Student Mantras: To Feed or Not to Feed (Which Wolf) that is the Question (9)

We had a follow -up lesson: discussion and writing prompt today to warm them up before the quiz. The writing prompt was: "Write a mantra that you use, or will use tomorrow, when you are anxious, angry, or sad." After students wrote them in their mindfulness journal, we shared them as a class. Some of them were amazing. I was like, whoa, I am totally going to use that one. Out of the mouths of students. I mean very cool. Below are some of my favorites.

"Its all for something better"
"I always go worst case scenario- think differently."
"It is all to make me see the world with new eyes."
"There are many paths to good."
"Learn not to get angry at surprises."
"6:30-6:30, I can make it twelve hours." (She wakes up at 6:30am and eats dinner at 6:30pm and she says this helps her chunk her day into manageable pieces)
"Live today, learn for tomorrow."
"Procrastination is my anxiety, do things now and that will go away."
"Fear not the future, if you look it will become noticeable."

Students enjoyed sharing there mantra's. Some students chose not to, claiming they have used a corny one since they were four, or its personal. This is expected and perfectly acceptable. I love though, that so many wanted to share theirs. It made for a great conversation.

Then we discussed the video we watched a few days ago. I have it linked here in case you missed my blog post on Tuesday. http://www.viewpure.com/vzKryaN44ss?start=0&end=0

Tuesday was our first day back and our mindfulness lesson was a bit longer than normal to just re-sync us as a community. A little self-awareness and reflection never hurt anyone. Especially 12-13 year old's. That lesson was amazing. So today, before our quiz I knew tying today's warm-up back to it, seemed like a great way to remind them, of their new strategies to stay calm and focused.

I asked them to close their eyes and think of two things: A time within the last 24 hours where their angry wolf was fed and a time within the last 24 hours when their positive wolf was fed. Then we revisited their mantra's. And I asked them- would your new mantra maybe have helped you cope with your angry wolf a little bit better? It was a great conversation and it lasted 7 minutes. It is very easy to incorporate mindfulness lessons into your classroom.

On January 20th at a district PD day, I am teaching these strategies to my colleagues in the district. In fact, there was so much interest, I am teaching it twice. It makes me very happy that mindfulness is becoming more mainstream in education. It is misunderstood and I am trying, day by day, to inspire other teachers to incorporate it into classroom life and to make sure they know how easy and inspiring it is for students. It takes a week or so to get them all on board, but it is a wonderful thing- I can't tell you how much more positive and engaged my students are. We started in August and now, it is very much a thread that runs deep throughout the fabric of our classroom culture.

It's not too late to begin. Last year I started my mindfulness lessons in January and it made a huge difference. Every day they think about their actions, write about pitfalls, peaks and feeding the angry wolf or the positive wolf. I know it has made a difference- I see it and feel it every day, in every class. You will too, I promise.