gence and create a balance between our heart and head in order to be our best selves in the many facets of our lives. Awareness is the first step and I think Joe and I helped raise student awareness through our process of composition and through discussion of the subject matter.


Mindfulness and Listening: “Listening from the Heart”


“Listening from the Heart” is listening with the whole self. It allows your imagination to roam and it settles the nervous system. Unlike traditional listening lessons that are more cognitively based, listening from the heart allows students to feel and experience the music through paying attention to their breath while lying on the floor in their own space. Listening in this way created a beautiful feeling in my class- room. Anything that settles the body helps us be more em- bodied and mindful. From that calmer state, many positive emotions and experiences can arise.


Last fall a student unexpectedly brought in a CD from his home country of Ghana. As this was a particularly active class, my mind punted to figure out how to engage the stu- dents when we didn’t know the song or the language. Inspi- ration came when I saw my bin of squishy balls. I directed students to lie face up and place a ball under the heart area. My idea was that a more expanded chest cavity would fa- cilitate more open breathing. Wow, did this work well! Stu- dents progressively settled into a more relaxed state, with most spontaneously closing their eyes and going very quiet. Some waved their arms to the music as if they were conduct- ing. My most energetic students commented how calm they felt afterwards.


This activity became a hit with all grade


levels and we expanded our “listening from the heart” reper- toire to include a wide variety of music


Conclusion


Mindfulness deepens our relationship to ourselves and opens up our ability to sense what we are feeling from the inside out. From this space we are able to interact more pos- itively and gracefully with the world around us. Empirical and scientific evidence about mindfulness is growing with an explosion of research now coming out from many higher education centers.


Opportunities for mindfulness training


for teachers are now widely available. I was fortunate to be a participant in the Summer Institute for Educators at the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California Berkeley in June 2015.8


We heard international presenters


report on the latest research that confirms the value of prac- ticing self-awareness and seeking practices that help us live “a meaningful life”.


Mindfulness is an approach that I believe best gives teachers 12


a sustainable tool to handle the challenges of the job and best addresses the emotional needs of the complex individuals that we teach. I’ve seen lots of discipline systems come and go, but nothing has felt so core or effective as mindfulness. It is mindfulness that helps me re-focus on the positive, keep faith in my own inner compass, and operate my teaching from there. Every day brings new challenges and I continue to humbly learn. I am so grateful to the teachers, friends, and colleagues in my life who facilitated the rich sensory experiences that have guided my choices on my life’s path. I am so grateful to my students for having shared the journey of exploring mindfulness and participating with their open, whole selves. As a teacher, it is my greatest wish to help my students enjoy and thrive as they experience the wonder of sound, the world around them, themselves, and each other. A mindful approach has helped me deliver on this. _________________________


1Jon Kabat-Zinn. Mindfulness for Beginners, (Louisville,


CO: Sounds True, 2012, 1). 2


ny Books, 2013). 3


33). 4


Rick Hanson. Hardwiring Happiness, (New York: Harmo-


Howard Schubiner and Michael Betzold. Unlearn Your Pain, (Pleasant Ridge, MI: Mind Body Publishing, 2012,


Judy Collins. Over the Rainbow, (Watertown, MA: Charles- bridge Publishing, 2013). The song, “Over the Rainbow”, was originally written for the movie The Wizard of Oz (1939) with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E. Y. Har-


burg. 5


The song was originally written for the movie Here Come the Waves (1944) with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by


Johnny Mercer. 6


Center for Youth Issues, 2011). 7


disc (forthcoming). 8


Julia Cook. Soda Pop Head, (Chattanooga, TN: National Joe Reilly. The Circle. Earthwork Music Label, compact http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/education


Cynthia Page-Bogen retired from Ann Arbor Public Schools in 2016. She has degrees in music from the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University, and the Dal- croze Elementary Certificate, a Kodaly Level I certificate, and Levels I - III Orff certification.


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