In a recent survey, New Leaf put out to young people in the Greater Toronto Area, 89% listed “school” as one of their top stressors. With youth spending most of their waking hours in classrooms, this finding hit us hard.
After studying the impacts of stress for many years, here’s what we know is true:
- Students struggle to thrive interpersonally and academically when their stress levels are high
- Teachers are juggling big expectations to deliver curriculum, manage behaviours and are often doing so under challenging circumstances like large class sizes and very valid feelings of overwhelm
- Too many students are being punished for behaviours that get framed as acting out when really what they are is a manifestation of chronic or traumatic stress playing itself out in fight and flight survival mode
It’s a lose/lose scenario.
Imagine, now, a world where instead of being the top source of stress in their lives, youth identified school as being a place that supported their mental and emotional well-being.
What difference would this make in the lives of students and teachers?
And what is getting in the way of schools being spaces that effectively nurture the well-being of everyone in them?
New Leaf has been asking ourselves these and other important questions over the last several years. After delivering mindfulness-based programming in schools since 2010, we’ve seen the positive impact that mindfulness can have (check out this awesome summary on the benefits of mindfulness for young people compiled by our friends at YouthREX)…
…but reaching more students and teachers without adding additional responsibilities for educators can be a challenge!
We’re offering up a solution.
To help make mindfulness part of the fabric of more schools, we’ve packaged up our programming model into an easy-to-use Mindfulness Toolkit.
New Leaf does what we’re good at—sharing mindfulness exercises like mindful movement, meditation, and creative activities in an accessible and youth-friendly way—and teachers can cultivate mental and emotional well-being in their classrooms by implementing mindful moments throughout the regular class day without having to become experts themselves.
Teachers and students:
Learn together
Connect with themselves and each other
Cultivate healthy bodies and minds
… so that schools can thrive.
Get started today!
Sign up as an individual or contact us for group pricing.
Not an educator, but know someone who is? Please spread the word!