1. Cultivating Integral Awareness in the Classroom Presented by Kyle Good, Ph.D.  Tiffany and Billy: An Integral True Story

2. Cultivating Integral Awareness in the Classroom  Dealing with Challenging Situations  Creating a Holistic Learning Environment  Creating Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving Anew  Increasing Integral Awareness

3. Cultivating Integral Awareness in the Classroom Presented by Kyle Good, Ph.D.  Pathways-to-Peace

4. Cultivating Integral Awareness in the Classroom Wisdom Storm  Things we know about today’s topic:

5. Cultivating Integral Awareness in the Classroom  Dealing with Challenging Situations  Creating a Holistic Learning Environment  Creating Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving Anew  Increasing Integral Awareness

6. Dealing with Challenging Situations o As a principal, what I heard most from teachers was, “You know what I want? A classroom where the kids are nice to one another!" o Teachers reported that with each passing year there seems to be more bickering, fighting, teasing, name-calling, and other acts of unkindness among children, which create challenging situations. o But, surveys show that children overwhelmingly prefer to be in a classroom that is caring and cooperative, where they are safe physically and emotionally. o Consider the polarities and shadows that John Kesler shared with us. o Consider the developmental levels Susanne Cook-Greuter shared with us.

7. Dealing with Challenging Situations  Students want to express themselves honestly and to feel safe doing so, to be understood in their own terms, to be trusted to exercise their autonomy, and to be provided opportunity to contribute to the welfare of others.  The more students experience satisfaction of these wants, the more they will display them willingly, with response-ability.  For complex cultural, structural, interpersonal, and psychological reasons, the messages that many students experience contradicts these basic needs and wants. That is, students often feel intimidated, misunderstood, mistrusted, and manipulated. Then they act in unkind ways that can obscure or skew these needs and wants.

8. Dealing with Challenging Situations The Dalai Lama o Meditate on loving kindness. Moisten your mental continuum with the water of loving- kindness and prepare it as you would a piece of fertile ground. o When the seed of compassion is planted in such a mind, germanation will be swift, proper, and complete. o Once you have irrigated the mindstream with loving-kindness, meditate on compassion.

9. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  Cultivating Compassion (reflecting on emotions before “lashing out” at someone)  Being in the Present Moment: Stress-reducing Techniques through Meditation (wedged throughout the school day)  Breathing and Imagining “Loving Kindness” (gentle breaths and still bodies)  Breathing and Concentrating on a Single Object (sound of the Tibetan “singing” bowl)  Helping Children Slow Down and Think Before Acting (finding answers within themselves)  Infusing “Talking Yoga” (less negative internal chatter)  Integrating Active Meditation (sing, dance, laugh for a specific period followed by a period of sitting)

10. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  Cultivating Compassion (reflecting on emotions before “lashing out” at someone)  The key is having students ask the simple questions: “What’s going on right now? What am I experiencing in this moment?” Turning inside, they check out their experience at the inner level of felt bodily sensation, not the cerebral level of what the head says, yammering away.  To be mindful is to be fully present in the moment, relinquishing the urge to control one’s experience. Just being aware, just noticing the desire to be unkind, the knot unties in space. Children can learn to ride the waves of emotion, to move with them rather than struggle against them and act out because of them.  Emotions are inevitable; they exist to the point of enlightenment. Even children can learn that mindfulness does not involve suppressing emotions or overcoming them, but simply allowing them to flow freely through, without acting upon them and becoming unkind.

11. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  Being in the Present Moment: Stress-reducing Techniques through Meditation (wedged throughout the school day)  Children should find a place to go mentally in order to feel relaxed. The mind is a powerful organ. Children can literally think their way into calmness and relaxation.  They should think of a relaxing place to go to in their minds. This is often a place where they have been in nature. They make this place as real in their minds as possible. They note exactly what color the sky is or what color the sea is. They can visualize the warmth of the sun and how the sand feels beneath their feet. Some children even put in the sound of the ocean waves or the calls of birds. They make this place as real as possible.  While they are daydreaming in this tropical paradise, they take a short holiday from the cares of the school day. And, just like a holiday, they open their eyes, feeling refreshed and recharged, ready to be in the “present moment.”

12. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  Breathing and Imagining “Loving Kindness” (gentle breaths and still bodies)  Breathing and Concentrating on a Single Object (sound of the Tibetan “singing” bowl)  Photo by Theodore Rigby for The New York Times, a student at Piedmont Avenue Elementary in Oakland, Calif., practiced being mindful, using a technique he learned in class.

13. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  “Parents and teachers tell kids 100 times a day to pay attention,” said Philippe R. Goldin, a researcher. “But we never teach them how.”

14. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  During a five-week pilot program at Piedmont Avenue Elementary, Miss Megan, the “mindful” coach, visited every classroom twice a week, leading 15 minute sessions on how to have “gentle breaths and still bodies.” The sound of the Tibetan bowl reverberated at the start and finish of each lesson.

15. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  As students in Ms. Graham’s fifth- grade class tried to pay attention to their breath, a calming technique that lasted 20 seconds, their coach asked them to “cultivate compassion” by reflecting on their emotions before lashing out at someone on the playground.

16. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  Tyran Williams defined mindfulness as “not hitting someone in the mouth.”  “He doesn’t know what to do with his energy,” his mother, Towana Thomas, said at a session for parents. “But one day after school he told me, ‘I’m taking a moment.’ If it works in a child’s mind — with so much going on — there must be something to it.”

17. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  Asked their reactions to the sounds of the singing bowl, Yvette Solito, a third grader, wrote that it made her feel “calm, like something on Oprah.” Her classmate Corey Jackson wrote that “it feels like when a bird cracks open its shell.”Oprah  Dr. Amy Saltzman, a physician in Palo Alto, Calif., who started the Association for Mindfulness in Education three years ago, thinks of mindfulness education as “talk yoga.” Practitioners tend to use sticky-mat buzzwords like “being present” and “cultivating compassion,” while avoiding anything spiritual.

18. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  Helping Children Slow Down and Think Before Acting (finding answers within themselves)

19. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  Actively encourage students to assume responsibility for thinking before acting in order to create a peaceable classroom.  Set Standards. Engage students in establishing classroom standards by discussing: How would you like to be treated in this classroom? How will you treat people? One way to get the ball rolling is to show students the painting The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks. (Prints are inexpensive and easily available. If you can't find this one, look for prints by Brueghel or other artists who depict community themes.) After explaining that peaceable is an old-fashioned word meaning peaceful, have the class identify how the painting illustrates the theme of peace. Ask: What are the people and animals in the painting doing? How does that symbolize peace? What would a peaceable classroom be like? How would people treat one another in a peaceable classroom? Have students draw pictures illustrating life in a peaceable classroom.

20. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  RESOLVE  As a class, get specific about the types of behaviors that contribute to a peaceable classroom.  Complete T-charts. T-charts are widely used in cooperative learning to help children identify and learn social skills. For example, if you want to explore the concept of respect with your class, draw a T-chart on the board.  Have children brainstorm specific behaviors for each side of the chart, such as shaking hands and saying please and thank you. You may want to make a second T-chart labeled "What Respect Doesn't Look Like" and "What Respect Doesn't Sound Like."  Create a class compact: Creating a class compact is different from setting up classroom rules and consequences, because the compact is a set of guidelines for how class members should treat one another.  Present the following sentence starters: "In this classroom we treat people with respect. That means-----." "In this classroom we care about each other. That means-----." "In this classroom we use conflict resolution. That means-----."  Help children frame the compact in positive language. For example, rephrase "Don't call names," to "Call people what they want to be called." Remember to keep the compact as concrete as possible because children will have trouble sticking to it if it's too elaborate or abstract.

21. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  EVOLVE  Establishing a caring classroom community is an ongoing process that you can keep alive by helping children assess how they're doing.  Hold Community Meetings. Two weeks after your class draws up its compact, have a class meeting to evaluate it. Do students feel they are following the guidelines set forth? Are the guidelines adequate? Not specific enough? Should new ones be added? Hold these evaluation meetings regularly--every two weeks or so--throughout the year.  Establish a Goal of the Week. If there are specific aspects of the compact that children are having difficulty following, choose one and set a peaceable classroom goal, making it the focus of a week's effort.

22. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  Infusing “Talking Yoga” (less negative internal chatter)  Paying attention here and now with kindness and curiosity.  Reconnecting students to their five senses, bringing them into a moment to moment awareness of themselves and their surroundings.  Research shows increased attention skills, reduced test anxiety, and improved emotional regulation.

23. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  Dr. Saltzman, co-director of the mindfulness study at Stanford, said the initial findings showed increased control of attention and “less negative internal chatter — what one girl described as ‘the gossip inside my head: I’m stupid, I’m fat or I’m going to fail math,’ ”

24. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  According to Dr. Salzman, a 4-year- old noticed her mother succumbing to road rage while stuck in traffic. She said, “Mommy, mommy, you have to sing the breathing song.”

25. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  A recent study of teenagers by Kaiser Permanente in San Jose, Calif., found that meditation techniques helped improve mood disorders, depression, and self- harming behaviors like anorexia and bulimia.

26. Dealing with Challenging Situations Mindfulness Techniques  Integrating Active Meditation (sing, dance, laugh for a specific period followed by a period of sitting)  This powerful, cathartic technique creates a circle of energy that results in a natural centering.  www.oshoworld.com/meditation

27. Creating a Holistic Learning Environment Features of the Holistic Learning Design  Significant holistic learning takes place when what is being taught is relevant to the personal interests of the learner.  Holistic learning can capitalize on the wealth of experience of students.  Students must understand the purpose and benefits of what they’re learning.  Students need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their learning.  The experiences (including mistakes (drop-ortunities)) of holistic learners can provide the basis for learning activities.  Holistic learners are most interested in learning material that has immediate application to their lives.  Holistic learning is problem-centric rather than content-specific.

28. Creating a Holistic Learning Environment Features of the Holistic Learning Design  Turn to a neighbor and choose one of the previous items from the list.  Discuss how you may have seen this idea in action.  Share out.

29. Creating a Holistic Learning Environment Features of the Holistic Learning Design  Significant holistic learning takes place when what is being taught is relevant to the personal interests of the learner.  Holistic learning can capitalize on the wealth of experience of students.  Students must understand the purpose and benefits of what they’re learning.  Students need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their learning.  The experiences (including mistakes (drop-ortunities)) of holistic learners can provide the basis for learning activities.  Holistic learners are most interested in learning material that has immediate application to their lives.  Holistic learning is problem-centric rather than content-specific.

30. Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving Anew Multiple Pathways to Thinking and Perceiving Anew  Providing opportunities to learn in ways harmonious to the holistic learner’s unique ways of knowing  The theory of multiple intelligences was developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner. It suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on I.Q. testing, is far too limited. Instead, Dr. Gardner proposed eight different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These intelligences are:  Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")Musical intelligence ("music smart")Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")  Dr. Gardner says that our schools and culture focus most of their attention on linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence. Society tends to esteem the highly articulate or logical people of our culture.  However, Dr. Gardner says that we should also place equal attention on individuals who show gifts in the other intelligences: the artists, architects, musicians, naturalists, designers, dancers, therapists, entrepreneurs, and others who enrich the world in which we live.

31. Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving Anew Multiple Pathways to Thinking and Perceiving Anew  Tapping into "higher realms of human nature,” including descriptions of peak experiences, archetypal dreams, and other transpersonal experiences of children  Perceiving emotions: nonverbal reception and expression of emotions  Using emotions to facilitate thinking and perceiving  Understanding emotions and what they convey as patterns of possible messages  Managing emotions in order to increase oneness to emotional signals as a tool for thinking and perceiving anew

32. Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving Anew Multiple Pathways to Thinking and Perceiving Anew  PERCEIVING EMOTION. The initial, most basic, area has to do with the nonverbal reception and expression of emotion.  The capacity to accurately perceive emotions in the voices and faces of others provides a crucial starting point for more advanced understanding of emotions.

33. Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving Anew Multiple Pathways to Thinking and Perceiving Anew  USING EMOTIONS TO FACILITATE THOUGHT.  The second area is every bit as basic as the first: The capacity of the emotions to enter into and guide the cognitive system and promote thinking.  For example, cognitive scientists point out that emotions prioritize thinking. In other words: something we respond to emotionally is something that grabs our attention.  Having a good system of emotional input, therefore, should help direct thinking toward matters that are truly important.  A number of researchers have suggested that emotions are important for certain kinds of creativity to emerge. For example, mood swings and positive moods have been implicated in the capacity to carry out creative thought.

34. Capacity for Thinking and Perceiving Anew Multiple Pathways to Thinking and Perceiving Anew  Insight Dialogue Structures  Rapid Re-membering  Closure/Review

35. Increasing Integral Awareness  As the Red Queen says in Through the Looking Glass, “It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place.”  “What HAVEN’T you noticed lately?” as a tool for increasing integral awareness.

36. Increasing Integral Awareness Children’s Books on Compassion  Show You Understand: Learning about Compassion and Caring K-3  Facing Change: Falling Apart and Coming Together Again in the Teen Years  To Walk Humbly: Stories and Activities for Teaching Compassion and Justice Ages 10-13

37. Internet Resources  www.intentblog.com www.intentblog.com  www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_ www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_ intelligences.htm  www.unh.edu/emotional_intelligence www.unh.edu/emotional_intelligence  www.utoronto.ca/mcluhan www.utoronto.ca/mcluhan

38. Let’s Stay in Touch  OPENING DOORS TO ENDLESS OPPORTUNITIES®  www.DrKyle.org www.DrKyle.org  (206) 550-3596  Email: DrKyle@DrKyle.orgDrKyle@DrKyle.org