Integrating mindfulness practices into the high school curriculum to improve academic performance edited copy

Running Head: INTEGRATING MINDFULNESS PRACTICES 1
Integrating Mindfulness Practices into the High School Curriculum to Improve Academic
Performance
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

INTEGRATING MINDFULNESS PRACTICES 2
Literature review
Students in today’s schools face numerous barriers to learning, creating difficulty in
achieving academic success and emotional stability. However, integrating Mindfulness Programs
into the High School Program can improve academic performance. According to Berger, Silver,
and Stein, students emotional well-being affects their academic performance. In their pilot study
they compared the effect of two different after school programs to assess how they affected
academic performance of the students. The students who participates in after school programs like
yoga programs have fewer negative responses to stress as compared to those who do not participate
(Berger, et al, 2009). According to Berger, et al, one of the students admitted that the yoga program
changed him to start doing his homework thus increasing his academic performance. Butzer et al
(2015), supported the idea of Berger et al (2009) by claiming that yoga innervations changes grade
point average of high school students. In their study concerning yoga programs undertaken by
grade 9 and 10 high school students, they observed that those students struggled to protect their
academic performance by avoiding reduction in GPA scores. In addition, a study conducted by
Smith, Shupe and Klatt on “perception of students who took part in a school-based yoga program”,
investigated 24 students of 3rd grade. The study found that students had positive perceptions on
the contribution of yoga programs towards reducing stress and promoting behavior in children
faced with learning problems. Most of the students who were interviewed responded that yoga
programs help students engage themselves in classroom learning.
Brown, in his article “in the classroom, a current focus on cooling the mind” proposes some
examples of mindfulness programs that can be used in schools and suggests the experiences of
students who have participated in various stress-reducing programs. According to Brown, many
schools have adopted the concept of mindfulness in their program with an aim of helping students

being still, slowing down, and balancing their lives. Chan, Cheung, and Sze (2008) conducted a
study that aimed at evaluating the impact of body/mind of low-performing children with behavioral
challenges and low academic performance. The study concluded that mindfulness training of low
achieving students improved their academic performance based on GPA. According to Chan et al,
children who achieved low grades in the tutorial class when subjected to the mind/body training
programs showed improvement above their performance level (Chan et al, 2007). Mindfulness
practices increase the emotion regulation of high school students and are more effective in learning
when compared to physical education (Daly et al, 2015). According to Daly, mindfulness practices
increase academic focus of students. According to Eklund, Omalley, & Meyer, 2016 in their article
“measuring mindfulness in youth” proposed three instruments which can be used to gauge
mindfulness (Eklund, 2016). Also, mindfulness practices can be used in reducing alcohol
consumption among adolescents thus improving their academic performance. In a study conducted
by Fishbein, Miller, Herman, William, Lavery, Markovitz, & Johnson (2016) on “psychological
and behavioral effects of yoga intervention on high-risk adolescents” several students were in a
risk of dropping from studies due to alcohol or abuse of other drugs or absenteeism. The study
recommended yoga programs to improve the performance of those students. According to Fishbein
et al (2016), yoga interventions helped in reducing alcohol consumption in high school students
(Fishbein et al, 2016). Frank, et al, 2017, a yoga program known as proposed transformative life
skills that can be used to reduce students' unexcused absence, and increase school engagement as
well as detentions. According to Frank et al, such a program was effective in improving student
engagement in academics. Another study conducted by Franco, Manas, Cangas, & Gallego in 2010
to identify the impacts of a mindful program on the academic performance, observed that the rate
of performance increased as the rate of using mindfulness program increased among the high

school students. According to their study, the group of students who were involved in the program
showed improved academic performance when compared to those students who never participated
in such programs. According to Hakings and Rundle (2016), students who participate in
mindfulness programs such as yoga classes, as well as PE classes in high school, had high GPA
scores that the students who never participated in PE classes. Incorporating mindfulness activities
into the high school curriculum improves attention to social relations and task behaviors (Kanagy,
2013). According to Kanagy if mindfulness practices are incorporated into 5th-grade curriculum
academic areas relating to social relations attention and task attention are improved. Kanagy has
practiced hatha yoga meditation for more than 15 years and has improved mindfulness practices
in high schools for many years. Mindfulness practices can be applied to any person regardless of
the gender, age, or the health status. Mehta et al (2011) applied yoga programs to a group of
students of ages between 6 years and 7 years who suffered from ADHD. After a 6 week study, the
discovered that more than half of the students showed improvements in their behavioral and
academic performance regardless of gender, and, or the type of ADHS diagnosed.
According to Morgan (2003), time management and elimination of stress help in
improving academic success. Morgan argues that school is the major source of stress among the
youth. The stressed then increases pressure on the students thus affecting their academic
performance negatively. Morgan then gave some techniques to reduce stress through muscle
relaxation. The first technique proposed by Morgan to reduce academic stress was yoga programs
hence improving the academic performance of the students. Apart from the stress reduction, the
program also helps in muscle relaxation thus engaging more in academic performance. In another
study conducted by Otto (2014), PE programs engage high school students both physically and
mentally thus reducing their stress and balancing their academics. Also, after-school activities help

students make the best choices. The programs help in the reflective assessment of the students. A
study contracted by Peck et al (2005), was aimed at investigating the effectiveness of mindfulness
practices in solving the attention problems in ten elementary schools. Using yoga videotape, Peck
et al, engaged the students in their study by instructing them to undergo physical postures, breathe
deeply and engage in relaxation exercise for about 30 minutes for 3 weeks, twice per week.
According, to their study most students experiencing attention problems also experience problems
in academic performance. The study proposed yoga problems as the medication to attention
problem in children. Therefore, mindfulness practices help in improving the academic
performance of the students with attention problems. Semple's research on real-world experiences
and mindfulness practices in school. Semple and Ried suggested that students' demand for
attention is rising though are not taught on how to pay attention. The authors proposed 10
mindfulness programs to determine the effectiveness of the programs to the student performance.
The programs reported a positive outcome. Trivedi conducted a research on holistic health
enhancement program and its contributions to academic performance among the adolescents. The
article examines the effect of mental health on academic performance. According to the
researchers, mental fitness can be enhanced through mindfulness practices. Also, Wang and
Hagins also analyzed some the evidence associated with the performance of who participated in a
yoga program. The concluded that yoga interventions are essential in improving the academic
performance of the high school students. According to Zalaznick (2017), mindfulness makes
differences in performance of different students. The relaxation techniques help students attain
their academic success.

Methodology
Most of the research was conducted using the data from the literature review and part of the
research was conducted at the field. Qualitative research approach is the method that was used to
conduct this study at the field. I considered this method because it allowed me to gain more
knowledge in the use of mindfulness because it incorporated: A) Existing research and literature,
B) My personal understanding in connection to the phenomenon and C) Participants with living
experience. The interplay of these factors is what contributed to the success of this study. I
conducted my study by collecting information by a way of semi-structured interviews, extracting
meaning from the data collected, and connecting the findings with current literature. This enabled
me to come up with a conclusions that meditation and mindfulness practices improve academic
performance in high school students.
The study results from existing literature and will help in having reforms in the system of
education. The factor that helped to guide the general direction of this study is the decision that I
made to keep the questions structured and open-ended. In order to keep evidence for the whole
study, every person who was interviewed was recorded on a voice recorder. I made conclusion in
the transcripts based on the themes of the interview responses and literature review. The
participants of this study were selected based on: high school teachers have their personal
interpretation in regard to mindfulness, high school teachers apply their knowledge on mindfulness
in some form in classrooms, and teachers of over two years’ experience. The recruitment was not
gender based. The participants were recruited based on an individual attendance of speaker
seminars and development conferences that were well connected with mindfulness in education.
By doing this, I wanted to ensure that all participants had a good experience concerning
mindfulness amongst high school students. Therefore, information from such participants was very

reliable in enhancing a more understanding of mindfulness in education. Inside and outside
different schools I was also able to gather more information from students, professors and scholars
of mindfulness. I had set the location and time of conducting the research at the participants’
convenience.
Among the participants was Jonathan a third year high school teacher, by then the English
teacher. Jonathan has been teaching for around five years in a school that has approximately 800
students and frequently attends conferences that discuss issues of mindfulness. The other teacher
was Jade who was a high school teacher too teaching philosophy. Jade had been teaching in the
same school for more than ten years and the approximate number of students in the school was
1500. The students in this school were coming from different cultural and heritage families and
backgrounds. Jonathan was teaching in a school that was in a rural setting while Jade was teaching
in a school that was in an urban setting.
Results and discussion
Participants of this study introduced mindfulness in classrooms in order to ensure that
students were developing the character. All the participants were practitioners of mindfulness
hence they had a personal connection with mindfulness. The participants introduced use of
mindfulness in their classes so that they could reduce cases of rise in stress and ensuring that
students were committed to social-emotional learning. All my participants had prior interest
concerning mindfulness. For instance, Jonathan failed to heal from his illness before turning to
mindfulness, “I had tried therapy and medications…all kinds of things that just weren’t working,
and things started to shift in terms of my overall well-being when I started mindfulness practices.”
The main reason as to why my participants were practicing mindfulness in their classes is because
of the personal benefits they had noted from their own life experiences.

There is an increased concern among high school teachers in trying to reduce the level of
stress among the adolescent today (Rempel, 2012). The case of stress was common among
majority of students regardless of their age or socioeconomic background. Jade discussed of the
trauma that many students were going through keeping in mind that most of their parents had been
imprisoned. The levels of stress were on increase as students were trying to balance schoolwork
and the responsibilities that were left for them back at home. Jade said, “They’re too overloaded
and as a result, they’re overstressed, they have so much anxiety, there’s so much depression…it’s
horrific…I had six kids on suicide watch last year.” This means that stress on students can lead to
negative effects like low self-esteem that can lead to cases of suicide among them. All the
participants of this study implemented mindfulness in their classes as way to help their students to
cope with their levels of stress. They also confirmed that most of the students who were stressed
at school, performed poorly in their academics hence there was a need to formulate strategies that
would help reduce the level of stress among these students. The moment human beings are
undergoing stressful situations, the part of the brain that is responsible for learning shuts down so
that there is enough energy to fight response (Shanker, 2014). Mindfulness, therefore, enabled
students to learn more.
Mindfulness enables students to come into their senses amidst chaos around them (Kabat-
Zinn, 2007). Therefore it is clear if mindfulness is used in the classroom, it is likely to contribute
in reducing the level of stress and anxiety among students in a classroom. It is true that, it is not
possible for students to change their school tasks, therefore, as a result of stress, what is likely to
change is the way the students will be approaching the tasks. The point is align with our research
that mindfulness can best cure or manage stress among high school students. In use of mindfulness,
students will be able to adjust gradually and efficiently. The participants were in agreement that

stress levels among students was a cause of poor performance. This is because, stress can lead to
emotional-behavioral problems. In order to make students in question to come out of this situation,
it is important if an environment that will enable students to manage their stress is created. This
was agreed by all participants. The performance of students is likely to increase if their stress levels
are regulated because they will be in a position to apply all their energy into learning activities
(Shanker, 2013). This was possible if their attention can be taped and their attention controlled. It
was important if the students were nurtured as human beings as well as academic learners.
Mindfulness enables students to engage themselves in physical experiences and this has an impact
for their health and performance at school.
Limitations and strengths
My research was based on ethical parameters hence the scope and scale of the study were
limited. I had little time to engage with students or get into different classrooms. This made me
doubt some of the statements that were said by the participants of my research in regard to the
effects of training mindfulness and in connection with the performance of students. Since I
interviewed only a few teachers it was not possible for me to make a generalized conclusion on
the relationship between training students on mindfulness and their mental health and performance
in class. Furthermore, I only collected more information concerning the perception of teachers and
how they observe students while in the classroom, hence it was not possible to have a clear
conclusion to mindfulness in education or among high school students.
However, there were a number strengths that enhanced a convincing conclusion on mindfulness
among high school students. Interviewing experienced teachers and those who were attending
conferences and seminars about mindfulness resulted in a more meaningful account than the
information I could have collected by conducting a survey. On the other hand, my own knowledge

concerning the study is that the interviews would provide a picture of participants on their own
teaching practice. This was another strength of this study.
Recommendation
Due to mental health challenges and poor academic performance among students in high
school, there is need for teachers to manage classrooms, the following recommendations should
be considered in order to facilitate mindfulness into schooling. First, the stakeholders in the sector
of education should ensure that mindfulness is included in mental health policies as a strategy to
promote emotional well-being of the learners. Second, mindfulness training should be made
accessible to all teachers interested in order for them to develop practices before application in
class. This will enable teachers to be familiar with mindfulness practices prior to classroom
application. Third, there should be mindfulness training in the program of teachers to enable them
to learn how to propagate mindfulness into instructions and implement it into the classroom.
Fourth, the study recommends that teachers should create their own mindfulness program that will
work for them and their students, in addition, they should develop their mindfulness practice before
inducing it to the students in the classroom. In connection to this, they should use a gentle
approach, be transparent and implement a simple program and ensure that required resources are
easily available for use, for instance, online resources, mindfulness scripts and books and simple
films on mindfulness. Lastly, we recommend that the management in different schools should
ensure that there are programs that encourage mindfulness initiatives in schools among the students
and students worldwide are made to understand better about mindfulness. In regard to this, they
should understand what mindfulness is, the benefits of mindfulness, and how students can apply it
in the classroom.

Mindfulness should be induced into curricula, in this way, mindfulness should be compatible with
holistic education and experimental learning. Mindfulness should be made more integrated into
the physical education.
Conclusion
Mindfulness programs have been observed to significantly improve academic performance
among the high school students; hence schools should opt to incorporate such programs into their
curriculum. Such programs have been observed to benefit students in several ways, including
enhancing positive emotions among the students, decreasing distress, and improving particular
attentional skills. Research in curriculum setting is just a start; suggestions from preliminary
evidence imply that mindfulness improves the well-being of adolescents in many ways. The
research has answered an important question concerning the role of mindfulness in enhancing
academic performance in schools. In answering the question, the research has proposed that
mindfulness programs enhance emotion regulation thus improving academic performance in
schools. Historically, most of the researchers on mindfulness have not been studying mindfulness
as a method of enhancing academic performance. Researchers and teachers of mindfulness have
been primarily concerned with supporting youth's socio-emotional wellbeing. Academic
performance improvement has not been their core objective in relation to mindfulness
interventions. The tactic which has been used to improve academic performance has been to
pressure students and remove routine chores and tasks in order to create some time for them to
focus on their academics. But, this has not been an absolute solution since increasing pressure in
students can lead to anxiety and stress which can hinder performance. Development of mindfulness
programs having contemplated practices is the better tactic. However, this research has provided
some reasons to prove that mindfulness has an influence on academic performance. Students who

have been subjected to mindfulness programs are observed to improve their academic performance
significantly. The researchers observed that those students who are higher in mindfulness might
suffer from less anxiety hence they are in a position to utilize their cognitive resources fully in
academic solving academic problems like math problem solving. In addition, high level of
mindfulness has been observed to assist in improving performance and adapting the school
environment for both teachers and students. Therefore, training of mindfulness provides the
required edge in high school and higher education academic performance. The finding supported
the thesis that incorporating mindfulness practices in school curriculum improves academic
performance.
These findings are correct and replicate past research results that mindfulness reduces
anxiety and stress and enhances self-efficacy together with academic performance in schools. Our
study supported impacts of mindfulness by proposing several programs which can be used to
enhance mindfulness among students. Programs like Yoga program are used to enhance
mindfulness among the students and it was observed that those students who participated in those
programs had fewer negative responses to stress as compared to those who did not participate. The
research also observed that children who were achieving low grades in the tutorial class, when
involved in mind training programs improved their performance level in academics. Other
programs like PE lessons were are also suggested to enhance mindfulness. In one of the study, it
was observed that those students who participate in PE classes in high schools attained higher GPA
scores as compared the students who never participate in PE classes. The logic behind such
programs was that they improve attention of students and help in decreasing stress among students.
Therefore, with reduced stress and increased attention students are able to concentrate on their
academics hence improve their academic performance.

Though many schools have adopted the concept of mindfulness in their programs with an
aiming of helping their students perform better academically, some school are reluctant in
incorporating the programs hence they need to pull up their socks. The study made several
recommendations in relation to mindfulness programs in the school curriculum. Some of the
recommendations proposed include; first, the stakeholders in the sector of education need to ensure
that mindfulness is included in mental health policies as a strategy to promote emotional well-
being. Secondly, mindfulness training should be made accessible to all teachers interested in order
for them to develop practices before application in class. Thirdly, there should be mindfulness
training in the program of teachers to enable them to learn how to propagate mindfulness into
instructions and implement it into the classroom. Lastly, teachers should create their own
mindfulness program that will work for them and their students, in addition, they should develop
their mindfulness practice before inducing it to the students in the classroom setting. Furthermore,
we propose a future study to examine whether mindfulness delivers academic benefits. Emotional
benefits conferred by mindfulness might be adequate to prove to teach the practice, but the strong
justification for increased academic performance would significantly influence the ongoing debate
about incorporating mindfulness in high schools.

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