First published September 29, 2018.
What would you do if you worked as a school teacher and your students began to misbehave? School teachers would normally give detention or suspension depending on the case.
Most people would not discipline a misbehaving student by asking them to sit down and meditate. However, Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in Baltimore Maryland has now adopted this strategy.
Since the beginning of 2017, the primary school hasn't suspended a single student. The programme attracted positive reports, but those accounts do not by themselves prove that it caused every claimed improvement.
This school decided to focus on meditation as a method to serve detention for misbehaving students.
Rather than sending children to stand outside the classroom, or going to the principal's office every single time they misbehave, they instead get sent to the 'Mindful Moment Room.'
Philips said that at Robert W. Coleman Elementary, there've been precisely zero suspensions in 2017 and so far in 2018.
Meanwhile, nearby Patterson Park High School, which also uses the mindfulness programme, reported fewer suspensions and better attendance, figures that are best read alongside their original dates and school context.
A different space for a difficult moment
The account describes giving pupils somewhere to pause and receive support rather than relying only on exclusion. The practical questions concern what happens in that space, who guides it and how the child returns to class. Calling the room mindful is not enough to explain the whole approach or the resources that make it possible.
Do not confuse a reported change with proof of cause
The suspension figures above come from the programme’s supporters in 2016–2018 and need their specific source and reporting period. The approach was developed by the Holistic Life Foundation, the Baltimore nonprofit behind the Mindful Moment programme. The school credited the approach with the change, but even an accurately reported decline would not by itself show that meditation caused every change in attendance or behaviour. A useful evaluation would look at the programme in context, including staff support and pupils' experiences, rather than only a dramatic before-and-after claim. The promising idea can be explored while keeping those limits clear.
Sources and context: Holistic Life Foundation: Mindful Moment
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