May: a Month of Mindfulness :)
ClassDojo
2017-05-08
Today, we’re incredibly excited to announce our new collaboration with Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence to bring Mindfulness to millions of classrooms around the world! Together with Yale, we’ve created a set of activities related to Mindfulness for home and school; these will be coming out over the next two weeks.
Why mindfulness?
Mindfulness is the ability to focus on the present moment; to observe without criticism and to be compassionate with yourself. It has also been shown that regular mindfulness practice — even just a few minutes per day — improves kids’ optimism, reduces stress, and increases their ability to feel empathy for others.
Marc Brackett, the Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, put it this way: “practicing mindfulness helps to reduce stress and enhance attention — factors critical to children’s success, not only in school but later in life. The challenge is ensuring that students, regardless of where their school is located, have the opportunity to benefit from mindfulness.”
In addition to the Mindfulness activities, we asked thousands of parents and teachers in the US what they thought of the topic. And what we found was surprising: even though 70% of parents and teachers wanted a mindfulness practice at their school, only 13% had one.
That’s where the collaboration with Yale comes in. For over 25 years, the Center for Emotional Intelligence has been a leader in emotional intelligence, working with teachers and parents across the country to help students develop this important skill.
Over the next two weeks all ClassDojo classrooms will be able to take part in a range of mindful activities ranging from videos and discussion guides, to classroom activities including breathing and mindful movements. Visit https://www.classdojo.com/ideas to take part! And, when you do, we’d love to hear all about it on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Just use the hashtag #MindfulMojo to see what teachers, students, and parents all around the world are doing to practice mindfulness.
Here’s to us making May the Month of Mindfulness! !🙂
Cheers,
