Mindfulness in the classroom: Autopilot and paying attention

Amy Malloy
Amy Malloy
students sat at desks looking at their workbooks

The challenge: the lure of automatic pilot

Have you ever got to the bottom of the page in your favorite book and then realized you have no idea what you just read? This is due to being in a semi-conscious mental state called 'automatic pilot'. In automatic pilot mode, we are only partially aware of what we are doing and responding to in the present moment. If left to its own devices, it can end up masking all our thought patterns, emotions and interactions with those around us. Humans are habitual creatures, building functional 'speed-dials' to allow us to survive in the present while the mind is elsewhere planning for the future or ruminating in thought. The challenge here is that we are responding to the present moment based solely on habits learned from previous experience rather than making conscious choices based on the nuances of the moment itself. Luckily, mindfulness can help.

The solution: the importance of paying attention on purpose

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, is often credited with bringing mindfulness into the secular mainstream. He defines the practice as: "paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally."

Paying attention on purpose is the skill needed to move out of automatic pilot. As such, practicing mindfulness starts with learning how to pay attention. The more we focus, the more the brain builds strength in the areas involved in this type of concentration - and the easier it becomes to do it automatically. In other words, it becomes a habit to be present.

In the early years of primary school, a child's brain is developing more quickly than it ever will again. Young minds are in the process of forming their very first habits, and so learning to pay attention on purpose will have a .

The why: why is this particularly important in schools?

If you're a teacher wondering why this is important, mindfulness has many benefits in the classroom. Perhaps the most notable is its facility for improving children's attention span during English lessons and elsewhere in life. This is increasingly important as children are immersed in a world of digital screens and social media. Learning to focus can help to counteract the constant demands on their attention and develop greater patience and staying power for any one activity.

, experts agree that our attention span varies depending on what we are doing. The more experience we have of how much attention a certain situation needs, the more the brain will adapt and make it easier for us to focus on those situations.

The brains of school-age children develop rapidly. So, the more we can do to demonstrate to them what it feels like to pay attention for a prolonged period, the more likely they are to be able to produce that level of attention in similar situations.

For teenagers it is even more important. During adolescence, our brains undergo a unique period of neural development. The brain rapidly streamlines our neural connections to make the brain function as efficiently as possible in adulthood. Like a tree shedding branches, it will get rid of any pathways that are not being used and strengthen up the areas that are being used: use it or lose it. So if teenagers are not actively using their ability to pay conscious attention and spending too much time in automatic pilot mode, through screen use and in periods of high exam stress, the brain won't just not strengthen their capacity to focus; it may make it harder for them to access the ability to pay attention in future.

The how: three exercises to teach your students mindfulness

These three mindfulness exercises will help your language students integrate awareness into everyday activities in their school and home lives.

1. Mindful use of screens and technology

Screen use is a major culprit of setting the brain into automatic pilot. This is an activity you canpractice in school during computer-based lessons or even ask the students to practise at home.

  • Close your eyes and notice how you feel before you've started
  • Consciously decide on one task you need to do on the device
  • Consciously think about the steps you need to do to achieve that task and visualize yourself doing them
  • Then turn on the device and complete the task. When you have finished, put the device down, walk away, or do something different
  • Notice if you wanted to carry on using the device (this doesn't mean we need to)

2. Mindful snacking

We eat so habitually that we rarely notice the huge range of sensory stimulation going onunder the surface of this process. This is a great activity to practise with your students during breaks or lunch.

  • Hold the snack in your hand and notice five things you can see about it
  • Close your eyes and notice five things about the way it feels in your hand or to touch
  • Keep the eyes closed and notice five things you can smell about the snack
  • Bring the snack slowly to your mouth and taste it – notice five different subtle tastes

3. Counting the breath

A brilliantly simple exercise to teach the brain to focus attention on one thing for a longerperiod of time. It can be done anywhere and can also have the helpful side effect ofreducing stress through passively slowing down the breath.

  • Close your eyes or take a soft gaze in front of you
  • Focus your attention on the breath going in and out at the nostrils
  • Notice the breath temperature on the way into the nose compared to its temperature on the way out
  • Count 10 breaths to yourself – in 1, out 1; in 2, out 2; and so on
  • If the mind wanders, gently guide it back to the breath
  • When you get to 10 you can either stop there or go back to 1 and start again
  • In time, it will become easier to stay focused for the full 10 breaths and for even longer

If a part of you is still wondering where to start with mindfulness, then paying conscious attention to anything that draws our senses to the present moment: the breath, physical sensations in the body, sounds, smells or tastes - these are all brilliant places to start. Remember that mindfulness is simply a state of mind, a way of interacting with the world around us. How we access that state of mind can vary depending on the school, the language lesson and the students - there are many possibilities. As an English teacher, it's important to encourage and help students academically and in regards to their wellbeing.

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    “We are all creative, but by the time we are three or four years old, someone has knocked the creativity out of us. Some people shut up the kids who start to tell stories. Kids dance in their cribs, but someone will insist they sit still. By the time the creative people are ten or twelve, they want to be like everyone else.” — Maya Angelou.

    We want our kids to excel in everything they do. This is partly down to the media, which has fostered the idea of celebrity kids and football leagues that encourage kids to become professional athletes at the age of eight or younger.

    However, we have missed the most crucial thing in their education – and that is to build their character through everyday creative activities which encourage the formation of human connections.

    Moving from kindergarten to elementary school

    Consider how nervous a first grader must feel after leaving the safe kindergarten playground and entering a strange new 'grown-up' world. The playgrounds are bigger, the kids are older, they have to line up to buy their first meal at the school cafeteria. The classroom has changed too: the desks look different, the books are bigger, and there are new challenges too.

    Some are thrilled to feel part of the older kids’ environment. Others, of course, are frightened and insecure. They have to understand and accept all the new rules and regulations, which now apply to them too.

    High expectations from parents must be met

    We also have moms, dads and caregivers worried for their little ones. They have high hopes for them. They want their children to become successful learners, multi-medal athletes, excellent readers, mathematicians or perhaps scientists…

    Professor David Healy, director of the North Wales Department of Psychological Medicine, said:“We want kids to conform to ideals based often on parental insecurities and ambitions.”

    Elementary school has therefore become something resembling a battlefield, where children must thrive in spite of (and not because of) their interests. Only top grades and excellence in everything will make parents proud.

    But what if a child is not successful? What if their reading skills are below average? What if their daydreaming about a trip to the moon doesn’t allow them to concentrate?

    Then we have two lists of kids, the thriving kids with excellent grades and the other ones.

    So how can we take the pressure off and help all kids to thrive? Here are some simple creative activities to help.

    Reaching out to your students with a simple hello

    When did we forget that education is about promoting playfulness, imagination, and creativity to build up confidence?

    My very first and most important recommendation would be this:

    Before you start a class, give yourself a moment to say"Hello"to each individual in your class. Take that moment to make eye contact with every student and see how they are doing that day.

    Make this an important part of your routine. Then have them do the same with their classmates. You could even introduce phrases such as:

    • "How was your day yesterday?"
    • "How are you feeling today?"
    • "What did you have for breakfast this morning?"
    • "I notice you look nice today!"

    You can also try another creative activity. Ask your students to say good morning to the new day and think of something they are grateful for or someone they are grateful to. For example:

    • "Thank you mom, for my breakfast."
    • "I am grateful because all my classmates are here."
    • "Thank you moon, for your light every night."

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    3 creative routines to help foster a safe learning environment

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    “The world is undergoing revolutionary changes, we need a revolution in education too.” -Creative Schools, Ken Robinson

    In February 2006, the late Sir Ken Robinson delivered a talk at TED titled: . This was some years ago and time seems to have stood still in education since then.

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    Clear and structured objectives

    To nurture and encourage creativity in the classroom, it is important to have clear, well-structured objectives and routines that give students a safe learning environment. Here’s a breakdown of a few you can try in your classroom.

    1. Monday activity

    As part of your routine, do something different every Monday and have your students guess what it is. For example, you could change your earrings or only wear one. You could shave your mustache, wear a hat, or do something less obvious.

    Students should participate too, so have them do something different every week. Select a student in the class and everyone must guess what has changed that Monday.

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    2. Friday team building challenge

    Every Friday, my class play a team building challenge activity which helps them set and follow rules, be respectful to one another, and work and play with students from different circles.

    Here’s a simple, energetic team building activity you could try:

    • Have students call out all the new vocabulary words they learned during the week. Write them on the board as they do so.
    • Split the class into teams of four or five students.
    • Tell them they have to use their bodies to spell each word (if there are lots of words, pick the top three). Wipe the word off the board and explain that they can stand up, lie down, and use their arms and legs – but they should work together to form the shapes of the letters. The first team that correctly spells the word you dictate wins a point!

    3. "Hurray, I failed” activity

    The final activity is all about celebrating failure. Start by putting students in a circle or a line, and have them each name a color out loud. If someone repeats a color or takes longer than five seconds to answer, they must stand up, dance, and shout “hurray, I failed!” as loudly as possible.

    You can select any topic – such as nouns, countries, or, even better, your students’ interests. The intention is to create a safe learning environment for your class, where students feel supported and being wrong is fun and okay. This will enable students to participate in class without fear of judgment or criticism.

    Try it out until your students become comfortable with dancing and 'hurraying' in front of everyone in the group.

    This activity has yielded fantastic results with groups of people I’ve worked with, regardless of their age group (young, old, junior high). Participants may feel silly or shy, until one participant starts doing it for fun, and then the rest of the group will start feeling comfortable with being wrong. They will realize it’s okay, and the exercise will start to flow with greater ease.

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    3 activities to nurture creativity in the classroom

    By Laura Vazquez

    What keeps people from exercising their creative potential? From negative past experiences to the way we see ourselves, there are many things that can hold us back, no matter how old we are. As teachers, it’s our job to help each individual find out what their creative barriers are, whether internal, external or imagined.

    Our classrooms, therefore, need to become places where we nourish emotional safety and welcome mistakes. As such, we should encourage a culture that promotes failing as part of learning. 

    Here are three activities to help nurture creativity in the primary classroom.

    Activity one: My whole self

    In this activity, students express themselves in words and images, using a life-sized drawing of their bodies. The aim of this is to help them share their feelings and ideas. With a little adaptation, it can work just as well with teens and young learners. 
    Before the lesson, ensure you have enough cardboard or paper for each student. Each piece will need to be approximately 2m long. If you’re using paper, roll it into tubes, so it’s easier to distribute to each student later.

    In class, hand out the paper/cardboard to each student. Tell them to draw a life-size outline of themselves on the paper. Students working online can copy the outline you share onto a large piece of paper. They can do this in their notebooks if they don’t have any paper to hand. 

    In teen classes

    Tell the students that they are free to use their creativity. They should draw, write, and express themselves however they want. If they are stuck for ideas, ask them:

    • How do you feel?
    • What are your ambitions?
    • What are you worried about?
    • What do you enjoy?
    • What are you looking forward to?

    Note that questions should be adapted to your students’ age and level of English. 

    During the activity, your students can use colors, stickers, magazines – and anything that will help them express what is in their minds and hearts. 

    A note on using this activity in elementary classes

    Primary-aged students will need more support. Here are some example instructions:

    • In your right hand, write what you do when you feel frustrated.
    • In your right foot, write your favorite song.
    • In your left leg, write the name of the person you get good advice from.
    • In your right arm, write what makes you happy.
    • In your left hand, write your greatest dream.
    • In your left foot, write which cartoon character you would like to be.
    • In your left leg, write what you like to do in your free time.
    • In your left arm, write things you value the most.
    • On your stomach write your favorite meal.

    Afterwards, students should explain what they’ve included in their silhouettes to the rest of the class. Encourage students to ask each other respectful questions. 

    Activity two: Message in the box

    The aim of this activity is to establish a routine where students can share their ideas, thoughts and feelings on a regular basis. 

    Have students bring an old box into class (of any type). Encourage them to personalize their boxes with decorative paper, markers, crayons, stickers, etc. 

    Instruct students to write an idea, feeling, thought or question down. The complexity of the task will depend on the grade you teach and their level of English. Topic ideas include:

    • What are you grateful for today?
    • How do you feel today? 
    • What do you wish for?
    • What do you do when you’re angry?
    • What do you like most about yourself?

    Have your students write their answers and put them in the box. When everyone has finished, they should take turns to choose a piece of paper at random and read it out loud to the group. 

    Wrap up this activity by asking the class, “What things do we have in common as a group?”. This way students will see that everyone has similar worries and dreams and hopefully they’ll be more willing to talk about their feelings in future classes.

    Keep the box in a safe place and review the notes after a month to see if peoples' thoughts and feelings have changed since they did the activity.

    Activity three: Activity story board

    The ideal class environment is one where students feel challenged, but not overwhelmed.  The aim of this activity is to have students reflect on the challenges they have faced in their day-to-day learning and think about what they need to do to improve. 

    On a blank piece of paper, ask students to draw two vertical lines and one horizontal line to form six boxes. They should number each box from 1 to 6. Students should then write a challenge or objective in box number six. It should be something that they would like to improve, for example, studying habits, reading skills, doing homework, getting better at exam results, etc. Then encourage them to think of five things they can do to help them reach their objective and write them in boxes 1-5. 

    1. Read at least two paragraphs every day
    2. Draw what I think is the main idea on paper.
    3. Look up the meaning of words I don´t understand.
    4. Try to increase the number of paragraphs I read each week.
    5. Make a monthly progress chart  to see if I have improved. If not, I need to work on another strategy.
    6. My objective:  Ex. Get better at reading comprehension quizzes.

    Provide students with your support and constructive feedback. Have them share their objectives with the rest of the class and every couple of weeks check how they are doing. 
    Remember to praise their ideas and efforts to improve. Students are more motivated when they feel their teachers are invested in their success.