each week together in a special homeroom this next school year.
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Thereafter, use in fresh/soph health and/or PE classes, providing in-class and/or homework lessons.
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We highly recommend in-class discussions for health classes or 'walk and talks' for PE class warm-ups to process lessons.
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Use as part of your 'Parent University' or similar programs, scheduling in-person discussions of lessons throughout the year.
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Use as part of staff PLCs; meeting regularly to discuss lessons and brainstorm ways to apply to various class curriculums.
To create lasting and systemic change, staff needs to also compete the lessons. This curriculum is not meant to be done only by the students; that would be a recipe for failed SEL.
We hope you can help us reach our goal of 100+ pilot schools by forwarding this webpage to your administrators as well as colleagues at other schools. It is important that we show our curriculum is evidence-based with as many pilot schools as possible this first year and we’ll need your help to do that. Thank you in advance for collaborating on this COSEM project!
Please contact Tracy Heilers (she/her), Executive Director of COSEM at 630.337.7452 or the COSEM Team at hello@educatingmindfully.org with any questions.