Mindful and Positive Relationships as Foundational to Student Support

Abstract

Modern public schools are in a crisis on two fronts; society is making more demands of the school system to teach students how to be more capable and marketable in an ever-changing digitalized global community while student enrollment with low social-emotional ability has increased meaning that students are less motivated to engage in their learning at the academic level. Low student motivation leads naturally to high student failure and an increased level of negative relationships with school staff and peers. In turn, these negative relationships limit the whole learning community through teacher burn-out and increased perception of the school as an unsafe area. This perception and teacher burn-out results in less effective teaching and lower academic motivation in peers. However, motivation can be increased through school staff bridging the present ability deficits of the students by fostering positive, efficacious relationships. Positive and effective relationships can be developed through implementation of mindfulness as a pervasive practice and holistic value throughout the whole school in tandem with the creation of community groups acting as the home base for students across grade levels to connect with specific school staff and develop effective self-directed mindfulness practice with a group of individuals that is constant, but not part of their grade cohort.