Humanizing Schools w/ Mindfulness & Compassion

The Contemplative Teaching and Learning Lab at the University of Virginia presents mindfulness and compassion practices as evidence-based tools for addressing systemic educational challenges rather than merely individual stress management. Led by Dr. Tish Jennings, the team argues that while self-care approaches have their place, true educational transformation requires understanding how stress operates at multiple systemic levels - from classroom interactions to district policies to broader societal structures. Their research demonstrates that teacher stress creates a "burnout cascade" where overwhelmed educators become more reactive, leading to increased classroom disruption and diminished learning outcomes for all students.

"When we think about compassion and mindfulness... it can be addressed it can be used as a tool or as a process at all these different levels but... it needs to be used in a different way at different levels because otherwise it ends up becoming like self-care - it just feel better and everything will be okay."

"The system that we're living in... is clearly based on this idea of a factory - it's linear, it's simple, it's predictable... but learning is a very complex system, it's unpredictable, it's flexible."

"I noticed my tendency to become more reactive to student behavior... because when teachers are stressed out that can create situations that cause more disruption."

• How might understanding education as a complex adaptive system rather than a factory model change approaches to curriculum, assessment, and school organization? What specific factory-model practices persist in your context?
• How do threat, drive, and affiliation systems show up in your educational environment? What structures amplify threat and competition while diminishing connection and belonging?
• How might over-empathizing with students actually harm both educator effectiveness and student outcomes? What does sustainable caring look like?