Educate Your Senses through Mindfulness

Presenter: Brandt Smith
For: Everyone
CPD Hours: 1.5

Overview

“The senses, being the explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge.” – Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

Mindfulness is a sure way to sharpen your senses. Whether you’re a professed skeptic or an eager novice, you’re likely to benefit from this (re)introduction to mindfulness. This webinar will help you discover what it may offer you personally, how it may benefit your students, and provide you with ways to cultivate and normalize your personal practice.

We’ll start with a short guided-practice, where we will examine the simplicity—and the difficulty—of settling our busy minds. Then we’ll break down simple neuroscience that looks at the relationship between mindfulness and our nervous system and brain. We’ll look at how mindfulness can foster our emotional resilience to facilitate stronger relationships with our students.

Next, we’ll dip our toes into the vast ocean of mindfulness research. This research can help us keep a healthy perspective on the growing claims of the benefits of mindfulness. We’ll also examine strategies for growing our personal mindfulness practices.

Finally, we’ll conclude with a Q&A, where Brandt will share his own experiences of bringing mindfulness to hundreds of teachers and students of all ages.

Learner Outcomes

You will:

• Understand mindfulness from intellectual and experiential perspectives.
• Gain a rudimentary understanding of the impact of mindfulness practice on our nervous system, brain, emotions, and teaching.
• Normalize the difficulty of settling the busy mind.
• Familiarize yourself with a handful of strategies to aid your personal mindfulness practice.

About the Presenter

Brandt Smith, MEd, is an Erdkinder instructor at Clark Montessori High School in Cincinnati, OH. He is also a teacher trainer at Cincinnati Montessori Secondary Teacher Education Program (Cincinnati, OH, and Swansea, SC). He holds a mindful teacher certificate from Mindful Schools. AMS-credentialed (Secondary I – II).