The Way of Mindful Education: Cultivating Well-Being in Teachers and Students
Rechtschaffen, D. J. (2014). The way of mindful education: Cultivating well-being in teachers and students. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
Reviewed by Rebecca Swiatek
Mindfulness is quickly becoming a hot topic in Western culture. Mindfulness is being used in a plethora of industries including business, sports, and health and is quickly getting a reputation in the field of education as well. Before Daniel Rechtschaffen began the US-based Mindful Education Institute he was a therapist. He uses his knowledge in his book to inform us of not only the benefits of mindfulness, but practical tools and strategies to implement right away into our lives and our classrooms, including multiple types of breathing exercises, mindful movement options, and even a mindful eating practice. Each strategy is described differently in order to be appropriate for different age levels. Rechtschaffen easily translates the views of the neurobiological evidence of mindfulness into digestible knowledge that is informative and applicable, reflecting on our current state of education emphasizing the need for an educational revolution. However, he is also real and straightforward in explaining that mindfulness is not the end all be all solution to all of our problems in the world or in education. It will be rocky, but by recognizing the resistance and the troubles is in fact mindful and will lead to compassion. Additionally, there isn’t a chapter Rechtschaffen doesn’t stress the importance of relationships. “Humans are relational creatures by nature,” he explains. And with this reminder we see that the benefit of mindfulness comes from our teachers practicing and it not being just another trendy pedagogy buzzword.
The Way of Mindful Education begins with a forward from biomedical scientist, Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of The Center for Mindfulness and creator of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, who also played an empirical role of taking mindfulness into the realm of science. A foreword by Jon Kabat-Zinn can only give weight to what Rechtschaffen stresses throughout his book. “Interiority and self-awareness require education and cultivation in parallel with the more academic curriculum for these competencies to take root, blossom, and continue to develop and deepen across the lifespan” (p. xvi). Here, the reader begins to understand that Rechtschaffen is not going to degrade the importance of all educational practices but will show us how to incorporate mindfulness into what educators are already familiar with.
Rechtschaffen opens chapter one right away with a mindfulness practice, observing awareness of the sounds and smells as you read. He starts the reader right off in practice, solidifying the one importance he stresses throughout the entire book: mindfulness begins with you; you cannot teach mindfulness without practicing yourself. The entire book is organized in a way where an educator will want to read it from beginning to end, but are then able to go back to specific sections in order to review and implement. The Way of Mindful Education is set up into 4 sections. Part 1: Why Mindful Education Matters is the foundation for the whole book. “Mindfulness has been effectively training these qualities (impulse control, attention, and empathy) for millennia, and there is a mounting research base that backs up its health benefits” (p. 10). Rechtschaffen dives right into supporting the benefits with lists of documented research, including studies and personal stories from teachers and students. While Rechtschaffen includes an entire chapter on the science in this section, he continues to use scientific research as support throughout the entirety of the book. Rechtschaffen describes the history of mindfulness into the education system to emphasize how this revolution is coming about and why it will continue to move forward, starting with psychological influences after World War II and leading us the most recent movement in social emotional learning.
During Part 2: of The Way of Mindful Education Rechtschaffen stresses the importance of mindfulness beginning with the self. This is not a chapter, it is an entire section of the book. The importance of beginning with self is albeit redundantly clear. Even in the first part of the book we are reminded of our teachers need for mindfulness when citing the large teacher burnout and then drop out rates. It is not only our students who are suffering. In this section Rechtschaffen provides tips on developing your own practice, personal stories from educators, and exercises to begin right away. Here he begins to really stress the concept of heartfulness and interconnectedness emphasizing exactly why it is imperative to start with ourselves, because you cannot change another person, you can only change your reaction to them. “We embody compassion, loving the world as it is, without trying to change it” (p. 63). Here he really gets to the heart of the matter, the reason the educator became the educator in the first place, but may have forgotten without the practice of awareness and compassion.
In Part 3: The Mindful Classroom we get a glimpse of what a classroom may look like with mindfulness while reviewing the key components of mindfulness. Rechtschaffen provides insight here on working with diverse students and students who will have likely had some trauma in their past and how both of these things can effect an uncomfortableness with mindfulness. At no point does Rechtschaffen forget to include the dynamic of teaching mindfulness at the various stages of development, but in this section we get a deeper discussion of the age ranges and an appropriate sense of how to implement mindfulness developmentally.
Rechtschaffen perfectly leads us now into the final part of the book: The Mindful Curriculum. This is a part of the book that the reader can come back to time and time again to find a way to implement practices into a classroom or school. Here the strategies are designed for multiple age levels and are open to be molded and shaped for the needs the educator sees are the best fit, modeling the importance to make the practice your own.
The Way of Mindful Education is a simplistic and applicable read at the forefront of a movement for the 21st century educator. Rechtschaffen provides plenty of take-home strategies and provides a great framework for developing a teacher's own curriculum in order to meet the needs of their individual classroom or school, but also includes an area on other models, such as Mindful Schools, Mindfulness Without Borders, The Mind Body Awareness Project, and The Mindfulness in Schools Project, that are being successfully used. It was difficult to decipher just where this book is lacking, but then I remembered reading the introduction and felt he could have come off a bit more humble. This may lead some readers to roll their eyes and put the book down before they are able to gain its benefits. Additionally, while the book certainly did not make mindfulness out to be the only answer and it touched on some of the issues that surround it, I felt as though more testimonials from teachers and students on any push-back they may have encountered in using mindfulness would be beneficial in understanding that very likely perspective.
Overall, The Way of Mindful Education is an excellent read to begin to digest an overview understanding of mindfulness. Rechtschaffen embodies the heart of mindfulness without renouncing its spiritual origins and including its importance and practice in a secular way.
Teachers should not end only on this book, as Rechtschaffen explains much training and practice should continue through individual practice at least and at best week long silent retreats. Mindfulness is change and it begins with you; it can begin with reading The Way of Mindful Education.
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