It wasn’t entirely random that the kids met their mayor that day because it was actually the ribbon-cutting ceremony for our new park.

A year and a half prior, enough neighbors had sent enough email and made sufficient numbers of phone calls to our parks department that a critical mass was reached. The city decided to renovate our broken-down playground. Our park featured  one of those tall metal slides that burned kids’ bottoms on sweltering days. And, it was the only park in Boulder that still had a 1960s metal merry-go-round. It looked like a huge Lazy Susan, which little kids clung to as big kids spun it faster and faster. The parks folks made it clear: They would not be replacing it.

Half of me knew the merry-go-round was dangerous. I recalled stories from my childhood of kids flying off the edge at top speed or getting their heads stuck between the metal disk and the ground. But my kids LOVED it. Of all the hours we spent on it, we only had one bad experience – when my then 6-year-old son, who’d been lying on his tummy watching the ground blur by, suddenly flew off the side like a human lawn dart. Luckily, he landed in some actual grass.

Then, one day the merry-go-round had vanished, leaving nothing but a small hole in the playground sand. Most likely it broke in some minor way, and under cover of darkness, the parks department hauled it away.

Meeting with the grown-ups

At last, we were getting a new playground. Fliers were pinned and taped everywhere, inviting neighbors to come to a community meeting to discuss their desires for the new park. I brought my sons to the meeting because they had definite ideas about what should be there.

The room was full of adults seated in fold-out chairs facing a parks department moderator. The meeting became intense. People had distinct visions of what they did and didn’t want.

My sons asked me to voice their top choice, an 8-foot basketball hoop on a half court. A number of neighbors became concerned about the noise this would generate and the folks who might gather playing basketball at all hours. My sons’ eyes were wide as they watched and listened to the impassioned discussion.

In the end, the basketball hoop was voted down. My youngest son, then 8, had tears in his eyes and his 10-year-old brother looked like he was replaying the conversation in his head.  The community group moved on to other park-related topics.

As the meeting wound to a close, I noticed my youngest son raising his thin arm as high as he could. I had no idea what he planned to say.  When the moderator called on him, the room became quiet. He said in a determined voice, “I’d like to recommend a tire swing.  I’ve noticed at other parks that kids of all ages play on them. And plus they’re really fun.”

Everyone smiled, and nodded.

The best civics lesson

We couldn’t attend the next community playground meeting and, therefore, didn’t know what came of his suggestion. But about a year later when they were installing the actual playground equipment, my son came running home to tell us there was a tire swing at our playground.

The day he met our mayor, my son walked her to the tire swing and retold this story. It made a big impression on him: He proposed a good idea and grown-ups listened.

I used this experience to talk to the kids about how our government makes decisions. The next time I was writing a letter to our congressional representatives, I showed them. After describing the issue I was supporting, I asked if they wanted to add something.

This year for his “Green New Year’s Resolution,” my eldest son decided he wanted to write our congressional reps about a climate change topic. One day last year he came home from school regaling me with news of a Texas freight train that is partially fueled by beef fat. After telling him I thought this was an urban legend, we googled it. Sure enough, it was true.

My son decided to write our congressman, senators, and new governor to suggest that Colorado should have one of these trains – only ours shouldn’t be fueled by beef, but by locally grown sugar beets.  He told them we could call it the Beet Train.

My eldest looked as proud mailing his congressional letters as his younger brother had telling us about the tire swing. And you know what? My green train-loving son received a personally signed letter from our governor.

Through these experiences, my sons learned they can be heard. They can make change. Yes, my husband and I nudged them toward involvement, but once they realized the stakes – they took the playground ball and ran with it.

If you’re looking to boost involvement in civic issues by your kids, here’s a great book:

Guerilla Learning: How to Give Your Kids a Real Education With or Without School, by Grace Llewellyn and Amy Silver.  This book offers some creative ideas, and gave me support and motivation for things I’ve already been working on with my kids. However, it lists numerous resources for guidance with this type of parenting/schooling.

And please leave a comment about how your kids saw a problem and tackled it.

She and her fellow students in her “Mindful Teacher” class at Naropa University were honing their sensory awareness skills by having a “mindful” lunch together. They ate in silence, carefully chewing and chewing and chewing each bite, noticing the subtle flavors and textures of their foods.

But what struck Mays was the sound. Without the distracting noise of conversation around her, she heard the chewing going on all around her in a way she’d never noticed before.

“I also found I couldn’t really look at anybody, because to look was to want to engage in conversation,” said Mays, an instructional coach and new teacher mentor for Weld County RE-8 school district.

Stressed teachers in need of contemplative practices

Mays acknowledges she’s got a long way to go to become really skilled in this whole mindfulness business. Other than practicing a little yoga, she’s a newbie.

But she’s certain it’s worth doing, and worth sharing with her colleagues in Fort Lupton. That’s why she’s enrolled in a two-year Contemplative Education program at Naropa.

“In my experiences in working with teachers the last few years, I’ve seen a lot of burnout, pressure, stress. There’s something missing,” she said. “This program feels to me like it’s not just the latest fad, but something that can reach people.”

Few groups are more in need of stress relief than the nation’s teachers. Studies consistently show teaching to be one of the most stressful occupations, and the resulting physical and emotional ailments can be debilitating and costly.

Programs such as Naropa’s Master of Arts in Contemplative Education and the Cultivating Awareness and Resilience or CARE program at the Garrison Institute in Garrison, N.Y., aim to arm teachers with the Buddhist-inspired practices of mindfulness and body awareness as a means to counteract the stress of today’s classroom.

$3.5 million federal study underway of stress relief in classrooms

They’ve reached only a minuscule fraction of America’s classroom teachers. There have been about a hundred graduates of the Naropa program over the past decade, and fewer than 500 have taken CARE training.

Tish Jennings

But practitioners believe they eventually will be able to provide empirical data on the success of such practices in keeping teachers healthy. Once they can show school administrators how the training can boost the bottom line, they expect more educators will get serious about getting mindful.

“This is a really new area,” said Tish Jennings, senior director of the Initiative on Contemplation and Education at the Garrison Institute. Jennings was in Denver this spring to share with others involved in contemplative studies some ways to gather evidence about the impact of their work and advance the knowledge base of the field.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Education awarded a $3.5 million grant to fund a four-year randomized controlled trial of the CARE for Teachers program in New York City schools. It will assess not only CARE’s impact on teachers but also on classroom climate and student outcomes.

“I was a teacher for 22 years,” said Jennings. “I found myself dealing with some strong emotions in the classroom. It can be an emotionally demanding profession.”

Jennings also supervised student teachers, and it was through those experiences that she began to see how emotional reactivity not only creates stress, but can impair a teacher’s ability to be effective.

“As teachers get stressed, children get stressed,” she said.

When office workers get stressed, they usually have the option of stepping away for a few minutes, having a cup of coffee, speaking to another adult to help them calm down. But in a classroom, teachers must not only figure out what to do when they’re upset, they must do it in a way that manages the situation and doesn’t derail learning.

“And they’re doing it in front of a lot of children who may be highly critical of them, or not even paying any attention to them,” she said. “It can be incredibly challenging.”

Mindfulness helps teachers regulate emotions

Mindfulness practices can help teachers better regulate their emotions. It helps them to step back, calm themselves, and respond to situations intentionally, not flying off the handle.

Richard Brown began the Contemplative Education program at Naropa after teaching in a Buddhist-inspired school in Boulder in the 1980s.

“It seems like a paradox, but when we psychologically slow down, we can get a lot more done,” Jennings said. “When teachers experience that effectiveness and calming, it’s positive reinforcement for them to continue. It’s very subtle, but it’s really foundational.”

Richard Brown is the founder of the Contemplative Education program at Naropa, and is a co-developer of the CARE program.

“It came to be because of my own experiences in the 1980s teaching most third and fourth grades in a Buddhist-inspired K-12 school in Boulder,” Brown said. “I realized that a lot of insights from Buddhism could be translated to non-sectarian teacher education programs.”

Students in the two-year Contemplative Education program at Naropa do most of their coursework online, taking classes in such subjects as contemplative teaching, compassionate teaching, transforming instruction and curriculum.

But they also spend three and a half weeks together during each summer to form a contemplative learning community. They take classes in mindfulness, embodied wisdom and creating community. Much of that time is spent learning about self-care and body awareness, Brown said.

Teachers learning to take care of themselves first

“Teachers need to take care of themselves first,” he said. “It’s like the notion of putting the air mask on yourself in the airplane before you help your child put theirs on. When teachers develop that kind of emotional maturity, then they can create an atmosphere in the classroom that allows them to better serve the needs of their students.”

Michele Blumberg, an adjunct faculty member at Naropa University in Boulder, leads students in a “Mindful Teacher” class through some relaxing bodywork exercises.

Step one of mindfulness in the classroom is being aware of what’s going on in their own bodies, he said.

“Teachers are constantly in their heads, but their bodies are giving them stress signals,” he said. “Maybe it’s a tightness in the stomach or throat. But they just soldier through rather than noticing that their body is tense, paying attention, and beginning to relax and let go.”

It also means really listening, hearing the sound of a child’s voice rather than just the words the child may be saying.

“When a child says ‘I’m upset,’ a mindful teacher will allow himself a second to hear that,” Brown said. “But if you immediately come up with a solution, the child may not feel heard. And feeling heard is as important as any answer.

“So we spend a lot of time training teachers to listen to the children before they speak. Take a moment to feel it. So if a child says ‘I’m upset,’ if we actually register genuine concern, then that child will trust us more than if we just say ‘Oh, what’s that all about?’”

Understanding the value of just sitting still

Brown instructs teachers in just sitting still, in noticing how they are breathing, in grounding themselves.

“When you are being still, you start to notice the kind of thoughts and feelings you have,” he said. “Things come up. You start to get familiar with how your mind works and how your emotional responses work.”

This week, he had students engage in some mindful reading – reading a descriptive passage very slowly, examining each word and noticing how different words created different emotional reactions in them.

“Before, I could have given you a synopsis of the passage, but when I read it mindfully, it was like savoring each word,” said Teresa Sedano, a Sacramento teacher who works with sign language interpreters. “It was like seeing a newsreel in my mind. And when we got to the word ‘pain,’ it took me to my own pain from an injury.”

Brown nodded his agreement. “When you make that personal connection, you remember it better, and you have a more meaningful experience of learning.”

Michele Blumberg, who is co-teaching the Mindful Teacher class with Brown, does some simple yoga-style bodywork with the students, helping them to relax and to become more aware of their bodies.

After class, Mays expressed her approval of what she’s learning, and how she will use it.

“You know, it’s not just teachers’ belief in their students that will cause them to succeed or get in their way,” she said. “It’s teachers’ belief in themselves that also matters.”

A. Does anyone sleep the night before the first day of school?  Parents, children, and teachers are all nervous and excited for the changes the next day will bring.  The first day of kindergarten is a major transition point for children and parents, marking our children’s invitation into a new school community.

There is major work to be done in kindergarten. This is the foundation, and we want it to be strong.  While early years of elementary school are a time of social growth and academic exploration, they are also critical in shaping students’ later successes.

As the founder and lead teacher of Rocky Mountain Prep, we’ve been having wonderful conversations with our new scholars’ parents about how we can all support our students during this time.  We’ve condensed these into our top three “Secrets for Success.” Use this summer to prepare your student for success.

1. Don’t just tell children that they are smart.  Praise effort and process as well.  

We become what we think we are.  Children who are told just that they’re smart tend to give up on problems earlier than those who think they are hard workers, persistent, and creative.  Effort is what helps us learn new things and tackle new problems.  When your child writes her name for the first time, don’t just say, “Wow, you’re so smart!”  Tell her what she did and praise her effort:  “You tried so hard to write your name, and you did it!”

If we’re always looking to others to determine our self-worth, we never learn to really value  our own accomplishments.  Instead of saying, “I’m so proud of you,” try saying, “Wow!  You must be so proud of yourself!”   Let your child own her actions.

2.  Read, read, read! 

Books are wonderful gateways to other worlds and ideas.  But, they are not the only things people read!  Think about everything you read in one morning:  your alarm clock, the toothpaste tube, the coffee pot buttons, the microwave, the TV Guide channel, the texts on your cell phone, your email or Facebook page, maybe a magazine or a book.

Your child has been “reading” since birth– as he learns to understand the world around him, he reads your face, the layout of your home, the box of cereal he likes, the street outside.  This is the beginning of literacy: as the educator Paulo Freire wrote, we read the world first, then we learn to read the word.  Point out the things, even pictures, your child already reads at home, and then show him some of the letters that make the words: “Stop,” “Safeway,” “Dora,” “Lightning McQueen.”  In school, we build on this knowledge and help children use symbols to read.

Repetition also helps children understand the rhythm and patterns of written language.  Singing that same song over and over, or reading the same book before bed for two weeks, isn’t just what kids do to drive parents crazy.  It helps children internalize language, so eventually they can make up their own songs and read new books with confidence.  We want them to love language in all its forms: reading, writing, singing, talking, communicating.

3. Teach your child to label her emotions.  

When your child is happy, excited, nervous, frustrated, or angry, point it out!  “You’re really angry right now,” might seem like an obvious thing to say, but children aren’t born knowing how to express what they feel in words.

Giving emotions a name does two things.  First, it helps the child recognize feelings and know how to deal with them.  “I am angry, I should tell my mom and calm down,” is much better than “I have no idea why my body is tensing up when I just want my brother to give me back my toys,” and then having a tantrum or hitting.

Second, it helps the adult recognize feelings and gives you an opportunity to teach your child what to do, rather than just reacting in the moment.  Saying, “You are angry, you should come tell me and then take a deep breath before we talk about it,” also gives you time to not react angrily.  It also shows your child that adults have tools we use for self-control.  It’s hard, but imagine how different the world would be if we could all explain how we’re feeling and take time to think about what to do next.

Ultimately, parents are the experts on their children.  You’ve known them the longest and have taught them so much at home.  You have a lot of information to teach your children’s school teachers about how they learn and what they love to do.  These are our secrets for success, and we’d love to hear yours to keep the conversation going.  As educators, we want to be your partners in helping your child grow academically, socially, and emotionally.  We hope these tips make the transition to kindergarten smooth for your students, and are so excited to welcome them to the world of school.

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