Suddenly, the room is filled with the
sound of a chime and for a moment
everyone is still. The sound comes
from a tiny cymbal on Mr. Stern's
desk. He uses it to signal a moment
of calm when everyone stops
to take a breath. It is a moment
when the students pay attention
more to themselves than to their
surroundings. It is the kind of focus
that is at the crux of mindfulness.
Early on in the school year, a
contingent of RHA faculty attended
Mental Health Empowerment Day
which brought together educators
from across Toronto to learn from
Sunnybrook Medical Health Sciences
Centre experts.
Elementary
Combatting Anxiety the Mindful Way
Things are a bit
hectic in Jason
Stern's grade 4
class at the moment.
Nothing out of the
ordinary. Just the
usual transition
between recess and
the scurry for books
and papers and
settling in for class
to begin again.
An astonishing number of our kids
are anxious, and the numbers are
only going up. One in five students in
the classroom exhibits anxiety, with a
portion of those kids struggling with
a debilitating anxiety disorder.
The opinions on why anxiety has
skyrocketed are as varied as the
students themselves: faster-paced
environments, sky-high academic
expectations, social media,
helicopter parenting, unstable
families, and a scarier world than
the one in which we grew up.
