Food for Thought: Helping ourselves.

Dear all,

What a great start to the second part of the school year. Thanks to all your hard work on Monday and Tuesday both campuses looked great on Wednesday and all our students seemed excited to be back at school and ready to dive into learning. walking around both the Primary and Secondary it was clear that you had prepared some interesting activities for the students as they were immediately engaged in their work.

I hope you all enjoyed the visit of Jason and his work on Philosophy for Children. I believe that if we get our students thinking like philosophers and following clear thinking strategies then we will be preparing our students well for the future and empowering them to be able to articulate their feelings and thoughts in a well structure manner no matter who the audience.

This weeks Food for Thought focuses on you. The second part of the year has started at an incredible pace and as always time plays a big factor in whether one is able to flow with the torrent or start to feel stressed anxious and drowning. Hence, I thought this first short Ted Ed video that provides advice that can save us all time, especially when dealing with those endless lists of emails, might be a useful tool for helping us reflect upon our time management processes. This video shows us how we can use machine thinking to help us in our lives.

In this second part of my Food For Thought I would encourage you to take this opportunity to learn more about Mindfulness by participating in this 10 day free summit. Her is the link THE MINDFULNESS AND MEDITATION SUMMIT ONLINE EXPERIENCE. 32 thought leaders from the world of meditation and mindfulness will be running sessions and giving workshops during this summit and here are some of the areas that will be covered.

NEW NEUROSCIENCE

---

Learn emerging tools and principles for amplifying and accelerating the benefits of mindfulness meditation—creativity, mental focus, emotional calm

INTERCONNECTEDNESS

---

Experience the shift from a limited self–identity to a vaster consciousness that connects us to all of humanity and the planet

MINDFUL KIDS

---

For parents, caregivers, and educators, discover the keys for nurturing emotional calm, interpersonal mastery, and success in children

RESILIENCE

---

Use mindfulness training to amplify your ability to bounce back from failure, intense exertion, and setbacks

TAKING ACTION

---

Discover how mindfulness can radically shift how you face and engage with racial and social biases, conflicts, and crises of all kinds

WORK–LIFE BALANCE

---

Work together better, become a more compassionate leader, and nurture a more successful organization

As we have enjoyed the Philosophy man working with us in school this week it would seem appropriate that I include a philosophical article that encourages us to think and question. Hence, I thought I'd share the following article linked to sustainability and the need for us to be prepared to be able to take action that changes the way we live our lives in favor of a more simple existence. This article comes from AEON magazine which publishes very interesting essays on a wide range of topics.

" The he good life is the simple life. Among philosophical ideas about how we should live, this one is a hardy perennial; from Socrates to Thoreau, from the Buddha to Wendell Berry, thinkers have been peddling it for more than two millennia. And it still has plenty of adherents. Magazines such as Real Simple call out to us from the supermarket checkout; Oprah Winfrey regularly interviews fans of simple living such as Jack Kornfield, a teacher of Buddhist mindfulness; the Slow Movement, which advocates a return to pre-industrial basics, attracts followers across continents.

Through much of human history, frugal simplicity was not a choice but a necessity – and since necessary, it was also deemed a moral virtue. But with the advent of industrial capitalism and a consumer society, a system arose that was committed to relentless growth, and with it grew a population (aka ‘the market’) that was enabled and encouraged to buy lots of stuff that, by traditional standards, was surplus to requirements. As a result, there’s a disconnect between the traditional values we have inherited and the consumerist imperatives instilled in us by contemporary culture.

In pre-modern times, the discrepancy between what the philosophers advised and how people lived was not so great. Wealth provided security, but even for the rich wealth was flimsy protection against misfortunes such as war, famine, disease, injustice and the disfavour of tyrants. The Stoic philosopher Seneca, one of the richest men in Rome, still ended up being sentenced to death by Nero. As for the vast majority – slaves, serfs, peasants and labourers – there was virtually no prospect of accumulating even modest wealth...................................................... read more

Have a good Sunday,

Adrian