Kids are highly perceptive—so how can we give them feedback while also modeling mindfulness, calm, and kindness? Mindfulness Director and educator Alex Tzelnic shares tried-and-true tips for effective, mindful communication, whether in the classroom or at home.
Summary
- Modeling mindfulness when we communicate with kids and students is a research-backed educational tool.
- Giving wise feedback is a framework for encouraging students’ learning, without the sense they’re being criticized.
- Teachers can create a Mindful Language Cheat Sheet with go-to phrases for clarity, calm, and kindness.
As much as we might like to believe that growing up involves possessing wisdom, kids have a way of undermining that perception. Think of how often our most well-intentioned advice is met with a dramatic eye roll. It can even feel like sarcasm is the primary purpose of eyeballs, with sight being just a byproduct, particularly if it is unsolicited feedback you’ve deigned to offer up.
Yet kids are also often in need of feedback. Without feedback they would be in danger of losing the eyes they are so adept at rolling (“Don’t run with scissors!”). Of course, their job is to test boundaries, and our job as educators and caregivers is to nudge them toward navigating those boundaries independently without letting them fall off the cliff. It can be a delicate balance.
As a Mindfulness Director at a PK-8 school, I often think about the ways we communicate with students and how language can be such a powerful way to model mindfulness.
What Happens When Teachers Model Mindfulness?
At the start of this school year, I shared with the faculty at my school just how impactful our communication styles can be. I related one of my favorite studies on mindfulness. It involved 599 high school students, and took place over the course of the year. The study found that students that had merely perceived their teachers as more mindful at the start of the year showed greater development in mindfulness and compassion by the end of the year.
The point I was trying to make was that one doesn’t have to have a deeply developed personal practice to have an impact on student well-being. As someone trying to encourage teachers to incorporate mindfulness into their classrooms, I wanted to let them know their ability to implicitly model mindfulness might be more powerful than any explicit mindfulness lessons. After all, teaching your own curriculum is challenging in and of itself, and people feel uncomfortable implementing a tool that is not part of their own personal repertoire. If somebody asked me to start weaving chemistry into my lessons, I’d be hard-pressed to even know where to begin.
One doesn’t have to have a deeply developed personal practice to have an impact on student well-being.
It can be illuminating to grasp that how we show up and engage with students can be a crucial factor in their development. The study identified the characteristics of a mindful teacher as one that is calm, clear, and kind. The researchers concluded, “The presence of a calm, clear, and kind teacher can support students’ holistic growth, whether through modeling or need fulfillment.” Language can impart the kind of coded lessons that could meaningfully influence student behavior, letting them know that they are seen and supported, and in turn helping them see and support others.
How to Give Wise Feedback
Of course, it can be difficult to communicate with clarity, calmness, and kindness, particularly when you are outnumbered by an audience that is there because it has to be, and not necessarily because it wants to be. Though we might assume our statements are innocuous, from the student perspective much of our communication can feel critical. Asking, “Did you complete the assignment?” could be interpreted by a student as their teacher thinking they’re too inept to remember to get work done on their own.
To help with inadvertent critiquing, I also shared the concept of “wise feedback” with my faculty. Psychologist David Yeager explained that providing a clear and transparent statement about the reason feedback is being given helps adolescents understand that one has high standards that can be met, and the feedback comes across as encouragement rather than nagging. “I’m wondering if you completed that assignment, because there are some fascinating nuggets in there and I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on them,” lands much differently.
Language can impart the kind of coded lessons that could meaningfully influence student behavior, letting them know that they are seen and supported, and in turn helping them see and support others.
Yeager pointed to a study he conducted in which seventh grade social studies teachers returned papers to their students with corrections and either a neutral note or a note featuring wise feedback. Eighty percent of students who received the wise feedback ended up revising their essays as opposed to forty percent in the neutral note group. Anecdotally, I can report that the use of wise feedback in my own pedagogy has led to a significant reduction in eye rolling.
Mindful Language, Made Easy
At the end of my session with the faculty, I expressed that I was confident most teachers probably already do express the elements of mindful teaching even if they don’t realize it. One of the hallmarks for being an educator is having the patience and compassion required to nurture learning. But in the words of the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki, “You are perfect as you are and you could use a little improvement.” To expand our collective repertoire of mindful phrases, I gave everyone an index card so that we could take advantage of the assembled wisdom.
I asked teachers to help me create a “mindful language cheat sheet” that featured language they use when they are trying to communicate with clarity, calmness, and kindness. In other words, it was a collection of wise feedback. I then sent out a document that compiled these phrases, which featured such pearls of wisdom as:
- Everything is figureoutable.
- Worrying is paying a debt you don’t owe.
- This is one day. There are many days.
- Everyone’s best looks different. Focus on what your best looks like.
- I’m walking with you in this.
- When in doubt, breathe it out.
Thus, we were equipped with language to start the year that could help cut to the heart of the matter, support students through challenging moments, and bring a little levity to the proceedings.
In the ancient lore of meditation and mindfulness, we hear stories of legendary teachers who effortlessly transmit all their wisdom to adoring and rapt students in a single act. It’s an impossibly high bar for modern educators, of course, and not how regular learning occurs, which is most often in tiny moments that accumulate over the course of years. For us mere mortals that find ourselves in the position of dispensing wisdom—whether it is to students of mindfulness, students of chemistry, or students of Play-Doh—it typically takes a much higher word count to get our point across. Teaching is hard. But don’t forget, everything is figureoutable.
