EDUCATION Connection
SPRING 2016
Top Rankings Again! The Curry School climbed into the 21st slot in the U.S. News & World Report 2017 Best Graduate Schools rankings. Among our programs, Special Education jumped two spots to 5th place. The Secondary Education program maintained its spot at 7th place, while the Elementary Education moved up to the 10th place. Education Policy came in at the 14th best in the country, with Curriculum and Instruction ranked 17th. “The rise in rankings of the Curry School, as well as several of our programs, is further evidence of our commitment to hire top faculty, attract exceptional graduate students and secure increasing amounts of sponsored research funding that supports the innovative work happening here,” said Curry School Dean Robert Pianta.
EDUCATION CONNECTION is edited by Lynn Bell, Director of Alumni Relations, and published by the Curry School of Education, P.O. Box 400268, Charlottesville, VA 22904. Email: lynnbell@virginia.edu #UVACurry
MINDFULNESS
Addressing teacher wellbeing
B Y P R O F E S S O R PAT R I C I A “ T I S H ” J E N N I N G S
D
uring my years as a teacher, I found that mindfulness practice helped me manage my classroom. When I was practicing regularly, I found that I could handle challenging behaviors with more composure. I took student behaviors less personally and could more often respond thoughtfully, rather than react unconsciously to stressful classroom situations. As a result, I found I could more effectively orchestrate the social and emotional dynamics of my classroom in a way that promoted optimal learning. When I joined the faculty of a teacher education program and spent 15 years supervising student teachers and teaching classroom management I began to realize how much my mindfulness practice was really helping me. Every week I spent hours observing student teachers and their supervisors, and I noticed how their stress and emotional reactivity interfered with their classroom management. However, at the time, I wasn’t sure how to teach others mindfulness and it was long before we had such a large body of evidence of the positive effects of mindfulness. Today, a growing body of research is demonstrating that mindfulness-based interventions improve a variety of dimensions of wellbeing among adults, including reduced stress, improved resilience to stress, and improved emotion regulation. For the past decade, I have devoted my research to studying teacher stress and applying mindfulness-based approaches to reducing teacher stress with the aim of improving teaching and student learning. Today, many teachers are not well prepared for the social and emotional demands of the classroom. Increasing numbers of children are coming to school with unmet needs. Children at risk of psychological and behavioral problems often pose challenges for unprepared teachers. These students have more difficulty attending to learning activities, sitting —continued on page 2 E D U C AT I O N C O N N E C T I O N • S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
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