Since school started this year, students at Kermit McKenzie Junior High School in Guadalupe have used a stress-reduction strategy called the Mindfulness Program. The technique uses breathing and concentration to decrease and curb behavioral issues, enabling students to focus on learning.
Principal Gabe Solorio said disruptions on campus dropped by more than 200 incidents over a period of several months.
“Over time, we hope to see the results continue” Solorio said in a press release. “It’s too soon to tell if the majority of the drop in incidents is completely from mindfulness. Time will tell. It helps our students get focused and in the moment. It makes it easier for them to learn. Face it, kids come to school with a lot of distractions.”
Two times a day—in the morning and after lunch—students and teachers take five minutes to get “calm, alert, and ready to learn” inside their classrooms. School counselor Luis Mendoza’s voice comes over the intercom and tells everyone to sit up straight, put their hands on their laps, close their eyes, and relax for five minutes. He also reminds them to control their breathing if their minds begin to wander.
The Guadalupe Unified School District Board of Trustees approved use of the technique earlier this year.
In 2013, UC Berkeley published a roundup of four studies on its Greater Good website that cover the use of mindfulness in schools.
“The last decade has seen a huge spike in secular applications of mindfulness,” the site reported. “Although much of the research is in its early stages and the conclusions we can draw from it so far are limited, these four studies … suggest the great potential of mindfulness programs to improve the well-being of children and adolescents.”
This article appears in Mar 12-19, 2015.
