The focus at Robert W. Coleman Elementary is not on punishment but on mindfulness — a mantra of daily life at an unusual urban school that has moved away from detention and suspension to something educators hope is more effective.
Here, students are referred to the Mindful Moment Room when they misstep or need calming. In a space decorated with bright curtains, lavender cushions and beanbags, program staff members coax students to explain what happened, to talk about their feelings, to breathe deeply.
Mindfulness practices — becoming aware of emotions, staying in the present, using meditative breathing to reduce stress — are part of a schoolwide program at Coleman that has changed student discipline and, more broadly, affected the school’s culture. It is part of a larger effort by the nonprofit Holistic Life Foundation to bring yoga and mindfulness into Baltimore city schools and beyond.
Schools across the country have increasingly embraced yoga and mindfulness practices, but few have done so with the whole-school approach Coleman is using, said Tamar Mendelson, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.
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