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Mindfulness

Cultivating Focus, Resilience, and Compassion

Mindfulness, the simple practice  of bringing a gentle, accepting attitude to the present moment, may be one of the most important skills promoted at Harley. By developing compassion, focus, curiosity, and empathy children experience the power of mindfulness and understand the ways it can support them in personal growth, learning, and life.

Benefits of Mindfulness

Everyone faces adversity, no matter their age—after all, life is complicated! Every developmental stage can utilize mindfulness tools to decrease anxiety and promote happiness. 

Mindfulness strengthens social and emotional learning practices, skills and outcomes, and is an essential component in dealing with physical and/or emotional stress.

Students who practice mindfulness experience increases in:

  • Optimism
  • Emotional control
  • Empathy
  • Perspective-taking
  • Prosocial goals
  • Mindful attention

 

Children today are faced with an unprecedented amount of stress and anxiety: 25% of 13- to 18-year-olds will experience an anxiety disorder.

— National Institutes of Mental Health

Habits formed early inform behaviors later, even extending into adulthood. Mindfulness provides the opportunity to provide children with the habit of being kind, peaceful, and accepting. It can offer relief from difficulties as well as allowing children the joy of being truly in the present.

As childrens’ brains develop, connections in the prefrontal circuits are created fastest during early childhood. Mindfulness, which promotes skills controlled in the prefrontal cortex such as cognitive control or focus, can make a meaningful impact.

Lower School

One example can be found in our Art & Mindfulness program for Lower School. Art has a natural connection to the practice of being mindful. When the sensory experiences of art are combined with mindfulness, students not only gain a deeper, more creative, and fulfilling approach to art-making, they are able to express how they are feeling through their work.  Additionally, the Lower School faculty and counselor support student Mindfulness practices through the implementation of daily Responsive Classroom strategies and as part of the Social Emotional Learning curriculum.

Middle School

As children grow and become more independent, mindfulness is an important tool to have at the ready as they work through setbacks, meet new people, and take on new responsibilities. Using mindfulness, students can work through problems faster by understanding ways to stop and address an issue, remembering that difficulties will pass, and that they have control of themselves and their responses.

Every Grade 5 student attends a trimester-long Mindful Living class twice a week where they explore what it means to live mindfully; as well as how to integrate breathing, meditation, and mindful practices into their daily lives. Utilizing the Mindful Schools curriculum, students uncover skills they can use to cope with daily stresses, worries, fears and anxieties, as well as mindful tools to use in social interactions with others.

In Grade 6, this practice is deepened through our WISE (Working Together: International Student/Senior Exchange) program. Supported by a curriculum that is rooted in social-emotional learning, students engage in purposeful, intergenerational exchange with community-based elders. Together, students and elders learn and practice the tenets of the five core social-emotional competencies which are the foundation of a solid mindfulness education. Furthermore, our students are now challenged to apply their mindfulness skills in real world ways with people who are very different from them.

Upper School

According to research from the American Psychological Association, teens report higher levels of stress than adults. They often engage in “escape” behaviors such as playing video games or surfing the net. As part of our Grade 10 Health curriculum, mindfulness is taught as an invaluable tool in gaining increased self-awareness and learning emotional regulation. 

Mindfulness is especially appealing to this age group when students are able to apply it to relationships. One of our goals for Upper School is to reinforce that each relationship—and interaction—will benefit when students make an effort to stay present, listen carefully, and speak with honesty and kindness.

The Hospice course, a year-long elective for seniors, challenges students in their final year at Harley to apply the skills of mindfulness while connecting with and caring for people at the end of their lives. Through the course, students practice cultivating and offering the gift of compassionate, attuned presence to those who are grieving and dying.

The Harley School

1981 Clover Street
Rochester, NY 14618
(585) 442-1770

©2023 The Harley School

Our Upper School is filled with formal and informal opportunities for students to take on leadership roles. Whether following passions or learning new skills, student-driven opportunities take many shapes. 

  • Independent study: one trimester, full year, and multi-year projects have included automating our solar chimneys, coding handmade musical instruments, or developing a class on financial literacy for underserved high school students.
  • Serving on student council: 
  • STEM: Climate curriculum program, biomimicry program, NASA Hunch program

At Harley, our students learn how to evaluate social systems in order to identify complex problems in society through a lens of social justice. They take a hands-on approach to working for a fair, equitable society by researching, exploring and evaluating different perspectives, and offering solutions—both theoretical and practical.

Our faculty integrate social justice into our broader curriculum to assist students in gaining a foundational knowledge about what makes a democracy function. By gaining skills in ideating supportive pathways they become more exposed and experienced to how communities can undergo healing and restorative actions.

Students may create independent studies with supervising teachers throughout their Upper School experience or, during Grade 12, they can design Capstone projects—intensive collaborations with Harley faculty and off-campus mentors—involving rigorous academic study and culminating in public presentations. They are empowered to create their own curriculum, set goals, and work on time management skills in order to accomplish their objectives.

Independent Studies run the gamut from The Psychology of Sports to Furniture Design to The Neuroimaging of Alzheimer’s Disease. Capstones, meanwhile, are as diverse as the students who pursue them: Fictional Rochester, Autobiographical Art, Biomimicry Education, Organic Fuel, and Rochester Refugees. 

Indicative of Upper School curiosity and creativity, pursuits such as these distinguish our graduates in college. Through deep dives of this sort, Harley students master more than speaking, writing, and computing: they learn to communicate, advocate, collaborate, organize, listen, and empathize. 

About

Academics

Key Programming

Enrollment

Letter from the Head of School

Letter from the Editor

Features

Central Work that Matters: DEI

Harley Black Alumni Network

Climate Crisis Curriculum

Citizen Scientists

Joy Moss: Storytelling Roots

In Every Issue

Class Notes

Diane Donniger Award

By the Numbers

From the Archives

What’s (Who’s) New at Harley

Divisional Highlights

Alumni Profile: Vandebroek

Alumni Profiles: Keller

HAC Athletics

2021 Lives of Great Purpose Awards

1000 Words

Commencement 2022

Reunion 2022

In Memoriam

Retirements and Fond Farewells

Letter from the Head of School

Letter from the Editor

Features

Central Work that Matters

Affinity Group Forms

Climate Crisis Curriculum

Citizen Scientists

Joy Moss: Storytelling Roots

In Every Issue

Class Notes

Diane Donniger Award

By the Numbers

From the Archives

What’s (Who’s) New at Harley

Divisional Highlights

Alumni Profile: Vandebroek

Alumni Profiles: Keller

HAC Athletics

2021 Lives of Great Purpose Awards

1000 Words

Commencement 2022

Reunion 2022

In Memoriam

Retirements and Fond Farewells