“Our children need mindfulness in schools,” Brooklyn’s Borough President and mindfulness enthusiast, Eric Adams, declared on Meditation Day, September 12 2019, to a crowd of educators, students and the public in front of Borough Hall. “They need it as a wellness skill to help them cope with their stressful, often traumatic lives.”
No doubt many school children do undergo a troublesome and precarious existence, and some can and do benefit from mindfulness to get them through their days. However, adjusting students to their personal pain while leaving its social, economic and political sources untouched is unlikely to promote their long-term wellbeing, still less fulfill the potential of mindfulness in transforming education for the better.
That’s assuming that education means optimal self-development, wisdom, creativity, meaningfulness, and social connectedness for all children - as opposed to a way for individuals to get ahead of others in society, enable students to help the US economy compete in the global marketplace, or generate higher test scores, compliant and conformist behavior, and increased attendance and graduation rates.
