Runninghead: MindUP

Preferred Practice: MindUP Linh Nguyen University of British Columbia

MindUP Introduction The MindUP Program is a reform initiative put forth through the efforts of The Hawn Foundation, started by actress and producer Goldie Hawn in 2003 to address the increasing issues of youth stress, depression, and violence (The Hawn Foundation, 2011). Working with neuroscientists,

behavioral psychologists, educators, and leading researchers, the foundations goal is to equip children of all ages with the social and emotional skills so that they can lead a smarter, healthier, and happier life. According to Schonert-Reichl and Hymel (2007), fostering students social and emotional learning will not only help their academic success in school, but students will also become more caring and responsible citizens in the community. The MindUp program revolves around the concept and research behind mindfulness, which is a process of drawing focus to the present moment and non-judgmentally drawing distinctions regarding ones own experiences (The Hawn Foundation, 2011). Using core practices of deep breathing and attentive listening, the program teaches students ways to cope with their emotions, concentrate on tasks at hand more effectively, reduce their stress, and be more empathetic and optimistic with themselves and their peers. A student's awareness of their own experience can help lead to acceptance, empathy, and emotion regulation. The MindUp curriculum was developed for students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade but can be adapted to fit all grade levels. The program also offers suggestions to include ESL learners and students receiving resource support. The ideas behind MindUp can also be used by adults and can be practiced in various settings. Training for MindUp is a full-day professional development workshop offered in most school districts and includes curriculum and implementation materials. The cost of the training in the Vancouver school district is $10 for employees of the school board and $50 for outside participants. Although training is not required to teach the MindUp curriculum, attendance is highly recommended so you get a full understanding of the purpose and practice behind the program. This will give you the confidence, knowledge, and skills to implement the program in your classroom. MindUp also offers a train-the-trainer system to support sustainability (The Hawn Foundation, 2011).

MindUP Implementation MindUP contains 15 skill based lessons presented in three curriculum levels: Pre-K to second

grade; third through fifth grade; and sixth through eighth grade. The fifteen lessons are arranged into four units (The Mindful Curriculum, 2011): Unit I: Lets Get Focused (Lessons 1-3) Introduce brain physiology and the concept of mindful attention; Establish daily Core Practice. Lessons: 1. Learning How Our Brains Work; 2. Understanding Mindful Attention; 3. Focusing Our Awareness: The Core Practice Unit II: Sharpening Your Senses (Lessons 4-9) Experience the relationship between our senses, our moving bodies, and the way we think. Lessons: 4. Mindful Listening; 5. Mindful Seeing; 6. Mindful Smelling; 7. Mindful Tasting; 8. Mindful Movement I; 9. Mindful Movement II Unit III: Its All About Attitude (Lessons 10-12) Understand the role of our mind-set in how we learn and progress. Lessons: 10. Perspective Taking; 11. Choosing Optimism; 12. Savoring Happy Experiences Unit IV: Taking Action Mindfully (Lessons 13-15) Apply mindful behaviors to our interactions within our community and the world. Lessons: 13. Acting with Gratitude; 14. Performing Acts of Kindness; 15. Taking Mindful Action in Our Community Each lesson also includes a getting ready activity, a MindUP warm-up, and detailed instructions to the teacher on how to engage students and support their exploration and reflection on the topic. The program works to promote generalization and support connections to academic instruction, and there are suggested lesson extensions to support social and emotional development, mathematics, physical education, health, science, literature, and journal writing. Below is a sample lesson of the Core Practice which encompasses listening and breathing: Lesson: Core Practice (The MindUP Curriculum, 2011, p.46) Step 1: Choose an instrument to use for the Core Practice. The instrument should resonate a long sound, like a chime, as it will become a signal for the beginning and ending of the Core Practice. The same instrument should be used consistently as the sound will begin to create an association with quiet focus in the students brain. Step 2: Remind students of mindful listening by sounding a note. Encourage students to notice and comment on its resonance and duration.

MindUP Step 3: Inform students that they will hear this sound every time we do our mindful practice. Step 4: Ask students to sit upright and comfortably at their desks, feet flat on the floor. Rest hands comfortably on their lap and close their eyes or look down at their hands. Imagine a string pulling up from the crown of the head, with chin pointing down slightly, and spine long. Explain that good posture makes it easier to breathe fully, improves circulation, and support an alert mind. Step 5: Explain to students that when they hear the note, listen until it fades while at the same time remembering to breathe calmly. Step 6: When students can no longer hear the sound, invite them to open their eyes while remaining still and quiet. Step 7: Ask students on their initial reaction- How many times did they catch their mind wandering? Did they notice any movement or tension in their body? How do they feel after the exercise? Step 8: Let students know that if they found it difficult to calm their brain and focus, they should not worry, with practice their brain will get better at it. Step 9: Once students become familiar and comfortable with the exercise, extend the lesson by playing the note a second time with a 5 second interval between the first and second note. The 5 second interval can be extended over time to challenge students abilities to remain focus. Step 10: Announce to the class that there will be time during the day/class where we will practice this new skill. Also encourage students to practice controlled breathing on their own time, especially when

they need to focus and calm themselves down. (Connect all this to the brain once youve started teaching the curriculum.) MindUp is a practice that should not be taught in insolation but should be integrated into the daily classroom environment. The MindUp Core Practice can be applied to the start and end of each day as well as all the transition periods throughout the day. The practice can also be implemented in afterschool programs, with ESL students, or in pull out sessions with students receiving resource support. The chime used for the Core Practice can be purchased at most department stores and book stores, such as Banyan Books located on West 4th by Almas Street. You can purchase the single chime, double chime, or the Tri

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Zinergy Chime which costs approximately $29 and produces three different sounds. I like the Tri Zinergy Chime as it gives you the freedom to use different sounds to signal different stages of the practice. The first sound can alert students to prepare for the Mindful practice by stopping whatever they are doing and assuming the position to start the Core Practice. The other two sounds can be used for the different stages of breathing and focusing in the Core Practice. The different sounds will also help to further develop students listening skills. The MindUP curriculum can be ordered through Amazon for the cost of $16.92 or purchased at Odins Books located on West Broadway for the cost of $26.99. The low cost associated with the materials can be easily funded within a normal program budget. The curriculum suggests starting the Core Practice with students first before starting to teach the MindUP curriculum. I think this is a great idea as it will get students familiarized with the breathing practice so when they come to it in Lesson 3, there will be a smoother flow. Teachers can expect that when they first carry out the Core Practice with students there will be some students who may exhibit disruptive behavior such as giggling, laughing, and constant movement. Do not let these behaviors discourage you from the program but rather be patience. Some strategies that may help to minimize these behaviors are diming the lights to the classroom, having students sit in a circle with their back to the center, and providing positive feedback to every little effort you see your students making. It may also be helpful to spend additional time with the students who were displaying disruptive behavior and carry out the Core Practice with them in small groups or a one to one setting. Students tend to be more receptive to instructions when there are less people around them. Pulling them aside to go over the Core Practice with them will also reinforce to them the importance of this activity. As you continue with the Core Practice, you will eventually see your students effort, attention, and focus improve as they become more comfortable. Evidence of the effectiveness of this program is the students ability to generalize the skills taught in MindUp to other settings. Specific examples would be when the students use the Core Practice at home or in their other classes to help them focus and concentrate. Other examples that the program is successful are when students request the mindful Core Practice when its not scheduled and their daily use

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of the terminology learned from the program. Evidence of buy-in from parents, teachers, and schools will start with the students as they apply the skills learned in various settings. A workshop can be offered in the school on MindUp which uses the students as instructors to teach the practice to teachers and parents. Research Prior to the program being named MindUP, it was previously called the Mindfulness Education (ME) program. Schonert-Reichl and Lawlor (2010) carried out a study looking at the effectiveness of the ME program with pre and early adolescents in four areas: optimism, self-concept, positive / negative affect, and social and emotional functioning in school. A total number of 246 students from 4th to 7th grades across twelve elementary schools in a large Canadian urban school district in British Columbia participated in this study. Six classes received the ME program and six classes were placed on a wait-list and would receive the program the following year. There were 70 boys and 69 girls in the ME group and the control group had 57 boys and 50 girls. Questionnaires using rating scales were given to students and teachers pre and post intervention. Students were asked about their school and general self-concept, and their positive and negative emotions while teachers were asked to report on their social and emotional competence. The teachers received a one day training and were given a manual with ten lessons and all materials needed to carry out the lessons. The ME lessons were taught once a week with each lesson lasting forty to fifty minutes. The daily core mindfulness exercises were practice three times per day each lasting up to three minutes per session. The teachers also received bi-weekly consultation from one of the authors of the ME program curriculum. This study began in March and finished in early June. The results of the study showed significant improvement of the ME participants in optimism and positive affect while the control group showed an obvious decrease in optimism. There were no major changes in either group with regards to negative affect. Teachers in the ME group also commented that they noticed their students were more attentive, emotionally regulated, and socially and emotionally more competent. There was a significant decrease in aggression and opposition behavior. Teachers of the ME group also noticed that after each Core exercise, students were more able to focus and pay attention to

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their academic lessons. Students self-concept in the pre-adolescents showed a significant increase while students in the early adolescent group showed a decrease. A possible explanation for early adolescent decreased self-concept was that this was a time in a childs life where they are naturally more self-aware due to increased competence in many areas, and the exercises which increase self-reflection in combination with this, caused them to adopt a more critical or realistic view of themselves. One limitation of this study is that the analysis in the study which was conducted at the individual student level while the comparison statistics were at the classroom level, which could have added a statistical bias to the results. To minimize this effect, a multi-level comparison can be carried out on the individual and classroom levels. Another limitation was the method for gathering the data, namely selfreporting through rating scales and by the teachers in many cases, rather than by direct observation of student behaviour and interviews with students and teachers. This subjectivity could lead to a bias from teachers either for or against the program based on their own ideas rather than actual student behavior. Finally, a last limitation was the short nature of the study, namely only the single year. A longer followup study would be required to determine the whether the results are sustained, or if unseen factors may have contributed to the results for this one time period. This research is a springboard for possibilities of further research in the ME, now revised and renamed the MindUp, program. Future research can look to compare the participants in the control group and ME group in their high school years. Interviews can be carried out with the students to see how well they are coping with the challenges of high school, how successful they are socially and academically, and if they still apply the skills learned in the ME program to their present lives. As the ME program has been revised to a new curriculum called MindUp, further study needs to be carried out to assess the effectiveness of this new curriculum on students social and emotional development.

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References Schonert-Reichl, K. A. & Hymel, S. (2007). Educating the heart as well as the min: Why social and emotional learning is critical for students school and life success. Education Canada, 47, 20-25. Schonert-Reichl, K. A. & Lawlor, M. S. (2010). The effects of a mindfulness-based education program on pre-and early adolescents well-being and social and emotional competence. Mindfulness, 1, 137-151. The Hawn Foundation. (2011). Retrieved from http://thehawnfoundation.org/ The MindUP curriculum Grades 6-8: Brain-focused strategies for learning. (2011). New York, NY. Scholastic Inc.