SAMPLE OF SUMMIT DAY 4
This is the last day of our Educating Mindfully Summit. Thank you for joining us and we hope you have found it beneficial!
Commit to 1%
The most important element to developing the skills and aptitudes associated with mindfulness is daily practice. Our Commit to 1% campaign encourages educators and schools to take the pledge, "We will practice mindfulness with our students each day for 10 minutes." This is approximately 1% of our waking day. . . it's a very small time commitment that will make a huge difference to everyone's mental health.
To join the campaign, click HERE. Let's join together to help heal trauma and end much of the suffering that millions of students and teachers experience each day as a result of the stress and anxiety that characterizes modern life. Make mental well-being your #1 priority and commit to 1% today!
Today's Learning Choices
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Mentorship from a District SEL Mindfulness Specialist (James Butler, Austin ISD)
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Taking Mindfulness to Scale: Whole-School Implementation (Mindful Schools)
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Chair Yoga for Classrooms: Get Kids Moving and Ready to Learn (Little Flower Yoga)
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Educator Self-Care Through iRest® Method Meditations (JabuMind)
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A Gratitude and Happiness Lesson for 6-12th graders (Mission Be)
Mindful Learning Center
Our Mindful Learning Center contains 30+ conference session recordings that are NOT included in this Summit. Consider continuing your learning at your own pace and also help us sustain our mission by purchasing an annual membership. It is our growing video
library and includes the learning content from this summit, plus even more 2019 and 2020 conference sessions, webinars, interviews, and our Equity-Based Conversation Series. The investment is $100/individual and $200/school.
Learn More
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Educating Mindfully Book-Order on Amazon here or contact hello@educatingmindfully.org for bulk orders of 10 or more
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Online Wellness Team and Administrator Academy: Implementing Schoolwide Mindfulness for Well-Being, Equity & Inclusion
Day 4 Opening Practice
Mentorship with District SEL Mindfulness Specialist James Butler
Presenter: James Butler, Social & Emotional Learning Mindfulness Specialist for the Austin ISD
EMCON2020 Saturday Keynote Description: As the country's first public school mindfulness specialist in the Austin Independent School District, James will share his journey, what has worked and what hasn't, as well as tips, tools and strategies from his 4 years in this role. A former Austin ISD Teacher of the Year, James is a teacher in his soul and believes in culturally responsive and trauma-informed education. He will share in an engaging and interactive manner that will leave you inspired to create or continue to grow the mindfulness movement in your district.
In these Part 1 and 2 recordings from EMCON2020, you'll learn about the role of a public school mindfulness specialist; experience interactive and creative means of practicing mindfulness; gain ideas for how to start mindfulness with adults in school/district communities and gain buy-in at all levels; explore the importance of listening to and including families in the mindfulness movement; create action plans for how to bring/strengthen mindfulness in school/district.
James is also the Founder of Mindful Classrooms, an organization that travels across the country educating schools about how to sustainably implement mindfulness into their daily routines, climate & culture. He has been in education for 17 years, including 14 years as a classroom teacher. He taught mostly Pre-K and K in Austin ISD and also spent a year as a volunteer HS teacher in Namibia in southern Africa. In 2014, James was named Austin ISD Teacher of the Year. James is passionate about education, specifically mindfulness, equity, and early childhood education. Based on his teaching experience of using mindfulness in his classroom, he wrote a mindfulness curriculum titled Mindful Classrooms: Daily 5-Minute Practices to Support Social-Emotional Learning and Mindfulness In A Jar that is published by Free Spirit Publishing. He also wrote Coloring Book and Reflections for Social Emotional Learning that is being published in April 2020 by Free Spirit in English and Spanish. James is a graduate of Manchester University (IN) and originally from Cleveland, Ohio and is a big Cleveland sports fan.
JOIN MLC TO WATCH PART 2
Panel Discussion with Educational Equity Thought Leaders
Inspired to continue our Equity-Based Convo Series launched this fall, we were intentional in creating an equity thread throughout our conference, culminating with this plenary session on Saturday. Our expert panel, facilitated by COSEM president and founder of Tici'ess, Tovi C. Scruggs-Hussein, will be sharing their insights into mindfulness as an equity tool and more.
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Cheryl Watkins, Ph.D., Network 13 Chief of Schools, Chicago Public Schools
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Barnaby Spring, Director of Mindfulness in Education, NYC Department of Education
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James Butler, SEL Mindfulness Specialist, Austin ISD
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Meditations on the Emergence of Mindfulness in the Western Model of Education
Presenter: Barnaby Spring, Director of Mindfulness in Education, New York City Department of Education
Barnaby Spring is an actor, artist, writer, educator, public speaker, activist, certified mindfulness and yoga teacher, educational theorist, husband, father and currently serves as Director of Mindfulness in Education and Director of Student Services, in the Office of the First Deputy Chancellor, in the New York City Department of Education where he has served since the mid-90s as a teacher working with girls on Rikers Island, then as a Dean of Students, then as Principal and now in this current role.
The following recordings are portions from his mentoring session on Thursday, Feb 28 of EMCON2019 and the last half of his Fruitful Wound lunch talk in which he shares some of his story. The rest of his story and a more extensive and current recounting of the emergence of mindfulness in the NYCDOE can be found in our new book in chapter 39. This is the poem he wrote for our inaugural conference and it also became the dedication in our book. We hope you find him as inspirational as we do!
Mindfulness Stew
Once upon a time, there was a Trickster, a Sage and an Artist.
Listen to this story about their time in a place called America.
They got together and made a meal called Mindfulness Stew.
Oh yeah, everyone took from their garden and threw something into the pot!
The people ate it and had the vision, planted themselves in the ground;
They turned obstacles into the paths of life-long learning and growth.
They bore fruit in the form of people, places and things - all lessons - all stories -
That help us to treat this life, ourselves and one another, this earth and all living things
as the precious gems that they are. Come listen to our story of mindfulness stew.
Learn about NYCDOE's Yoga and Mindfulness Teacher Preparation Program and join the weekly practices led by NYCDOE educators at https://www.ymtpp.org.
Taking Mindfulness to Scale: Whole-School Implementation
Chapter Author Chat With: Megan Sweet, Director of Training at Mindful Schools
Megan Sweet, EdD in Educational Leadership, is a systems-thinker who has been in education for more than 25 years. She's been a teacher, school administrator, and school district leader. Her academic and professional interests rest mainly with how to create effective change in educational contexts. Megan serves as the Director of Training at Mindful Schools, a leader in bringing mindfulness programming to educators. Megan is also a published author, podcaster, and blogger.
Megan wrote chapter 5 in our new book. Her chapter is titled Mindful Schools' Transformation over Time. It is included in Part 1: Roots, Research, and Responsibilities.
In this interview, you'll learn some best practices for starting out, including gaining buy-in, providing professional development, and identifying system-wide strategies that make a difference in the successful integration of mindful practices. Megan will reflect on what Mindful Schools' has learned in their first years supporting school-wide mindfulness programming and where they are heading in the future.
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Cultivating Resilience and Compassion in an At-Home Schooling Environment
Presenter: Elaine Miller-Karas, Founder & Director of the Trauma Resource Institute and Jennifer Knox, Director of Character Education & Chair of Ethical Leadership Development at Woodward Academy
Webinar Description: In this webinar, Elaine and Jen explained that:
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It is our body’s natural biological response (whether we are children or adults) to feel fear, anxiety and other emotions in response to threats and uncertainty in our environment. Seeing that this is normal can be a cause for empathy and patience with ourselves and others.
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We all have a resilient zone where we function as our best selves. If we get bumped out of this zone by stressors, we can use sensory-based techniques like resourcing, grounding, and Help Now! Strategies to help our body regulate and to get back into our resilient zone.
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We can learn more about these strategies in the SEE Learning Chapter 2 and the “Ichill” app.
Brendan Ozawa-de Silva, PhD, facilitates this webinar and wrote chapter 9 of our new book. His chapter is titled Social, Emotional and Ethical Learning: Can We Build a Safer, Happier World? Brendan is Associate Director for SEE Learning at the Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics at Emory University. He served as Associate Prof of Psychology and as Associate Dir for the Center for Compassion, Integrity, and Secular Ethics at Life University. He researches various dimensions of prosocial emotions and their cultivation. He was founding Dir of the Chillon Project and a Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute.
Social, Emotional, and Ethical (SEE) Learning is an innovative and FREE K-12 education program developed by Emory University.
SEE Learning™ provides educators with the tools they need to foster the development of emotional, social, and ethical intelligence for students and themselves. It represents the state of the art in education by enhancing SEL programming with key additional components, including:
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attention training
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compassion and ethical discernment
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systems thinking
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resilience and trauma-informed practice
The program provides educators with a developmentally-staged curriculum consisting of easy-to-implement lessons, the conceptual framework used to design the curriculum, and resources for educator preparation and development. SEE Learning empowers students to engage ethically as part of a global community and provides educators with the tools to support student well-being.
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Student Mindful Mentors and Mindfulness Rooms
Presenter: Lauren Beversdorf and 6th and 7th graders from Bannockburn School, IL
EMCON2020 Session Description: Lauren will share the steps of creating a Mindful Room at their K-8 school. Students will co-lead the session and walk us through the different elements in their room, the different ways the room is utilized, and how they have become mindful mentors at their school. The session will have experiential elements and end with the audience also sharing about their mindfulness spaces/rooms and mentoring programs so that we can all learn from each other.
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Chair Yoga for Classrooms: Get Kids Moving and Ready to Learn
Presenter: Jennifer Cohen Harper and Mayuri Gonzalez, Little Flower Yoga
EMCON2019 Session Description: How can you bring the benefits of yoga to students, when your school simply doesn’t have enough space or time? Chair yoga makes it possible. Join us for an introduction to this effective and sustainable way to bring daily embodied mindfulness practices to children and adolescents in a classroom setting, without the need for additional space or yoga mats. You’ll learn simple and effective chair-based practices you can immediately bring to students (and use yourself!), incorporating movement, breathing, mindfulness, and relaxation.
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Educator Self-Care Through iRest® Method Meditations
Jill Manly, Co-founder of JabuMind, has recorded an iRest® session on COVID-19 that is timely and can be found here in MP3 to download or is linked here on their website JabuMind.com. They also led a wonderful iRest® session at our conference. You can download the MP3 here.
Connect with them through the JabuMind app to address your self-care through meditations based on the scientifically proven iRest® Method. Available soon for free through June 30th in iOS and Android.
JabuMind has donated the following Virtual Experience E-Basket to our Summit giveaways.
1. Nothando’s Journey E-Book: Nothando and her brother travel to the Reed Festival, but Nothando is nervous about dancing at the festival for the first time. Along the way, they encounter wild dogs, lions, elephants, and other animals. Learning how to imitate each animal’s movement, Nothando gains confidence and courage—and discovers she is grateful to be exactly who she is.
Author Jill Apperson Manly says she hopes Nothando (whose name translates as “love”) and her journey will encourage children to express themselves, learn about new cultures, and even learn mindfulness techniques and basic yoga poses (thanks to a simple, easy-to-follow movement guide in the back of the book). Featuring rich, vibrant mixed-media illustrations by Alyssa Casey.
2. Yoga with Miss Stacey: Join Miss Stacey for a private one-on-one or host your own 60-minute virtual yoga class (by inviting some students, school families, or friends). Together we will follow as we explore how her world and our world are one and the same. We will breathe and learn Nothando’s yoga sequence as we embody the animals of the Kingdom of eSwatini and playfully connect. Read more about Stacey Fetterman here.
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A Gratitude and Happiness Lesson for 6-12th Graders
This is a lesson from Mission Be's middle and high school curriculum, led by their founder and CEO Carin Winter, but is great for everyone to hear during this time. Mission Be’s program was designed by experienced school staff, mental health professionals, and school administrators. Mission Be’s program meets the mandates for DASA, SEL Standards and is aligned with CCLS. To learn more, kindly watch our short film with experts in the field about our program. A message from Carin:
Mission Be, Mindful Education is offering FREE Mindful SEL Lessons Online and Courses. We understand this is a difficult and stressful time for everyone and that is why we are glad to share that Mission Be is offering FREE Programming and scholarships to Online Training during Quarantine. Join Mission Be daily or weekly and gain free access to mindfulness practices. Mission Be’s FREE Daily and Weekly Mindful Practices during Quarantine include:
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Daily Facebook Live Classes: Short Mindfulness Practice Daily at 12 pm EST and 9:00 am PST, Monday through Friday, Join here. All ages welcome.
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Weekly Mindful Monday Zoom Call Content: At 1pm EST and 10am PST every Monday. Join here. All ages welcome.
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Youtube Videos of Mission Be’s guided mindfulness practices and visualizations for all ages are here.
Mission Be’s 6 Week Courses for Teachers:
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The Middle and High School Online Course: Tuesday Nights from 5/12/2020 - 6/16/2020. Apply here for a full scholarship or simply register today with the code “Scholar50” for 50% off.
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The K-5th Grade Course is on Wednesday Nights from 5/13/2020 - 6/17/2020. Apply here for a full scholarship or simply register today with the code “Scholar50” for 50% off.
Stay tuned for details on their upcoming free Mindful Teacher and Parent Online Summit!
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Transitioning to a New Normal: Strategies for Prioritizing Self-Care and Well-Being
Presenters: Matt Dewar, Well-Being Coordinator and English Teacher at Lake Forest High School, and Lauren Beversdorf, K-8 Mindfulness and Spanish Teacher at Bannockburn School, IL
Among other fabulous things, Matt and Lauren are instructors for our online Wellness Team and Administrator Academy (along with Tovi) and chapter meeting facilitators for the IL Chapter Northshore Chapter. In this informal conversation, they discuss making the transition to teaching mindfulness and other subject content in their school communities through online platforms. They also share mindfulness-based self-care strategies educators can do at home during the quarantine to fuel their purpose and stay healthy and well during uncertain times.
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Chapter Author Chat with Cheryl Watkins and Tovi Scruggs-Hussein
Chapter 36. Addressing Equity, Race and Bias Beliefs in Chicago Public Schools
Cheryl D. Watkins, PhD, Chief of Schools, Chicago Public Schools, District 299
Chapter 40. Mindfulness as an Equity Tool: You Cannot Teach What You Do Not Embody
Tovi C. Scruggs-Hussein, Former Principal of San Lorenzo High School, Oakland, CA, Educational Leader & Healer, SELf-Transformation for School-Transformation, President and CA Chapter Coordinator, COSEM
Chapter Author Chat with Michelle A. Martin and Jennifer Haston-Maciejewski
Chapter 14. A Mindfulness-Based Alternative to Detention
Jennifer Haston-Maciejewski, RYT-200, Special Education Teacher, Greenfield-Central High School, Greenfield, IN, Founder, Stop.Breathe.Be
Chapter 15. Creating a Semester-Long High School Course in Mindfulness
Michelle A. Martin, MEd, IMTA-Certified Mindfulness Teacher and French Teacher, Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School, Indianapolis, IN
THANK YOU TO OUR SUMMIT GIVEAWAY PARTNERS AND MINDFUL LEARNING CENTER DISCOUNT PARTNERS
THANK YOU TO OUR SUMMIT PROMOTIONAL PARTNERS
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