Damico 2017

Source:   ARTICLE

APA Citation:

Damico, N., & Whitney, A. E. (2017). Turning off autopilot: Mindful writing for teachers. Voices from the Middle, 25(2), 37-40.

Author bio:

Nicole Damico taught middle and high school English language arts and is now an assistance professor of education at the University of Central Florida.

Angeline “Anne” Elrod Whitney is a professor of education at the Pennsylvania State University.

Thesis/Argument:

 We believe that writing can be a way to employ mindfulness-based practices in teaching and learning … while teachers have often used writing to remember and reflect upon experience, mindful writing goes further, leading teachers to delve deeper, challenge moment-to-moment judgments and assumptions, take stock of feelings and bodily sensations, and try on different perspectives. 37

Discussion/Conclusion:

Writing requires you to be present. In this way, writing is a helpful tool for quieting a wandering mind or focusing our attention; it can be a way of staying still and engaging more mindfully with the world around us … [a way to] re-center and re-focus our presence in the classroom. 37

When we become more mindful, we begin to clear away the familiar patterns and perspectives within which we operate. We can shed solidified, institutionalized, and sometimes unkind notions about the kinds of writers, students, teachers, or people we are. This is especially important for teachers, because we know that teachers’ beliefs influence almost every aspect of teaching practice. 37

 [Another team of teachers we know opens their monthly meetings with quiet writing time.] There is no goal to the writing other than to notice emotions, sensations, and concerns, both to examine which might benefit from some deliberate attention and simply to make a transition from the busy teaching day into the more intellectual work the team is about to do. 40

The hand is writing, the mind is composing, the heart is responding to just the one task. 40

Mindful Techs-ploration (exercise):

Students [teacher candidates] write through a guided meditation about their mobile devices, writing down feelings, emotions, and thoughts associated with their use of their own smartphones and the shifts they experience when asked to put their devices away. 38

The teacher candidates are usually surprised, both by the emotional dependence they experience associated with their devices and by unfair assumptions they had previously held about their middle and high school students. 38

Unsent Letters (exercise):

We are going to write a letter … but we are not going to send it. Think of a student who is on your mind … 38

A key aspect of this practice is that you don’t have to send the letter … you can focus on what you would say to this person if you could; the exercise is about searching your heart and saying the unsayable, NOT about crafting a text for an audience. 39

[this exercise] can clarify your thoughts and feelings about a particular student … reflect on perceptions of students, going past reflection to really being present with and aware of thoughts and emotions 39

Considering students and our reactions to them in a mindful way also re-humanizes both parties: the student you write about and you … whereas simply journalling about the event might involve narrating it and reflecting upon it, this mindful writing helps a teacher to become more aware of and in control of how the experience felt and still feels. 39