ITEM PHOTO BY OWEN O’ROURKE
A student takes a moment to meditate in between classes at Swampscott High School.
By GAYLA CAWLEY
SWAMPSCOTT — Students at Swampscott High School are encouraged to take a breather before some of their classes.
Peter Franklin, an English teacher and mindfulness instructor at the school, said there’s been a mindfulness initiative at the school for about three years, which has been expanding annually. Mindfulness is a moment by moment awareness of our thoughts, emotions, sensation and surrounding environment.
The expansion of the mindfulness program at Swampscott High School fits into Superintendent Pamela Angelakis’ initiative to focus on mental health. In October, two new programs were unveiled at the school, including one aimed at helping students transition back to high school after they have been hospitalized.
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Swampscott Integrated for Transition (SWIFT) is specifically designed to address the needs of students re-entering school after absences, due to serious mental problems or medical illness.
The Harbor Program is a special education plan for students with emotional disabilities that provides a supportive learning community with direct case management to facilitate student progress.
Franklin said mindfulness work has also been done with students in those programs, as a means of bringing them better social and emotional health.
The English teacher said the approach helps teens with time management, puts the brakes on negative runaway emotions, such as thinking a poor test score means an automatic poor class grade, and reminds them that everything will be OK. But it’s not a solution to every problem.
“There’s nothing magical about this,” Franklin said. “It’s not a cure-all. It’s something that’s very practical. It’s very accessible and can be as simple as just breathing, something we do all day, every day … It really just gives people, especially students, permission to just take a breath.”
This year, a schoolwide initiative has begun, championed by Franklin, school psychologist Craig Harris, and school adjustment counselor Sarah Kelley. Franklin said the effort has included working with the school’s TV production program to put together short clips of different mindfulness activities, such as meditation and breathing exercises, which will be distributed to faculty members.
The teachers can then either play the videos directly in their classrooms, or use them as training tools for instruction on how to bring the activities to their lessons. Ten clips will be prepared.
Franklin also runs workshops for faculty, giving them mindfulness tools to bring into the classroom, which included a personnel development program he ran in the summer for instructors from the district’s elementary schools to the high school.
Franklin, who is certified through the Mindfulness in Schools Project and Mindful Schools, begins each of his classes with mindfulness exercises. A typical exercise, he said, begins by him ringing a little chime, with his students getting into a nice, comfortable, position, closing their eyes and resting their hands, which brings the focus back to their breathing.
He said it’s a great way to start class and bring calm to the hectic five minutes between classes when students are racing around. It also allows teens a chance to relieve some of the stress they may feel from exams and college applications, bringing some calmness into their lives, he added.
“It’s a great way to allow them to decompress for a moment, just to stop and let go of everything that’s happened in the day so far, and move forward,” Franklin said. “I find it’s a great energy shift from one class to the next.”
He’ll frequently guide his classes through a brief meditation. All of his seniors have a gratitude journal, which they write in every day, mindfully expressing their appreciation for good things. His students also enjoy coloring breaks.
Another activity several times a week is called pocket goodness, where teens write one good thing that happened during the day on a piece of paper, fold it and put it in their pocket to refer to if they hit a rough patch later on.
Other faculty at the high school also practice mindfulness in their classrooms, including some in the English department, the health teacher and one of the language teachers, who is also a yoga instructor, and does exercises in Spanish with students.
Franklin said Robert Murphy, the school’s principal, has also embraced mindfulness, and allows time at faculty meetings for the activities.
Mindfulness in schools in not unique to Swampscott. Nearby Marblehead High School began its program two years ago, which also includes brief exercises before some classes, and has expanded to include a Zen room, where students can go during their study halls for guided meditation. Franklin is working on finding the space for the addition of a similar room in Swampscott.
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley.