Attentive Podcasts - Attentive Teaching

Attentive Teaching Podcast

Co-founder and longtime high school social studies teacher Cindy Schwartz talks to us every week about the most important topics, tips, and concerns around teaching a mindful, trauma-informed classroom.

Check out our episodes

Weaving music into your classroom curriculum is a great way to ensure that whatever you’re teaching — be it compassion, empathy, kindness, caring, truth, justice, honesty, or tolerance — really sinks in. Roxee Lore, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Elementary Education at Attentive Teaching, provides suggestions for how to incorporate Rock n’ Roll into various school subjects.

Listen to the songs mentioned in this blogcast on our companion playlist!

Narrated by: Rebecca Bellan

5th century Greek philosopher Socrates once said, "An unexamined life is not worth living." So how do we make sure our students are living an examined life? Socrates would tell us to encourage our students to ask more questions. By questioning, we come to the truth. Are our students asking enough questions? Are we, as teachers, asking enough questions ourselves and taking time to wait for responses?

This episode dives into the role of questioning in the physical and remote classroom and poses our own essential question - "Is handraising obsolete?" We hope not.

When was the last time you made time to sit with yourself and just be? Attentive Teaching’s Head of Yoga & Mindfulness Carmella Stone-Klein explains how to create a sacred space in your home where you can practice self-reflection and cultivate calm.

Narrated by: Rebecca Bellan

It’s the age old question – why don’t some kids like going to school?” We know kids like to learn. That is a given. And since school is for learning, why wouldn’t all kids want to go? Why do younger children generally seem eager and excited to go to school and answer their teachers’ questions, while older students do not exhibit that same excitement and enthusiasm? What happened?

Studies show that our awareness of the ‘disaffected’ or ‘disconnected’ student may hold the answer. Students who are ‘disaffected’ are usually overly quiet and passive or disruptive and overtly rebellious. They have ‘checked out’, are not engaged and have poor grades. Being ‘disaffected’ has nothing to do with intelligence. It has to do with not being engaged. So, how do we as teachers engage the ‘disaffected’, ‘disconnected’ student? How do we help those students become connected to our classrooms, our classwork and us as teachers? How do we get ‘disaffected’ students to get excited about learning again?

This episode offers a number of doable tips on how to engage the ‘disaffected’ and ‘disconnected’ student. It starts with engaging and connecting!

Has 2020 made it even harder to maintain a healthy work-life balance? Teacher-Mentor Elzy Muñoz highlights five easy ways to set personal boundaries for yourself during these difficult times.

Narrated by: Rebecca Bellan

In July of 2018, New York School Talk put out an article entitled, “The Power of Vulnerability in the Classroom”. In the article, author Vivett Dukes quotes educator Whitney Hollins, who writes, “being vulnerable is often viewed as synonymous with being weak.” Therein lies the problem. If being vulnerable requires us to take chances, to think ‘outside the box’ and change course, we wonder if it is worth the risk? Maybe this is the best time to be vulnerable. Especially for teachers. The worldwide pandemic has created such fear, apprehension and disconnectedness that maybe, just maybe being more vulnerable is the antidote. What have we got to lose? Let’s just change it up.

In this episode, we challenge teachers to think about taking the risk to teach more vulnerably-to teach in a more humane way by sharing with their students who they are as people without worrying if this new found vulnerability will cause them to lose control over their classrooms. Being human, forgiving and compassionate and sharing a bit of yourself in terms of your likes and dislikes, in an appropriate manner, might be just the way to reduce behavioral issues and student apathy. Give your students a bit of a window into who you are and they will flock to your class.

When teachers are more vulnerable and more human, students feel a greater sense of connectedness and trust. Experts agree those components of connectedness and trust must be present for students to truly learn. So…let’s show just how human we all are. Perhaps this is the best time to do so.

Can history teach our students to empathize? Secondary educator Cindy Schwartz highlights specific activities that you can utilize to teach empathy in your classroom.

Attentive Teaching’s Lauren Navarra narrates a guided meditation for teachers focusing on safety, health, and peace.

With Thanksgiving coming and looking very different this year, we thought we’d take some time to consider what gratitude is and how we can build a “thank you” mindset into our own lives and the lives of our students. How do we build gratitude into our classrooms and our lives? We can ask our students to keep gratitude journals, we can ask our students to write and acknowledge their strengths and how they can use their strengths to do something nice for someone. We could read stories about gratefulness like The Gift of the Magi or have a “Good Week Reflection” like the Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley suggests.

Ultimately, if we practice gratefulness, we will be physically, emotionally and mentally healthier. Well-known psychologist and researcher Dr. Robert Emmons says, “Grateful people…feel more hope, optimism, and a desire to get along with others.” Need we say more? Happy “Different” Thanksgiving. We wish you health, happiness and peace. We are grateful for you!

In 2013, EdTech posed an interesting question – “If you were offered a job that paid an average annual salary of $49,000 and required you to work 12-16 hour days, would you take it?” This very same article from EdTech continued to remind us that although the average teacher workday is 6.7 hours, the average teacher gets to school one hour earlier in the morning and often stays an average of 3-5 hours beyond the traditional school day for meetings, grading and other administrative or volunteer activities. Business Insider reported in 2019 that on average, teachers take home 2-3 hours of work a day.

So, we wonder, how do teachers find time for self-care? How do teachers nourish their need to rest, re-charge and re-set for the next day at school if there isn’t any time both at school or at home to do that? And ultimately, will teachers be able to be their best in the classroom if they are unable to find time for self-care?

In today’s episode, we ask teachers to consider being selfish. We are offering a number of simple practices that could help teachers find ways to increase their self-care. Let us help you find some You Time so that you can feel nourished, rested and in love with teaching again. At Attentive Teaching we firmly believe that when teachers are nourished, rested and calm, their students will be too. It’s a win-win.

Edutopia, an educational foundation founded by award-winning filmmaker George Lucas in 1991, tells us that 16% of all children and 40% of students diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder have oppositional defiant disorder also called ODD. These students exhibit behaviors that can include temper tantrums, a disregard for rules and authority and a propensity to annoy other students while claiming that they are victims not responsible for their misfortunes. These students can be vindictive as well. Education experts tell us that negative reinforcement or punishments often exacerbate these feelings in students who suffer from ODD.

19th century naturalist and writer, Henry David Thoreau once said that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Perhaps, our job as teachers is to unwrap what the kinds of desperation that our students are experiencing and tailor our approach to their oppositional behavior with compassion, positive reinforcement and strategies to help them self-soothe.

Today’s episode asks teachers to consider “bending with the wind” when approaching oppositional students in their classroom. Understanding and managing oppositional behavior within our classrooms with self-regulating activities that could include deep breathing exercises, meditation chimes, project-based assessments, coloring exercises and other forms of positive reinforcement might just help us enable the most oppositional of students to ‘bend with the wind” rather than break during the storm.

In our second episode, we focus on an ever present problem for teachers – quieting down a class. How can we, as educators, better help our students to ‘settle in’ for the day or for a particular lesson without being reactive or encouraging our students to be reactive? Psychology Today tells us that all individuals respond to respect. Additionally, students follow our lead and we need to model non-reactive behavior, compassion and calm if we expect them to.

Today’s episode offers practical, doable tips on how to calmly, mindfully and creatively quiet down students so that classes start on time, are productive and engaging. Ever try using a meditation bell to start your class? “Chime In” with us to see how it works!

In 2019, The Pacer Center, an organization dedicated to helping schools and families attend to the needs of students with disabilities, revealed that approximately 20% of students in our nation’s schools were bullied. That’s one out of five students. Psychologists tell us that when students do not feel safe in their classrooms and schools at large, genuine learning cannot take place. The brain is not hardwired to process information under that kind of physical and emotional stress.

In today’s episode we recognize the importance of October as National Bullying Prevention Month by offering strategies that help educators identify bullying behavior, address it and provide calmer and more peaceful classrooms where students can better control their behavior through self-regulating activities.

Attentive Teaching is an education nonprofit that aims to help teachers create peaceful and safe classrooms by recognizing and addressing trauma and stress-related issues through mindfulness and self-regulating techniques. The Attentive Teaching podcast is here to help listeners improve themselves, and their classroom.

Attentive Teaching Podcast

Check out our episodes

Sign Up For Our Newsletter!

Please follow & like us

Contact us