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Mindfulness:
How To Develop It Within the Schools

Shaun Kerry, M.D.
Diplomate, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology

Our schools can do a great deal towards developing mindfulness in our young people.  We need to abandon rigid requirements and courses that are of marginal value.  A rigid curriculum results in excessive busywork and the postponement of real growth and learning.  We must weigh the time, energy, and cost of a program against its future value.

One of the biggest errors that schools make today is that they try to exert too much control over the lives of the student.  It is critical that children be able to develop in ways that are consistent with their own unique personalities.  The system must conform to the needs of its students, not vice versa.  The child must know that he is in charge of his own life and future.

Much of what I learned about this subject was obtained during my twenty years as a psychiatrist.  One of the primary responsibilities of a psychotherapist is to help the patient undo what over controlling superiors have done in the past.  A good psychotherapist is supportive, adapts to the unique personality of the patient, and allows the patient to be comfortable with himself.

One of the most common patterns of behavior that I observed in patients was that they frequently hung onto 'clutter'.  Junk would pile up in their houses, and although they realized that it was becoming a problem for them, they just couldn't let go of it.  Their houses were a mess.  They were surrounded with items from the past, and simply couldn't let go and move forward with their lives. Our educational system works in a similar way.  It is maladaptive and clings to obsolete traditions that are not only ineffective, but also damaging.

There are some fairly simple things that could be done to greatly improve the quality of education in our classrooms.  For example, meditation using a stereo headset is easy to do and requires no training.  It’s a great tool for developing whole-brain integration.  Both the theory and practical application can be taught as part of a health education program.

Incorporate large screen audiovisual programming into classroom curriculum.  This is very effective for helping students rapidly build a large fund of knowledge on a given subject.  It is entertaining and makes the teacher's job less stressful.

Develop a huge world-bank of educational satellite television programming.  This is all part of creating a seamless interface with outside-world research and development.  With the aid of audiovisual programming, we could provide better instruction in the bottleneck fields, as explained in the next page.

The role of teacher must be shifted from lecturer to educational manager.  Intersperse these presentations with group discussions.  There could be structured discussions, but also, ones where students could bring up any reasonable topic or feeling.  Additionally, we need to remove the excessive busywork and homework.  These steps will take unreasonable pressure off of both the teacher and the student, allowing them both to lead more balanced lives.

Students should be encouraged to express their wishes concerning  what they would like to get out of their educational experience, and teachers should be responsive to their desires.  Teachers should recognize that there are special and unique things about each student.  We need to spend more time listening, and less time giving instructions.  People - even young people - have an instinctive sense of what they need.

The most important parts of this program are cost free.  The technological aspects do carry an expense, but it is low compared to the overall educational budget.