Mindfulness at Nora

This year we've begun an new initiative to help our students deal with stress, anxiety, and social and academic pressures through mindfulness meditation. We began last fall with a visit from Dr. William Stixrud who spoke at a school assembly about the benefits of meditation, particularly for students with ADHD and other learning challenges. Shortly thereafter we began a pre-school meditation session available to all students and teachers.  Attendance was spotty, since the time before school begins is prime-time for socializing, so this year we've been taking time out of morning announcements on Mondays and Fridays for  all-school mindfulness meditation. Our goal is to help students (and teachers) become more aware of what they are experiencing in any given moment, whether frustration, joy, anger, or boredom, and step back to take a 20,000 foot view of the experience. As Victor Frankl put it in Man's Search for Meaning, between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies our freedom. By enlarging the space between stimulus and response, we aim to enlarge our freedom to choose. Many of us, even well past adolescence, too often react on autopilot to everyday aggravations... rude drivers, supermarket lines, our kid's messy rooms. Teens are no different, if anything they are on an even tighter hair trigger of reaction. Our culture certainly reinforces this "quickness response" (count the number of seconds any single shot lasts on your favorite television show), and the expansion of multi-tasking only makes things worse.  Spending time in silent meditation, concentrating on the breath while being aware of the present moment without thought or judgement, has been an amazing adventure for me over the past year. I've not only noted an increased patience and less anxiety within myself, but I'm now seeing students giving themselves a time-out to practice their breathing when they are feeling stress.

You can see the presentation I used at the beginning of the school year here, which includes links to the scientific literature supporting mindfulness as a cognitive tool.  (Yes, I'm afraid I'm responsible for the drawings.) As we continue through the year I hope that having this tool available at any time will prove invaluable to all members of the Nora community. If you'd like to join us in mindfulness meditation we meet daily between 8:00 and 8:30am, and on Mondays and Fridays during morning announcements at 10:15am.