Mindfulness

I am attending the Folio Collaborative Conference in San Jose, CA this weekend. I expected to learn about a tech tool, but instead I met a community. Independent School educators from around the country gathered to share best practices around the growth and evaluation of professional communities. I have made so many wonderful connections and had so many great conversations.

One of the big surprises of the conference for me was the keynote speaker, a mindfulness coach named Dave Mochel. If you are anything like me, just reading the words "mindfulness coach" made you roll your eyes a little. (Or a lot.) I'm with you. But this guy was highly effective in delivering a message about cultivating a practice of self-compassion, purposeful action and gratitude to better manage "being human."  Sounds cheesy, I know. But it WASN'T. It felt practical, useful, concrete and deliberate.

Dave described the many ways we are conditioned to think and behave, especially in relation to discomfort, fear, anxiety or change. For example, when something goes wrong, many of us look to resist, avoid or blame. His work focuses on making this cognitive conditioning visible so that individuals are empowered to make a choice in how they react to life's inevitable discomfort, pain and suffering. That is what he calls "cultivating a practice of mindfulness."

My takeaways for learning and schools are:

1. Prioritizing the connection and worth of adults and students in the institution are prerequisites for healthy, sustained growth -- intellectually, emotionally and professionally.

2. Schools may be inadvertently be encouraging a practice of perfectionism, status seeking or intellectual competition among employees or students. This culture breeds anxiety, stress and depression.

Here's Dave's TED talk on Mindfulness.