hile we experience mental health as individuals, we cultivate it as a collective. Supporting both is necessary to co-create a flourishing school environment. In 2012 Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh (known as Thầy to his students) established Wake Up Schools, the grassroots education movement, for the health of the world: “Our mission as teachers is not just to transmit knowledge, but to form human beings [...] in order to take care of our precious planet.” Training people to be co-responsible for cultivating collective wellbeing is a step forward in supporting mindful educational ecosystems across the world.
In working with schools, it’s clear that they have the capacity to be transformative public health movements that affect the whole community. In school, the minds of students are constantly “feeding” on and being modulated by their environment. For example, if a student has a level of anxiety that is sabotaging their wellbeing, they may explore inwards to examine habits like sleep, rumination, technology use, or exercise. However, they should also explore outwards to understand other possible influences on their mental health such as their school’s ecosystem. The school ecosystem exerts a key influence on student’s health—for better or worse—and educators are co-responsible for that ecosystem. A student’s anxiety may be fed by the pupil’s mind but it is also receiving energy from friends, the classroom, the bottomless scroll of social media, and a culture of perfectionism. What is the anxiety consuming that has enabled it to grow to such dangerous levels?
Each of us feeds on and contributes to many collective environments each day, whether a school, family home, office, sports team, or city. Each community is its own ecosystem with its own treasures and toxins. Each has the power to be a “superfood” environment, offering deep and sustainable nourishment for our wellbeing. A healthy community can help us to feel connected, to know that we belong—to play, feel wonder, and have hope. It can also be a “junk food” collective, steadily nourishing isolation, anxiety, or despair. We co-bear the responsibility for the health of each of these ecosystems.
Back to the school: the student’s anxiety needs food every day to survive, and we need to map those sources of nutrition—both inner and outer. Furthermore, the hope of the student also needs daily food to thrive, but we need to understand where hope draws its nutrition from because without attention, it will naturally weaken over time. And an absence of hope ends people's lives every day. Does the classroom nourish gratitude? Does the school sustain hope?
When Thầy first began speaking about ethical living in schools, research focused on the benefits that mindfulness brings to improving academic outcomes, increasing student focus, and reducing detention hours. In a talk to educators in 2014 June, Thầy challenged us to reflect on more profound benefits:
“What’s the use of learning if that learning doesn’t bring you happiness? The practice of right mindfulness can bring about a deep change both in the classroom and the wider education system, so we can educate people in such a way that they can be truly happy. If, while doing so, the students can learn more easily and quickly, and educators can avoid burning out, that is also wonderful.”
Together, we co-create the health of our school and manifest conditions under which humans experience a sense of collective wellness rather than merely avoiding disease. Surviving as a human species necessitates a radical shift in our understanding and actions, and schools have a major role to play in this shift. Our shared responsibility is to co-create educational environments that intentionally nourish the healing and loving qualities in each other. A wholesome, thriving school ecosystem makes it difficult for anxiety to grow out of control—or, at least, to remain out of control. Educators need to reflect both as individuals and as a school community to understand what kind of nutrition we are offering and consuming each day. By responding at the community level, educators enfold all individuals in our collective care and wisdom, creating a powerful space for healing and growth.
The school ecosystem is within us and reflects our habits of consumption. Educators have the ability to co-create a school “superfood” environment through individual and collective reflection and action. Family is within us. Community is within us. The Earth is within us. We are a collective force that, together, can generate the energies of peace, joy, and understanding, which leads to wisdom and mindful action—for both our mental health and planetary health.
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The “Superfood” for Cultivating Mindfulness in the Classroom
November 9, 2023
We experience mental health as individuals but cultivate it collectively. For a flourishing school environment, we must support both by reflecting on what educators are offering and what students are consuming each day, writes Orlaith O’Sullivan, PhD.
W
hile we experience mental health as individuals, we cultivate it as a collective. Supporting both is necessary to co-create a flourishing school environment. In 2012 Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh (known as Thầy to his students) established Wake Up Schools, the grassroots education movement, for the health of the world: “Our mission as teachers is not just to transmit knowledge, but to form human beings [...] in order to take care of our precious planet.” Training people to be co-responsible for cultivating collective wellbeing is a step forward in supporting mindful educational ecosystems across the world.
In working with schools, it’s clear that they have the capacity to be transformative public health movements that affect the whole community. In school, the minds of students are constantly “feeding” on and being modulated by their environment. For example, if a student has a level of anxiety that is sabotaging their wellbeing, they may explore inwards to examine habits like sleep, rumination, technology use, or exercise. However, they should also explore outwards to understand other possible influences on their mental health such as their school’s ecosystem. The school ecosystem exerts a key influence on student’s health—for better or worse—and educators are co-responsible for that ecosystem. A student’s anxiety may be fed by the pupil’s mind but it is also receiving energy from friends, the classroom, the bottomless scroll of social media, and a culture of perfectionism. What is the anxiety consuming that has enabled it to grow to such dangerous levels?
Each of us feeds on and contributes to many collective environments each day, whether a school, family home, office, sports team, or city. Each community is its own ecosystem with its own treasures and toxins. Each has the power to be a “superfood” environment, offering deep and sustainable nourishment for our wellbeing. A healthy community can help us to feel connected, to know that we belong—to play, feel wonder, and have hope. It can also be a “junk food” collective, steadily nourishing isolation, anxiety, or despair. We co-bear the responsibility for the health of each of these ecosystems.
Back to the school: the student’s anxiety needs food every day to survive, and we need to map those sources of nutrition—both inner and outer. Furthermore, the hope of the student also needs daily food to thrive, but we need to understand where hope draws its nutrition from because without attention, it will naturally weaken over time. And an absence of hope ends people's lives every day. Does the classroom nourish gratitude? Does the school sustain hope?
When Thầy first began speaking about ethical living in schools, research focused on the benefits that mindfulness brings to improving academic outcomes, increasing student focus, and reducing detention hours. In a talk to educators in 2014 June, Thầy challenged us to reflect on more profound benefits:
“What’s the use of learning if that learning doesn’t bring you happiness? The practice of right mindfulness can bring about a deep change both in the classroom and the wider education system, so we can educate people in such a way that they can be truly happy. If, while doing so, the students can learn more easily and quickly, and educators can avoid burning out, that is also wonderful.”
Together, we co-create the health of our school and manifest conditions under which humans experience a sense of collective wellness rather than merely avoiding disease. Surviving as a human species necessitates a radical shift in our understanding and actions, and schools have a major role to play in this shift. Our shared responsibility is to co-create educational environments that intentionally nourish the healing and loving qualities in each other. A wholesome, thriving school ecosystem makes it difficult for anxiety to grow out of control—or, at least, to remain out of control. Educators need to reflect both as individuals and as a school community to understand what kind of nutrition we are offering and consuming each day. By responding at the community level, educators enfold all individuals in our collective care and wisdom, creating a powerful space for healing and growth.
The school ecosystem is within us and reflects our habits of consumption. Educators have the ability to co-create a school “superfood” environment through individual and collective reflection and action. Family is within us. Community is within us. The Earth is within us. We are a collective force that, together, can generate the energies of peace, joy, and understanding, which leads to wisdom and mindful action—for both our mental health and planetary health.
