Featured Presentation: Mindfulness for All: How to Maintain a Tone of Decency in a Time of Stress

Presenters:  Susan Dreyer Leon (@MindfulEducator) and Selena Goldberg

Few schools these days can insulate staff and students from the pressures of the modern educational landscape.   High stakes testing, rigid curriculum, and frantic schedules compounded by short staffing and difficult budget cycles, have left many educators and families feeling that schools are losing their capacity to respond humanely to the students they are meant to serve.   We must have concrete strategies to help teachers and students keep their balance during this very stressful period in the evolution of our educational institutions.  One possible tool for the job may be a wider implementation of mindfulness-based practices for both teachers and students. In this session, we will briefly overview emerging research on the benefits of mindfulness-based practices for education and then look in more detail at some local examples of how these practices are helping both teachers and students maintain themselves and their connection to each other during these tough times.  

Susan Dreyer Leon is Core Faculty and the Director of the Experienced Educators program at Antioch University New England.  She is a also a co-creator of the Mindfulness for Educators Certificate Program, a three way collaboration of the Center for Mindful Inquiry, The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and The Antioch Center for School Renewal.  She has been involved with the Coalition of Essential Schools since 1990 and has taught in and led CES schools in New York City and Vermont.  She is on the Board of Trustees of the QED Foundation and the Making Community Connections Charter School in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Selena Goldberg, Ba Ed., Ba Arts, Post Baccalaureate Sp. Ed., is presently doing her Ma Ed. in the Experienced Educators’ Program at Antioch University New England.  She has taught in alternative education programs in Mexico and Canada, and was a public school elementary resource teacher in British Columbia and Montreal. Her special interests include the development and support of mindfulness and education, the implementation and development of alternative behavioral practices, and youth empowerment and facilitation practices.