Learning to Just Breathe: How Teachers Come to Understand Their Roles and Teacher Identities When Facilitating Mindfulness-Based Health Classes

• In Event: Exploring Processes of Implementation and Influence of Mindfulness Programs in Education

Abstract

This study investigates how four teachers understand and incorporate new ideas of teaching and learning when implementing a novel mindfulness-based health curriculum through a series of in-depth interviews over the course of a semester. The research questions are: 1) How do teachers understand and integrate new ideas and teaching methods into their teaching beliefs, sense of self, and professional identity? 2) How do teacher identities (experience, beliefs, etc.) affect the implementation process of a new program or curriculum? 3) How do teachers come to adopt, reject, or reconstruct new perspectives into their practice of teaching?

Theoretical Framework
We approach the interviews from the interpretive framework of pragmatic phenomenology (James, 1891; Taylor, 1991; Seidman, 2012) to uncover how each teacher understands and enacts their interpretations of the curriculum from their histories and self-defined identities. This method utilizes in-depth, narrative discussion-based interviewing techniques to explore the development of personal understandings in context. The framework allows us to examine how teachers come to understand themselves while engaging in new teaching experiences.

Methods
The participants included four instructors in two studies: Study A involved two experienced high school teachers with 48 years of teaching between them. The mindfulness-based curriculum was new to them and required a shift in technique and role as teacher. Study B involved two instructors with no pedagogical training but who were experienced mindfulness facilitators. The curriculum in Study A was presented to high school juniors over the course of eight weeks. The curriculum in Study B was presented to college volunteer college freshman.
Researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with all participants before, during, and after they began implementing the curriculum. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. Data analysis utilized narratives generated from the interviews to form descriptive understandings of each teacher. Interpretive coding and analysis connects initial descriptive findings to broader theoretical perspectives.

Initial Findings
All of the teachers reported uncertainty teaching the new curriculum. The experienced teachers drew on their own learning and teaching styles to guide their planning and implementation. They did not always use the pedagogical techniques from the program. One of the teachers altered the curriculum to be more convenient for her self-concept as teacher. There were also self-identified shifts in practice and identity in the training. One teacher said the curriculum made him think about how he needs to rethink his teaching style. His way may not be in congruence with the curriculum, or his values.
The less experienced teachers fully adopted the curriculum. Their self-definitions as “mindfulness instructors,” seemed in harmony with the pedagogy of the program. However, the instructors began to reflect on teaching and the difficulties of that practice. This caused them to rethink their identities as teachers and mindfulness facilitators.

Significance
The ways that teachers integrate different perspectives can have important implications for training programs that prepare teachers for educational spaces that are new to the teachers. This study highlights the importance of acknowledging potential differences in teachers’ beliefs, senses of self, and identities for teacher training programs and curriculum development.

Authors

• Joseph Levitan, The Pennsylvania State University

• Julia Mahfouz, The Pennsylvania State University

• Deborah L. Schussler, The Pennsylvania State University - University Park

• Nikolaus Barkauskas, The Pennsylvania State University

• Mark T. Greenberg, The Pennsylvania State University