Welcome!

Welcome to the blog of Zaq Roberts, Associate Head of School at The Berkeley School in Berkeley, CA. I blog about a wide variety of topics, from classroom moments I witness, to administrative events and conversations, to the educational blogs, videos, and books I am reading and watching, and how they are influencing my thinking. I hope this eclectic approach will give you insight into the many ways that I am engaging in advancing the school and strengthening our program, and I welcome your thoughts and comments!

This blog takes its name from a quotation by Archimedes that reads "Give me a lever long enough, and I can move the world." The TBS mission speaks directly to the need to engage a changing world, while many of the experiences in our program focus on the development of students' agency and authority. TBS is the lever by which we all - administration, faculty, students, and parents - can together move the world to be more humane, compassionate, and responsive. To borrow an important Montessori phrase, it is our way to remake the world.

Monday, February 17, 2014

Mindfulness Training with Kate Janke

As dedicated readers of this blog already know, the K-5 division has been in the midst of a year-long initiative to implement mindfulness in our classrooms. After six months of meetings designed to help the teachers and staff develop our own personal practices of mindfulness and mindful meditation, last week we spent 15 hours across three days in an in-depth training on how to implement mindfulness in the classrooms.

Kate Janke's Heart-Mind Education curriculum moves through several distinct segments. We're already well on our way to understanding how to teach from presence, which is the first grouping. Next we learned about creating the container that supports children as they enter into mindfulness with physical and psychological safety. Lessons on cultivating connection with self and others mindfully came next, followed by lessons that teach simple regulation and attention skills. The last two clusters of lessons in the curriculum focus on how we treat, speak to, and care for each other, and then a series designed to go deeper into self-awareness and our understanding of perception.

The energy of the faculty at the conclusion of the day on Saturday was incredible -- especially considering it was a Saturday, the third consecutive Saturday working for some faculty, and the first day of February break! While no two classes will be implementing the curriculum in exactly the same way, every teacher has a concrete plan to begin regularly teaching and implementing mindfulness in the K-5 classrooms when we return from break. Be sure to check out your classroom blogs for more info in the upcoming weeks.

Interested in some reading on your own? Check out these resources, but please don't try to pre-teach mindfulness to your children at home -- we want to start with this as a "school activity" before we extend it into the home lives.

The Mindful Child by Susan Kasier Greenland

The Whole Brain Child by Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson


The Mindful Brain and Mind Sight by Dan Siegel

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