The importance of the adult nervous system in creating classroom equanimity

Viennese neurologist Viktor Frankel wrote, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space, is our power to choose our response. In that response lies our growth and our freedom.” Mindfulness can play a part in creating and sustaining the kind of atmosphere and community that frees us to teach and offers kids the freedom to learn.

It’s summer. Kids are out playing, or at camp or daycare, or on vacation with family. There are a couple of precious weeks of relaxed schedules and potential adventure awaiting the students who will fill our classrooms next month.

Unless you happen to be a teacher, particularly a newly minted one.

Welcome to August. While much of the world is still focused on fun, teachers and other caring adults in schools are already busy.

Let’s see—paperwork, network access, certification completion, paperwork, shopping for classroom supplies, reading up on incoming students, integrating whole-class schedules with specialist time for kids on IEPs (individual education plans), paperwork, curriculum planning, and meetings, meetings meetings. The list is long and the time is suddenly short. If you are an itinerant provider, such as a physical, occupational, or speech therapist who travels from school to school, the challenge can be even greater. Does this scenario feel familiar to you? You’re deep in your thinking brain.

There is a reason that preflight instructions given on planes tell us to put on our own oxygen masks before helping others. As the teacher, your nervous system is the nervous system in the room.

You’ve just made a quick inventory of sensation that mindfulness practitioners call a “body scan”.

Now imagine what it would be like to begin your teaching day with these sensations present. How would your relationships with students and colleagues be affected? How would your classroom environment be shaped? Come mid-winter, when the weather keeps kids stuck inside for days and the liveliest organisms are the cold germs zipping through the building, how will you dredge up the enthusiasm and energy that you felt in those first weeks of school? How do we take care of ourselves, so that we can take care of our school family? That’s where the feeling brain comes in.

In the next installment, we’ll look at how teachers and other caring adults can use awareness of emotion and sensation to orient our nervous system toward calm, focus, and flexibility.