Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Contemplative (Chemistry) Classroom

con·tem·plate – verb, “look thoughtfully for a long time at”

It might seem like contemplation has a natural role to play in education. Learning anything new would seem to involve looking, being thoughtful, investing time. But nothing can raise student (and faculty and administrator) highbrows faster, or higher, than suggesting that classroom time be given over to silent contemplation. So a recent Washington Post story (To get students to focus, some professors are asking them to close their eyes, Washington Post, A. Reiner, 7 Apr 2016) about Bryn Mawr physical chemistry professor, Michelle Francl, and her use of silent contemplation to lead students through some of the mathematical mysteries of quantum mechanics got me thinking … so much of organic chemistry is visual. What might my students gain if I paused over a complicated structural formula and said a la Francl, “We’re going to take a minute and a half and just look at it”?

Upcoming changes in meditation calendar

We will continue meeting on Thursdays in April, but May will be a month of transition with a mix of Thursday meetings early in the month giving way to Tuesday meetings later in the month. The last Thursday meeting will be May 12, and the first Tuesday meeting will be May 10 (note: this is Finals week so it seemed like two meetings might be a good idea!).

June, July, and August meetings will all fall on Tuesdays except when I’m traveling (a common summer occurrence). A complete list of meeting dates can be found on Our Schedule. If you use Google calendar, ask me to share the Reed Meditation calendar with you.

Avoiding Burnout on the Picket Line

My picture of a social education activist is someone with high ideals, a person who lives their life according to principles that can serve as an example to us. This rosy picture, however, hides the high costs that can accompany a life of commitment. P. Gorski has this to say, “Activist burnout, which causes activists to disengage from their activism, is a formidable barrier to the sustainability of social justice movements, including those focused on social justice in educational contexts. However, the cultures of these movements often disregard the importance of self-care, seeing it as self-indulgence, putting activists at even higher risks of burnout.” Read the rest of Gorski’s article, “Relieving Burnout and the ‘‘Martyr Syndrome’’ Among Social Justice Education Activists: The Implications and Effects of Mindfulness” in the Urban Rev (2015) 47:696–716 DOI 10.1007/s11256-015-0330-0

Facing Academic Fears

Students may believe that they have a personal monopoly when it comes to fear of academic failure, but there is plenty of fear to be found in almost any classroom. Not only is fear of failure widespread among students, it is also found in faculty.

A team of Norwegian researchers has just published an exploratory study that asks whether Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) can help students deal better with their fear of academic failure: Hjeltnes, A. et al., “Facing the fear of failure: An explorative qualitative study of client experiences in a mindfulness-based stress reduction program for university students with academic evaluation anxiety”, International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, DOI 10.3402/qhw.v10.27990.

Is Mindfulness Useful? – Feb ’16 Updates

Here are my top picks from the Feb ’16 issue of the Mindfulness Research Monthly newsletter, a publication of the American Mindfulness Research Association (AMRA). The newsletter lists several interesting articles describing the effects of mindfulness interventions on military personnel. My top picks include studies of the connections between mindfulness practice and perceived stress in college students, successful parenting behaviors, and stress levels during romantic conflicts. I also picked out several review articles examining the status of mindfulness research with regard to job burnout, executive functioning, ADHD, and possible concerns about the suitability of mindfulness practice.

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United by hope

It’s Super Tuesday. Folks all over the country are either voting, counting votes, or watching the count from afar, hoping that citizens in the Super Tuesday states haven’t set the Union careening towards the cliff. Mindfulness seems to have flown out the window … but perhaps not all is lost. Consider this preview article from the May 2016 issue of Lion’s Roar: “A Buddhist psychoanalyst puts our divided country on the couch,” by Robert Langan.

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A Compassion Incubator

Life lessons can be found everywhere and in every moment. You don’t need to sit on a cushion in silence, but you do need to open yourself up to the moment and its possibilities. Meditator, writer, and gym teacher, Alex Tzelnic, describes how an elementary school gym class can function as a “compassion incubator” for the Tricycle blog (22 Feb 2016) in “(Meta)Physical Education: Temper Temper”

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