The Conscious Classroom
Amy Edelstein
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The Conscious Classroom with host Amy Edelstein explores the world of mindfulness in education. Amy will share best classroom tools and practices for adolescents, why teaching students about perspectives, worldviews, and context is as important as teaching classic stress reduction tools including breath, body scan, and open awareness mindfulness techniques. We'll look at trauma sensitive approaches, systems thinking, social emotional skills and how to empower teens and support mental wellness. Amy Edelstein is the founder of Inner Strength, which has empowered more than 15,000 Philadelphia teens with mindfulness and systems thinking tools. Visit: www.InnerStrengthFoundation.net
Available episodes
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Oct 2, 2022
Virtual Reality Education- It's Coming, Are We Ready?
Virtual Reality Education is not a future prospect. Higher Education spaces like Morehouse College have already taught full semesters using VR. This Metaverse is rapidly expanding into K-12. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein asks who is thinking about the potentials of this space to train us to be truly mindfully compassionate, awakened humans? And what are the downsides to a world where young people become increasingly more mediated in their relationships and their learning? This episode provides a view into the future that's already happening and asks some important questions that we want to respond to now while it will be much easier to have a hand in helping shape for the best what is coming in AI.Support the show
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Aug 2, 2022
A Web of Connection: Systems & Solutions for Teen Discouragement
In this episode, Amy shares a brief look at how our awareness of large scale systems that we can intuit through our mindfulness practice and through exploring the interconnected systems we see in nature and in the structure of the cosmos can reveal new solutions to our very entrenched problems. For teens who are discouraged and feeling defeated by the issues of the world and in their lives, this way of seeing can ignite optimism, interest, and passion to make the world a better place. Support the show
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Jul 4, 2022
A Freedom Worth Striving For - Independence Day
A Freedom Worth Striving For - Reflections in Independence on the American Holiday 4th of July
What makes freedom exalted? What can our students aspire to when the "freedom" they have been taught to cherish is either - in the case of politics and social orders - profoundly inequitable and even harmful or - as in the case of personal freedoms - exacerbates a sense of existential anxiety with its proliferation of choices and optionality and its dearth of guidance and directives that ennoble. In this short reflection, Amy Edelstein explores freedom, purpose, and courage in the footsteps of Paul Tillich, and looks at how we can create classroom structures that promote the aspiration towards a more profound expression of our humanity and potential. Support the show
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May 27, 2022
Meditation on Love in the Face of Violence
These recent weeks have seen the scourge of senseless gun violence tearing through a school, a supermarket, and neighborhoods across America. In this episode, Amy Edelstein reaches deep into the power of meditation to imprint in us the undeniable experience of interconnectedness and love, a love that inspires us to want to dispel ignorance rather than fight (even for a cause) in ways that only create more division and separation. This entire episode is both a guided meditation and a deep reflection. Support the show
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Mar 19, 2022
Purpose Driven Education and the Role Mindfulness Can Play
Purpose Driven Education and the Role Mindfulness Can Play
In this episode, Amy Edelstein talks about the role of purpose in teen flourishing. When people are connected to a purpose greater than themselves, they experience more resilience, ability to persevere through challenges, sense of connection, and happiness. We can work with tools of mindful awareness to help students connect with their own values and imbue their lives with greater meaning. As educators, we can contextualize any subject we are teaching within a framework of higher purpose. This helps shape our student's ability to interpret their journey in a positive light, learn from their mistakes, and feel fulfilled and significant as they learn and grow. Support the show
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Feb 14, 2022
The Power of Purpose
In this episode, Amy Edelstein explores the power of purpose and the value that speaking about purpose with youth has on the rest of their lives. She discusses the great Stanford Educator and Author William Damon and his book The Path to Purpose , which looks at the impact of materialism and our fast-paced technological world on the exploration of greater goals. Going as far back as Aristotle, tapping into Erik Erikson and Piaget, Damon bolsters his argument in favor of purpose as a key foundation for youth happiness, resilience, success, patience, and also humility. We'll look at how mindfulness can cultivate a sense of meaning and purpose and how we as educators, parents, or mentors can support youth development. Support the show
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Jan 24, 2022
Engaged Buddhism: In Honor of Thich Nhat Hahn
The world renowned and beloved Vietnamese teacher Thich Nhat Hahn passed this week at the age of 95. This episode is dedicated to his work and life, bringing mindfulness to a secular environment, connecting deep mindfulness practice with social, political, and environmental activism, and being a powerful -- albeit profoundly gentle -- activist for change. We value and honor his life, his spirit, and the work he has left behind. The world is brighter for his presence.Support the show
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Jan 11, 2022
Happy New Year! Establishing Presence, Courage & Centeredness
In this episode, Amy Edelstein talks about the need of our times for greater courage, centeredness and connection to presence, or being. This episode and its guided meditation will start the new year off on a positive and directed note. Support the show
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Dec 9, 2021
Tech + Teens: Part 3 in dialogue with XPrize semifinalist Anthony Holland
Can technology empower rather than divide? Can we train robots to exhibit the empathy of their operators in humanitarian situations? How is Inner Strength looking ahead and the possibilities for supporting youth wellness through technology? Join Amy Edelstein in dialogue with XPrize semi-finalist and Inner Strength Board Member Anthony Holland.
In this final installment, Tony and Amy answer audience questions about their own search for meaning and purpose and the potential they see in creating a positive culture for all to benefit from.
More at Inner Strength EducationSupport the show
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Nov 30, 2021
Tech + Teens: Part 2 in dialogue with XPrize semifinalist Anthony Holland
Can technology empower rather than divide? Can we train robots to exhibit the empathy of their operators in humanitarian situations? How is Inner Strength looking ahead and the possibilities for supporting youth wellness through technology? Join Amy Edelstein in dialogue with XPrize semi-finalist and Inner Strength Board Member Anthony Holland.
In this second part of the dialogue, Tony and Amy go more deeply into issues facing students and how Inner Strength is working to empower and heal.
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Nov 23, 2021
Tech & Teens: in dialogue with XPrize Semi-Finalist Anthony Holland Part 1
Can technology empower rather than divide? Can we train robots to exhibit the empathy of their operators in humanitarian situations? How is Inner Strength looking ahead and the possibilities for supporting youth wellness through technology? Join Amy Edelstein in dialogue with XPrize semi-finalist and Inner Strength Board Member Anthony Holland.
More at Inner Strength EducationSupport the show
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Nov 18, 2021
My New Memoir! Adventure in Zanskar
*Adventure in Zanskar: one woman's solitary journey to reach physical and metaphysical heights**
*This episode of The Conscious Classroom is a little different, some fun. I just published a memoir about a solitary trek I undertook in the highest mountains of the world, the western most corner of the Tibetan Plateau, and area called Zanskar, India.
I simply couldn't wait to share it with all of you. It'll take you on a journey in 1983 through a region virtually untouched by western materialist culture and show you what's possible to realize when we dare to go beyond our conventional limits.
You can grab your kindle copy here! (Or paperback or hardback for gifts)
Please share a review when you finish it'll help others find the book. Enjoy!
As acclaimed author Andrew Harvey wrote,
A thrilling book takes us into the heart of one of the most powerful spiritual places on Earth - Zanskar. It is a must read for all those who love and recognize the healing power of place and the adventure t…
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Nov 14, 2021
Breakthrough Insights Can Come Quickly - Classroom Highs and Lows
Do you often relate just to the ways teens present in the classroom and forget that what goes on in their personal reflection may be much deeper? Teens present in all their awkward ways, they are in a growth stage and sometimes it feels like their bodies don't quite fit their minds and emotions or vice versa. Remember, there may be much more going on under the surface that is significant and should be acknowledged. In this episode Amy Edelstein shares some subtle insights into the nature of thought and awareness that a student had after just two lessons. She also shares a much more troubling experience a teen in the very same class was having. Insight and gun violence can affect teens sitting within 5 feet of one another. This podcast explores how we can tend to it all.
For more guided audios and classroom tools, visit Inner Strength Education
Download my free mindfulness app for teens on the App and Play Stores! Support the show
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Oct 23, 2021
Mindfulness - How Can It Impact Gun Violence?
Recently I've been asked, "How does your Inner Strength school mindfulness program help prevent gun violence?"
When you are being asked that in a city that has one of the fastest rising rates of gun violence per capita in the United States, that's a serious question. In the last 4 weeks, we've seen 4 shootings at schools, with multiple youth killed.
This has led to some serious soul searching. How does a focus on conscious awareness impact such a specific soul-wrenching external event?
Join Amy Edelstein for this impassioned and thoughtful exploration of Mindfulness as a foundation for social transformation and violence reductionSupport the show
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Oct 7, 2021
Fun: It's Good for Learning - Playing Mindful Games
We all know play is important for little kids. Imagination, working out scenarios, assuming roles. It's how kids develop a wider sense of being in the world. Play is also important for teenagers. They need to have fun while learning. Play can also break up the day, change the rhythm. It teaches important and deep values as well. Games help students see each other in a different light, some students who are less skilled at call and response classroom questions, may excel in game format. It teaches teamwork and leadership. Games support creative thinking by allowing students to think laterally, out of the box, looking for solutions or shortcuts or tricks to excel. Games allow for healthy competition, and no hard feelings if one doesn't excel. Join Amy Edelstein, founder of Inner Strength Education, as she shows how to relate specific games to mindful awareness, how to use games when teaching mindfulness to teens, and how to realize their value as a teaching tool for whole person wellness…
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Aug 29, 2021
Creating Optimal Learning Environments - 5 Anchor Tools for Stress
Back to school this year is new territory. How can we manage our own sense of uncertainty? How can we build a welcoming class environment for students who have experienced so many challenges over the past year, challenges which haven't ended.
In this Back to School session, you'll learn:
* 5 Anchor Tools to manage stress in the moment, in the classroom
* 3 Anchor Tools to ritualize and create a positive environment around health, hygiene, and transitions for your students
* 3 Anchor Tools for you to create a pause between your workday and your time after work.
Let me know what you think!
What anchor tools are you using to ground and stabilize you and your classroom?Support the show
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Jul 15, 2021
Happiness Is a Subversive Pursuit
In this episode, Amy Edelstein talks about why pursuing happiness is not selfish. She looks at what happiness is, why caring about our own happiness and the happiness of others is foundational to creating a positive learning environment, and how to shift students' orientation so they care about the well being of the classroom community. In this session, Amy leads a long guided Love & Kindness mindfulness practice on caring for the whole. Support the show
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Jun 29, 2021
What We Learned from the Pandemic
In this episode, Amy Edelstein explores what we learned about students, teaching online, and essentials during this past year. What supports students' well-being? How do we create relationship even when we are not in the classroom? When we are forced to simplify, what rises to the top as the most important learning tools? The pandemic brought out the importance of well-being, for positive health outcomes and for ability to stay steady in a tense and uncertain world. Amy illustrates how to use mindfulness in the classroom and how to continue to apply the lessons learned during the pandemic in the months and years to come.Support the show
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Jun 15, 2021
Grief & Loss: Supporting Students in the Post Pandemic Classroom
In this, our third and final episode of this mini-series The Post Pandemic Classroom, we are going to look at how to support students who are returning to school having lost someone during the pandemic. Students often try to hide their grief or don't know how to process emotions, and the school day marches on with little room for the holistic learning and care. Grieving is a tender and an instructive time, creating the space in a classroom for students to take their time to process will serve them their entire lives.
We will look at both loss and bearing witness to serious illness, as well as the rising tide of gun violence and the grief, fear, and anxiety it brings to whole school communities.
Share your thoughts and comments, leave a review, or explore some of Amy Edelstein's indepth courses at The Conscious Classroom.Support the show
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Jun 8, 2021
Working with Social Anxiety - The Post Pandemic Classroom
The second episode in this series looks at the phenomenon of teens who are reluctant to go back to the classroom, who are afraid, ashamed, or anxious about their peers' response to them. These students need support to break the ice. They will need to be able to trust the boundaries set up in the class. In this episode, Amy Edelstein will share some tools for the classroom and attitudes that will help you invite reluctant students back to in person learning, while respecting their boundaries and their concerns.
To go deeper, visit www.TheConsciousClassroom.com for courses and other learning materials. Support the show
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May 25, 2021
What to Expect in a Post Pandemic Classroom
We are coming towards the end of the year, Districts are sending out plans, metrics, and expectations for the coming year. Oftentimes, without enough discussion and recognition that this Fall will be one unlike previous years . . . and we don't really know what to expect. Teachers are tired. It's been a trying year. There's hope on the horizon with the coronavirus vaccine and social groupings and businesses coming to life again. But COVID left its mark on us, and has on our students. Many students have fallen behind without the support of in person teachers and friends. Some have witnessed frightening illness, or have lost a loved one. We need to allow ourselves to unwind so we can be there for our students.
In this session, the first of a 3 part series, Amy Edelstein will explore this foreign landscape and set up some good habits to help you unwind over the summer and be restored and grounded come September.
The Conscious Classroom podcast brings mindfulness, social emotional learni…
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May 4, 2021
Mindful Journaling - Restorative Teachers' Series
In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, we explore the art of contemplative writing, mindful journaling. It is a practice that can help us as teachers access our deeper purpose which sometimes gets buried beneath submitting grades and filling out forms for the District. Mindful journaling helps us untie knots, allow different perspectives, and take risks in our thinking. It creates the conditions for empathy for our students and insight into how to create a safe environment for our students to grow and thrive. Support the show
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Apr 13, 2021
Back to In Person School - Building the Habit of Resilience
Wow, many schools are going back to full-time in person classrooms. There are many emotions to navigate! Relief and worry. Now is the time to work with all the mindfulness momentum to dial back self-defeating worry, frustration, and concerns. In this episode, we're going to work with the:
Three Keys of Positive Habit Building:
1. Noticing or being mindful and attentive to goodness and beauty.
2. Reinforcing what we notice through practice, the consistent habit of letting go.
3. Acknowledging the goodness, beauty, strength we have experienced to ourselves and to another.
When we appreciate our ability to build positive habits of mind, we cultivate that all important quality of resilience. And as all teachers know, resilience is key to being a happy, effective, and conscious teacher. At any time, but especially now.Support the show
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Mar 16, 2021
Self Care for Teachers - Essential In These Times
Highlighted in this podcast are the real concerns teachers are facing right now, named, so that you can externalize them and then create space and care for your own wellbeing. We work on three primary steps for stress reduction and self care. For more on free Self Care MasterClass for Educators visit www.TheConsciousClassroom.comSupport the show
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Feb 16, 2021
Choice: Helping Students Believe in Themselves
Giving students choice over many small activities and decisions in the classroom sets a tone of respect, appreciation, value, and collaboration. Any classroom has an inherent power dynamic. Teachers with good classroom presence command authority and provide wholesome structure. And, they also are able to facilitate an environment of choice and buy in that feels safe to students. When an environment is safe, stable, reliable -- and collaborative, students experience a sense of positive self-esteem. They learn to value their choices and their experience. Mindfulness activities are a perfect container in which to nurture these important qualities, by giving students choice. As always, we will a little practice together. Enjoy!Support the show
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Feb 2, 2021
Finding Balance - Work Life and Work Again
Does work ever stop these days? It's not just negotiating with all the demands, it's setting boundaries. Here are some ways to set limits and allow yourself to keep your sense of energy, agency, and positive parameters. Mindfulness tools really do help stretch time and enforce boundaries. In this era of ongoing demands, there's no better time to work with them to support your own wellbeing and that of all those you live and work with. Support the show
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Jan 19, 2021
7 Learning Styles & Mindfulness Cues for Different Learners
In this episode, Amy outlines the seven different learning styles. During the pandemic, while most students are learning online, we need to make special effort to reach different types of learners. Learn the 7 different styles and how to give mindfulness cues and classroom cues that appeal to different learners. Support the show
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Jan 1, 2021
Tapping Inspiration & Building Accountability
The New Year is a time when all of us make resolutions to improve, accomplish, and achieve. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein will talk about how to use the tools of mindful awareness and contextual thinking to tap into a student’s passion to learn. When we feed their inspiration and show them how to recognize their own desire to grow, we set the stage for positive classroom culture. As always, we’ll practice mindfulness exercises and other experiential tools.Support the show
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Dec 29, 2020
Joy to You - Special Better Sleep Session
Joy to the World starts with sending joy to ourselves. Most of us probably believe that but how many of us practice that? Here are some special tips for deepening your experience of joy and restoration during this holiday season. Included is a long guided meditation for better sleep. You can use this year-round and start to make your nights something to look forward to!Support the show
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Dec 22, 2020
Amplifying Generosity
Holidays are a time of giving and family. For students who are resource-challenged, this time of year can be challenging. In this Conscious Classroom episode, Amy Edelstein shares mindfulness tools and perspectives to bring the spirit of the holidays into your classroom. You will learn how to emphasize human connection, care, and appreciation and transform worry and concern into positivity and joy.Support the show
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Dec 15, 2020
Camera Up?
Teaching in an online environment due to coronavirus restrictions has required us to deal with new and challenging questions. How can we teach if we can't see our students faces? How do we know if they are comprehending or struggling? Do we demand that they "camera up" or do we allow them to find their way? In this episode, Amy Edelstein talks about online teaching and how to invite but not impose a visual on students. She shares easy to implement techniquest that create relationship and encourage some kind of visual and also discusses equity and respect issues to allow students to keep their home lives private. Support the show
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Dec 2, 2020
Finding Your Center
When there's distraction in the classroom and students are disengaged or wound up, our inclination as teachers is often to clamp down, to try to control. We do that with greater or lesser degrees of success. But after that, how do we feel? Those are the days that usually leave us more spent, drained, and wound up.
In this episode, Amy talks about establishing our own anchor as a way to coalesce our classroom community. Using mindfulness and other contemplative techniques, we ground ourselves and establish a compelling and safe space for our students that exerts its own gravitational pull. We can calm, focus, and redirect much more easily from here.
Guided meditation included, which you are warmly encouraged to do - for your own center and relaxation, so very important during this time of coronavirus spread. Support the show
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Nov 26, 2020
Gratitude: Building Community in the Classroom
Thanksgiving is a time for conscious appreciation, recognizing the gifts in our lives, even during hard times like these days during the pandemic. How to we build gratitude and what is the relationship between gratitude, awareness, and ease?
In this episode, Amy Edelstein will share some insights about the deeper dimensions of gratitude, how our culture and self-sense can serve to obstruct our appreciation for connectedness, and how, once we begin to build our muscles of thanks it makes us extraordinarily happy.
As always, mindfulness exercises to build conscious classrooms are included.Support the show
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Nov 17, 2020
Expressing Gratitude
In this Conscious Classroom episode, Amy Edelstein will explore different ways to think about gratitude as well as several different mindfulness practices that you can share with your students to cultivate a deeper sense of care in your classroom.Support the show
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Nov 3, 2020
Building a Culture of Thanks
Gratitude feels good. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein will talk about building a culture of thanks. As we lean into the Thanksgiving season, it’s a time where we can begin to bring in awareness of the things that we’re grateful for and start helping our students appreciate so much around them. Specific gratitude practices, questions, and meditations will help you build a culture of thanks in your classroom.Support the show
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Oct 21, 2020
The Joy of Returning to Class - However that looks
COVID-19 has changed all our lives. Students, Teachers, Parents . . . . But regardless of the medium you are going back to school - online or in person or blended, it really is great to be back in class. Learning, teaching, connecting is perhaps more important than ever. When you don't take school for granted, which we can't in these times, the school connections become even more precious. Enjoy this exploration and some guided meditation. Support the show
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Oct 6, 2020
Cultivating Awareness
Awareness is the foundation of stability, good relationships, and creative learning. Mindfulness techniques help teens cultivate self-knowledge – the awareness of their habits of thought and behavior, their likes and dislikes, and the way they feel happiness and sadness. In this Conscious Classroom episode, Amy Edelstein will shed light on how we cultivate awareness and lead you through meditation exercises you can do in your classroom.Support the show
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Sep 15, 2020
Raising Enthusiasm
In this Conscious Classroom episode, Amy Edelstein will share mindfulness tools and tips to raise the level of enthusiasm for learning. She’ll illuminate why mindful perspective taking can shift students from blasé to interested in simple but profound ways. You’ll learn how to inspire your students to seek that experience of “being in the zone.”Support the show
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Sep 3, 2020
S.P.A.C.E. - 5 Practices to Start the School Year Mindfully
It’s the start of the school year. Hey, no smell of new textbooks, no bulletin boards to decorate, no lockers to assign, no bells and the patter of hundreds of pairs of shoes clattering down the hallways. This year is quiet. Buildings at rest. Teachers and students at home, each in our own little spaces, connecting via . . . what seems like magic . . . our bodies and voices broadcast as little bits of numeric data, miraculously appearing on the screen in front of us. How do we humanize this experience? How do we create a sense of togetherness and community? How do we energize tired bodies and tired minds? Join Amy Edelstein for an exploration of - S.P.A.C.E. - 5 practices you can work with to create a more conscious classroom. Put these in your toolbox to help set up the most welcoming virtual atmosphere and to use as touchstones throughout the year.
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Aug 4, 2020
Cultivating Curiosity: Mindful Qualities for Teen Success
Love of learning is essential for youth to truly internalize information. Contemplative exercises, contextual seeing, and the practice of re-framing our worldview cultivate a student’s curiosity. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein will talk about how to shift a student’s experience from overwhelm to interest, and how to work with the art and science of observation and reflection. As always, the episode will include information and practice.Support the show
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Jul 22, 2020
A Mind Like Water, Inspiring Calm in the Classroom
Bruce Lee, the iconic martial artist, often spoke about the value of a mind like water -- fluid, flexible, soft enough to go around obstacles, persistent enough to carve a hole in rock, and forceful enough to uproot tall trees or buildings. Water can be invisible as steam, transparent in its liquid state, and hard and opaque as ice. Our minds can be as flexible and powerful if we know how to cultivate attentive calm, precise discrimination, and flexible perspectives. In this episode, Amy Edelstein will talk about using the metaphor of a Mind Like Water to inspire these qualities in the classroom. Support the show
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Jul 7, 2020
Improving Friendship
Good relationships with adults and peers help teens navigate mental and emotional challenges more effectively than any other intervention. Friendships gone sour can snuff out the light of enthusiasm in an adolescent. How do we help our teens learn the art and science of friendship? In this Conscious Classroom episode, Amy Edelstein will map the cartography of friendship. She will guide you in mindful awareness practices you can use with your students to help them learn how to be better friends to themselves and to others. You will also learn some of the Inner Strength tools that we use in our classrooms to help students identify those qualities that are important in a friendship and strengthen those traits in themselves.Support the show
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Jul 2, 2020
Amplifying Celebration
Hard to believe, the end of the school year is upon us! In this Conscious Classroom Webinar, Amy Edelstein will lead you in some reflections and meditations that will celebrate the year’s victories, allow more challenging times to be assimilated and transformed into lessons learned, and consciously close the year so everyone can enjoy the summer break ahead.
This episode looks at how to bring in celebration in the time of COVID-19 and protests for equality and the end of racism. Teens are still teens and need to celebrate milestones, rights of passage, and have levity and joy.
We will also look at summer resources to help teens navigate the lack of structure and support, and unease that sometimes arises when they are faced with the long stretch of the vacation months ahead.Support the show
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Jun 16, 2020
COVID-19: Self Care & Discovering Positivity
Resistance and frustration is an inevitable human reaction to the stressful conditions we are living in. We can learn to allow, observe, and be with our responses as they are, without creating more tension or negative self judgment. Self care means treating ourselves with kindness, learning how to be gentle when needed and how to turn our minds away from thought patterns that sap our vitality and well-being.
Working with tools such as breath, body scan, or love & kindness all affect different parts of the brain and produce different long term changes if we keep practicing. We'll touch on what creates changes in our state experience and what leads to lasting effects or changes in our personality traits. We will also look at conditioned guilt or habit of minimizing positivity in order to seem more "empathetic" and consider the value and importance of accessing the irrepressible positivity of life. Support the show
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Jun 9, 2020
COVID-19: Building Capacity, Let the Lima Bean Grow
In this episode of special support for educators during the time of school closures looks at how we build our inner capacity so we have a little more strength. Our inner systems feel like they have very little give right now. How do we create a little more space for all the frustration? We'll talk about expanding our context, deepening our understanding of interconnectivity and using awareness to focus. By expanding our context, we'll look at the miracle of how our world came into being, the beautiful evolutionary story. We'll also explore interconnectivity, how everything emerged from something else and how if you trace back far enough you can see that none of us are actually isolated and separate from everything else around us. It doesn't mean we won't keep missing the people we love, we are social beings, but we will see that we are deeply interconnected. In two long guided contemplative practices, we'll look at how to cultivate ease by being patient, even if we believe we are not v…
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Jun 9, 2020
Summer Break: Conscious Endings
The end of the school year is a special time. Conscious endings and appreciation for the heartwarming things that happened during the course of the year make all the difference. As educators, we need to learn to let go, nourish ourselves with lessons learned, and release ourselves to enjoy the downtime. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein will help you end the year on a note of positivity and resolution.Support the show
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Jun 2, 2020
COVID-19 Developing Patience, Bringing Ease and Insight
Have you ever thought about why they say "Patience is a virtue"? Virtue is not only meant as an inherent moral goodness but also as a quality that we can develop if we apply ourselves to it over time. It is not necessarily easy to cultivate. Patience is a coveted character trait. During the times of great challenge, we naturally want the hardship to be over. We want to return to a life of relative ease, stability, and familiarity. The reality is, upheavals of the magnitude we are experiencing now have ripple effects extending well into the future. There are many uncertainties. Many unknowns. Many contingencies. Cultivating patience through the emotional and practical ups and downs is essential for our own well being and for us to be positive guiding forces in the lives of the students we teach and the colleagues we supervise.
Mindfulness teaches us to be patient and interested in what is. It teaches us to work with the immediacy of our experience, to watch sensations, thoughts, and fe…
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May 26, 2020
Peace or Pressure? Supporting students during testing season
Teens are more stressed than ever before. The cloud of testing looms large over students and anxiety about grades and performance can incapacitate ordinarily happy kids. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein will teach you how to help your students use mindfulness and other systems thinking practices to do their best and to gain confidence from the learning and victories they've had over the entire year.Support the show
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May 22, 2020
COVID-19 Integrative Mindfulness - Whole Person Wellness
How can we integrate all we are thinking and feeling at this time? What is the Body-Mind connection? When we take into account thought patterns, the frameworks we rely on to make meaning, and the quality of our awareness, we start to open up and integrate our entire experience.
Just paying attention without also examining the context within which we are paying attention is partial. Just exploring our worldviews and interpretive frameworks without paying attention to the qualities of consciousness and to the clarity of our own awareness is also partial. In this episode you'll be led through some body scan for relaxation so you can better manage your own experience.Support the show
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May 12, 2020
The Dynamics of Calm
Kids are naturally full of energy. That energy, when channeled helps learning. And yet, as teachers we crave calm. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom Calm, Amy Edelstein will show you that calm doesn’t always look “quiet.” And quiet isn’t always calm. You’ll learn more about how to create authentic calm, ease of being, and openness in your classroom. As always, we’ll do some mindfulness and perspective taking practices to experience and to promote ease of being in the classroom.Support the show
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Apr 28, 2020
Developing Patience
Patience is a virtue. In our era of ever-increasing speed and ever-decreasing attention span, cultivating this virtue may be harder than ever. And yet we must. We must both cultivate our own patience and that of our students. In this Conscious Classroom episode we will work with mindful awareness tools to develop patience. Amy Edelstein will shed light on how and why doing something as simple as watching the breath, becoming aware of thoughts, and noticing sensations can improve our tolerance and our care.Support the show
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Apr 26, 2020
Gen C: Learning & Focus in the age of Coronavirus
In the age of coronavirus, everything has changed. Usually at this time, students would be focusing on testing skills. Now they are needing to cultivate many new habits, some good, some not so good. How do we support them to learn in a relaxed way? How do we help them to bypass self-consciousness and drop into their authenticity and creativity? Join Amy Edelstein for insight and experiential tools to develop relaxed and alert focus. For more, visit www.InnerStrength.EducationSupport the show
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Apr 14, 2020
Practicing Love & Kindness
The foundation of good learning is a good relationship with one’s teacher or mentor. Building Love & Kindness practices into your school day creates a culture of appreciation, respect, kindness, and care. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein shares some simple ways that you can work with compassion building tools, allowing students to embrace goodness. In a culture where students are exposed to violent video games and acrimonious public discourse, building in care into the classroom is a welcome focus for both you and your students.Support the show
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Apr 12, 2020
Times of Challenge, Times of Opportunity
We are living through a great cultural change, while we are in the midst of something so big it is hard to see what is changing and where it will leave us. Still, as educators, this is the time to use the best of our historical knowledge and context setting to think in constructive ways about these times and to challenge our students to think in the same way. During the Civil War, Walt Whitman wanted to create a poem so noble, so beautiful that it would end war. "Song of Myself" sadly did not put an end to war but it did introduce an incredible vision of acceptance and equality, heralding the LBBTQ movement and profound recognition of our universality as well as our uniqueness. Henry David Thoreau looked at the devastating pollution and overcrowding of early industrialization, and with "Walden" laid a foundation for the environmental movement. With these and other examples, Amy Edelstein shows how we can think about these times and create a vision for a future that is more caring and j…
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Apr 9, 2020
COVID-19 Exercising Choice, Building Stability
In times of challenge, like we are presented with now during the Coronavirus epidemic, when we feel overwhelmed and ill-equipped to handle the situation, small tools and actions can help bring groundedness, stability, and courage into our lives. Join Amy Edelstein in this episode as she shares ways to exercise a degree of choice over our circumstances and in so doing build strength. We'll keep our eyes on the bigger picture and be able to better support our students and ourselves. Support the show
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Mar 31, 2020
COVID-19 Conscious Classroom
Life has been upended as we know it. Now more than ever, we need tools that will provide our students with calm during the storm, compassion when nerves are fraught, and curiosity about how we can emerge triumphant and proud. In this episode, Amy Edelstein looks at the coronavirus and what that means about priorities for ourselves and our students.Support the show
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Mar 17, 2020
What Is Racial Literacy? Understanding the dynamics of race
Racial stress occurs every day in diverse classrooms. Tensions between students, between teachers, on the news all affect how well we connect and teach our students. In this powerful episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein shows how mindfulness skills can diffuse racial tension and create a classroom of openness, respect, and love.Support the show
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Mar 3, 2020
Teen Mental Wellness: Promoting positive mental health
Holiday season is a time for family, warmth, and peace. For all too many of our students, holiday time is a time of stress, sadness, and distance between media images of gifts and neighborhoods of lack. Many teens, even those who come from stable homes experience depression and loneliness at this time. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein shares mindfulness tools that support teens over the holiday break to stay happy and connected with themselves.Support the show
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