In elementary school, everyone had math, science, and reading. But did you ever have a Mindfulness class?! Well, the students of Lakeside Academy will this school year! When we were approached by educators at Lakeside Academy wanting to partner with Chattanooga's Center for Mindful Living, we jumped at the opportunity.
Mindfulness experts will visit Lakeside Academy once a week and teach the Mindful Schools curriculum to one teacher at each grade level K-5 for 13 weeks. A trained mindfulness educator from the Center for Mindful Living will meet with the teachers and students in their classrooms, and introduce one mindfulness lesson at the beginning of the week. The teachers and students will practice the lesson for the remainder of the week. All students and teachers will benefit.
This curriculum has been taught to over 300,000 students in 50 states and is based on a well-researched MBSR program started at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1979 by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. It is suggested that mindfulness training will help students and teachers enhance self-awareness, self-management, and expand the number of skills they have available for stress management. Mindfulness empowers better learning.