Food for Thought: Being not doing.

Dear all,

I will keep my words to a minimum because this weeks food for thought has a couple strands that I hope you will take time to follow.

The first video is about 20 minutes long. It is primarily about high achieving and gifted students but I think it applies to many of our students at ISHCMC. When you listen to the speaker you will find lots to reflect upon and I am sure that, as I did, you will grimace and think, 'oh, I have done that.' It relates and refers to Carol Dweck's work, our achievement culture through the language we use to praise and motivate students and how we differentiate in our classrooms.

The next strand links to the work that is going on with mindfulness. We have made great strides forward with this so far this year. It is obvious that it is taking a better grip across the school and being taken far more seriously. We have colleagues attending bthe positive education courses in Singapore and feeling we are very well placed to become a Pos Ed school. Around the world more and more schools have introduced mindfulness into their curriculum. Mindful Schools have just expanded their resources which may be useful for you to browse. They also have courses that you can be done for those looking for those differentiating items for their cv.

As the 31 day Mindfulness summit came to an end so another opportunity opened up with another 21 day free Oprah and Deepak Chopra meditation course. Of course I signed up and have started and wanted to draw your attention to session 2 which I think was excellent. If you want to hear it you will need to use the link provided and register today (Saturday) or by mid afternoon Sunday to listen to it. If you can't spend 20 minutes just start at 3:00 minutes and listen to Deepak.........it provides some ideas you can use with your students. Here is the introduction too session 2:

“Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We learn that we are what we believe. We shape our identities around what we feel to be true about ourselves. Sometimes we don’t even clearly know what our beliefs are, because many are hidden and unconscious. Beliefs we hold about ourselves may be either mild or passionate, but they all still contribute to who we are. Our meditation today brings us greater clarity about how our beliefs form our identities, because to truly understand ourselves, we need to examine our beliefs closely in the light of our awareness.

Finally a 2:00 minute video recommended by the Mindfulness summit that brings so much of what we are trying to achieve by being mindful, being in the present and appreciating every minute that we have when we have it, trying not to miss that opportunity, BEING NOT JUST DOING. Sometimes we all need reminding to take a breath.

Have a beautiful weekend.

Yours

Adrian