Mindfulness in the Classroom: Learning from the Inside Out

Bringing mindfulness into schools transforms learning while empowering children with life skills to break cycles of poverty, violence and despair.

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I hear this over and over with greater frequency these days: “What’s happening in our schools?” 

The unfortunate reality is that the answer to that question has broadened beyond the issues of declining grades, the achievement gap, and high teacher turnover to now including increased school violence, skyrocketing rates of teen suicide, bullying, and substance abuse. 

So what’s next and how do we respond?

The sense of frustration and despair that underlies these trends is what inspired me, and my lifelong friend Janice Houlihan, to create Inner Explorer — a guided mindfulness program designed for children and schools from PreK-12. 

As mothers of young boys, we created the program because we recognized that helping kids develop mindfulness skills early in life would be a game changer for them.

While it may not stop the negative influences of the outside world, it would give them the tools and habits of mind to navigate