Mindfulness for Critical Educators

This course provides teachers engaged with critical pedagogy with the tools and techniques to support a mindfulness practice that can be applied both personally and professionally. While learning practical mindfulness applications, together we will answer the following: 1) How do we as teachers embody mindfulness with our critical pedagogy?; 2) What are our shared goals in embodying both mindfulness and critical pedagogy?; and 3) What effect does this embodiment have on our actions with students, community, and curriculum? Teachers are invited to become “co-researchers” on this critical participatory action research project, where we co-create knowledge and share strategies, put our strategies into action, and reflect on the effects of our actions. 
Participants will learn about the benefits and challenges of teaching mindfulness in schools, critique its uses, and create practical ways to apply mindfulness and other contemplative practices within a feminist embodied, decolonizing framework for the purposes of social change. Participants will learn to mindfully reflect on personal identity and positionality within their teaching practice in order to develop an embodied critical praxis, as well as learn to embed mindfulness practices with their engagement with students and community. A participatory action, co-reflection model will be utilized to develop a professional community to support participants’ growth in a critical social mindfulness pedagogy.

Course Number: EDUC-40320
Credit: 3.00 unit(s)