Interview with MJ Friedman - co-creator of Rainbow Breath Kids
The word mindfulness was not a term used in education when I was becoming a teacher, but looking back, many of the techniques I used in my classroom are mindful practices.
In my undergraduate studies for teaching, I was lucky enough to take the course Understanding Stress. I learned about meditative practices and progressive relaxation techniques and how to understand different types of stress, and signs of distress, which cause negative feelings.
Chronic stress, or distress that is ongoing, is long-term stress that can impact physical and mental health. I watched for signs of distress and chronic stress in my students and provided them with strategies for dealing with their thoughts, emotions and feelings as they arose. We talked a lot about feelings and worked to develop empathy, by learning to appreciate differences.
I also incorporated relaxation techniques into the day. We’d take movement and classical music breaks which research showed released dopamine, suppressing stress hormones and improving learning outcomes. Now people may call it a brain break, which I love. Balancing left and right brain activity helps stimulate creativity, release pent-up energy and keep attention sharp.
I set up a “vacation” spot in a corner of the room where kids who felt overly stressed could go on a mini vacation and relax on a big bean bag chair until they felt better, or the sand timer ran out, which usually was a perfect amount of time. There were vacation pictures on the wall and headphones to listen to music or they could just close their eyes and breathe.
Attention to the breath is a fundamental mindfulness practice. I can't remember a time a child came away from their mini vacation not feeling much better! This was in the late 1980s and 1990s before the term mindfulness was used widely.
The term mindfulness was first coined by Buddhist scholar T. W. Rhys Davids early in the 20th century, and his work influenced the father of the modern mindfulness movement, Jon Kabat-Zinn. It was not until 2003 that Jon Kabat-Zinn formulated his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course. His work influenced much of the mindfulness practices in the West today. Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as "the awareness that arises through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment." He teaches that intentional awareness of the senses, including the human mind itself, allows us to live more fully.
As a teacher, I used a multi-sensory approach to teaching which is paying attention to sensory experience, but my teachings weren’t influenced by his work or definition because those came later. I was instead influenced by research-based approaches to learning at the time but essentially was doing some similar things to his mindfulness teachings. When you engage the senses it helps anchor learning. I took my classes on sensory walks around and outside of our school. I’d prearrange for some of the speciality teachers to create sensory experiences, like releasing scents, providing things to taste and creating sounds as we approached, also they’d pay attention in general to any other sensory things in their surroundings like trucks going by, birds singing, children’s voices etc., I would have my students carry magnifying glasses to observe details they were drawn to including things like bugs, clover and dandelions on the school grounds. We’d come back, discuss their experiences, and write stories based on things they saw, smelled, touched, tasted, or heard. We’d go on field trips to places like the planetarium or the beach to enrich their sensory learning experiences.
I believed in this so much that I taught graduate students a lesson on multi-sensory learning using popcorn because popcorn making involves every sense. The smell and sounds of popcorn popping, the sight of kernels opening, and changing, the feel of kernels smooth and then bumpy, and the taste, especially when adding butter and salt. I recommended even the secondary teachers in my graduate class incorporate multi-sensory experiences because I knew it was important and engaging and that all students have different learning styles and learn differently. We learn through sensory input, and providing different sensory experiences improves a student’s ability to connect to information.
All people have varying sensory strengths and what is referred to as learning styles. A multi-sensory approach helps to meet the needs of different students, and had I had the term back then I would have said it also brings learning into present-moment awareness.
As I understand mindfulness from my studies all these years later, I see I’ve been a natural student of this approach since childhood, and I love bringing this awareness to new students today. MJ
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Mindfulness is so important these days