Mindfulness Instructor to Visit Andover

For the second year in a row, Alison Cohen, a mindfulness-based stress reduction teacher, will lead discussions about practicing mindfulness in daily life and host a community sit at Phillips Academy. Her two-day visit will take place on Tuesday, January 9, 2018, and Wednesday, January 10, and build upon the Tang Institute project Mindful Community by Andy Housiaux. Cohen is currently on the faculty at Columbia Teachers’ College Summer Principals Academy and works as an Institute for Student Achievement Instructional coach in public schools in Brooklyn, New York. Upcoming activities on campus with her include:

Tuesday, January 9

Evening Discussion
"Let’s Talk: An Experiential Introduction to Mindful Communication," 6:30 p.m., Freeman Room. Desserts and refreshments will be served.

Wednesday, January 10

Community Sit
Noon to 12:45 p.m., Pearson C

Community Lunch & Discussion
"Moment to Moment: A Q&A Session on Mindfulness in the Classroom and Daily Life," 1 to 2 p.m., Pearson C. Lunch will be served.

Evening Discussion
"Reducing the Effects of Implicit Bias: Can Mindfulness Practice Help?" at 6:30 p.m., Freeman Room. Desserts and refreshments will be served.

About Allison Cohen

Trained as a mindfulness-based stress reduction teacher, Cohen is currently on the faculty at Columbia Teachers’ College Summer Principals Academy and works as an Institute for Student Achievement Instructional coach in public schools in Brooklyn, New York. She is also the author of the article “Building a Community of Self-Compassion.” Her mindfulness workshops integrate training in growth mindset, restorative practices, mindful communication, and bias awareness, with a specific emphasis on unconscious (also known as implicit or unexamined) bias.

Resources

Research has found that mindfulness training has significant effects on students’ and school staff members’ focus, stress management, impulse control, and relationships. For school staff members, the benefits also include improved classroom management, more skillful interaction with students, and burnout reduction.

What is Mindfulness?

• Purposefully paying nonjudgmental, compassionate attention to whatever arises in one’s moment-to-moment experience, such as thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and sounds.
• Becoming more aware of what you are experiencing, strengthening your ability to replace autopilot or impulsive reactions with more thoughtful responses.

Learn More

• Visit the comprehensive Mindful Schools website and review testimonials from teachers and students whom Cohen has taught.
• To learn more about the positive effects of mindfulness on both the brain and general well-being, read the Scientific American article and Parade magazine’s “The No. 1 health booster of 2015.”
• To learn more about the role mindfulness plays in reducing racial bias, read the University of California at Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center series, beginning with Professor John A. Powell’s piece “Understanding Our New Racial Reality Starts with the Unconscious.”
• For recent research on the positive effects of mindfulness training on bias, check out this Harvard Business Review article.
• Read a reflection on mindfulness experiences written by Julia Beckwith ’17.
• Also visit Cohen’s web site: http://www.mindfulchangefromtheinsideout.com.