What does Mindfulness mean?
Mindfulness is giving conscious and unjudgemental attention to the present (John Kabat-Zinn). Being Mindful is a state of deep awareness. In other words, being Mindful is taking control of our consciousness by shutting down the “auto-pilot”. This means being conscious of our consciousness.
Mindfulness is not a therapeutic application. It contains in-class; basic mental and physical activities directed by teachers before and after lessons.
Mindfulness activities are composed of social and academic components. While the introduction of these components to students takes about one lesson hour, teachers’ application takes 3-10 minutes.
What is being a Mindful School?
Throughout recent years, all the schools in the world are on their way to become a Mindful school. To do this, every school staff and teacher direct their students into being Mindful, while adapting their lifestyle accordingly. Mindfulness is a positively developing school environment. It leads students to become deeply aware of the moment they live in; understanding themselves first, then those around them, and live by feeling. Mindfulness is a lifestyle. The components building this lifestyle do not only focus on academic achievement, but also contains skills such as being good, expressing good wishes innerly and vocally, appreciating existing values, feeling the experiences whole-heartedly, empathising and forgiving, and being fully aware while walking, eating, and moving.
Why is it important?
From childs to adults, all of us are in constant motion. Most of the time we are not even aware of the moment we live in and what we are doing. Instead of finishing tasks we look somewhere else. What about our mind? The questions and thoughts revolving around our minds have mostly little to do with the current moment. Our minds come back and forth between the past and the future, inbetween focusing on the moment. Thus, we spend our lives just like on auto-pilot. Mindfulness brings us back the control of our lives.
Here are some “Mindful School” Seminars initiated by our teachers.