After a yearlong exploration by a faculty task force on mindfulness, our school has launched a community-wide mindfulness program, using as our guide a curriculum from The Inner Resilience Program, a project of The Tides Center in Manhattan. Linda Lantieri, Inner Resilience founder and author of Building Emotional Intelligence:Techniques to Cultivate Inner Strength in Children and co-founder of The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), spoke to a group of a hundred parents about the need for schools to better address the inner lives of children.

Lantieri’s talk to parents was part of the roll-out of our school’s mindfulness program which began with a two day faculty retreat in August where teachers trained to bring contemplative practice and a mindful approach to teaching to our learning community.

At Back to School Nights the first week in October, parents will have the opportunity to hear more about the ways in which teachers will incorporate mindfulness into their classrooms depending on the age of their children and the discipline they teach. In addition, interested parents can register to participate in a five-session workshop specifically for parents run by The Inner Resilience Program and held here at Unquowa.