September 23, 2022
In this episode, Wendy speaks with contemplative educator and researcher Patricia (Tish) Jennings. Tish has been a pioneer in bringing mindfulness and compassion into school settings, with a particular focus on helping teachers. This conversation covers many topics, including:
- her experience as an educator and a meditator;
- how teacher stress contributes to the classroom environment;
- how contemplative practice can help bring awareness to automatic responses, and help shift them;
- the process of attunement and our core as social beings;
- how teachers can be sensitive to students who have experienced trauma;
- problems with the industrialized model of education;
- how teachers can be a force for change from the inside;
- yoga and body sensation as mindfulness for young children;
- somatic awareness and understanding emotions;
- and what young people need most right now.
Patricia (Tish) Jennings, PhD, is an internationally recognized leader in the fields of
social and emotional learning and mindfulness in education and Professor of Education
at the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia. Her
research places a specific emphasis on teacher stress and how it impacts the social
and emotional context of the classroom. Tish led the team that developed CARE, a
mindfulness-based professional development program shown to significantly improve
teacher well-being, classroom interactions and student engagement in the largest
randomized controlled trial of a mindfulness-based intervention designed specifically to address teacher occupational stress.
Earlier in her career, Tish spent more than 22 years as a teacher, school director and teacher educator. She is the author numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters, as well as several books—her latest is Teacher Burnout Turnaround: Strategies for Empowered Teachers. Tish is also a co-author of Flourish: The Compassionate Schools Project curriculum, an integrated health and physical education program and is co-Investigator on a large randomized controlled trial to evaluate the curriculum’s efficacy. A member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Fostering Healthy Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Development among Children and Youth, she was awarded the Cathy Kerr Award for Courageous and Compassionate Science by the Mind & Life Institute in 2018, and recognized by Mindful Magazine as one of “Ten Mindfulness Researchers You Should Know.”
Resources
Faculty website at University of Virginia
- Book: Teacher Burnout Turnaround: Strategies for Empowered Educators
- Book: The Trauma-Sensitive Classroom: Building Resilience with Compassionate Teaching
- Book: Mindfulness for Teachers: Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom
- Kerr Award Lecture: Education for Peace: Transforming our Schools with Mindfulness and Compassion
- Paper (Randomized Controlled Trial): Long-term impacts of the CARE program on teachers’ self-reported social and emotional competence and well-being
- Essay: Teachers Can Leverage Their Value to Transform Schooling, K-12 Talk
- From Teacher Burnout to Teacher-led Reform, Mind & Life Institute
- Tish Jennings’ Dialogue With the Dalai Lama: A 15-Year Journey in Mindfulness and Education, Contemplative Sciences Center