This document summarizes research on secondary school students' needs and concerns in Latvia. It found that students' greatest concerns were decisions about their future and their school environment. Over 70% reported difficulties concentrating, stress, and lack of motivation. The study also found that over 50% of students were concerned about finding meaning in life and felt a sense of emptiness. Students indicated a need for contemplative practices but did not find school lessons very helpful in meeting their needs. The document discusses contemplative education and its benefits, such as reducing stress and anxiety and improving cognitive skills. It argues schools are a suitable place to teach contemplation.

1. Contemplative Education: the Art of
Meeting Oneself and Others
Alise Skupele, MA in Cultural Encounters,
doctoral student of pedagogy, Latvia University
of Agriculture

2. Research of Secondary School
Students’ Needs and Concerns
Research objective:
• To investigate the needs/ concerns of
secondary school students and sources that
satisfy their needs for education and self-
development
• To investigate the significance of school in
meeting students’ needs and the extent to
which school satisfies students’ educational
needs and the need for self-development.

3. Participants
Data were gathered using two surveys from
secondary schools in Latvia. 266 students, age
16-20, participated in the study
Measure
Demographics: The socio-demographics
assessed in this study include gender, age, grade
and school

4. • Survey of Students’ Concerns: Berube, E. and
Berube. L. (1997) survey was modified for this
study to include additional questions, such as
needs regarding the contemplative dimension.
The survey consists of eight different areas,
exploring various elements of students’ needs.
• Survey of Students’ Needs and Sources of Their
Satisfaction: Kolmogorova’s (2002) survey was
modified to explore students’ educational needs
and needs for self-development in nine different
areas, the extent and sources of their satisfaction.

5. Results
• The results show that students’ greatest concerns are
decisions regarding one’s future and school ecology
(environment, relationships with peers, teachers)
• 71.7 % report difficulties to concentrate, 70.6 %
experience stress, 73.3 % are concerned about lack
of motivation, 58.6 % report that the content of
lessons is not interesting, 38% emphasize inability to
be present to what is happening, and 42.8% report
feeling depressed
• Irony of the modern education – we are asking
students to pay attention, to concentrate, but we
haven’t taught them how to do that

6. 0.73
1.33
1.3
1.27
1.21
1.04
1.02
0.96
0.95
0.94
0.94
0.94
0.88
0.79
0.75
0.75
0.73
0.71
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
My weight
What to do after
finishing school
Bad grades/failing an
exam
How to earn money
Too much homework
What kind of person I
want to be
Lack of motivation
Mistakes I have made
Difficulties to
concentrate
Feeling bad/illness
Stress
Need to continue
education
Appearance
Need to start working
Quest for meaning of
life
How violance in the
world can hurt me
Environmental
pollution
Do not understand
assignments at school
Students' Greatest Concerns
Series1

7. Areas of Students’ Concerns
.00 .20 .40 .60 .80 1.00 1.20
Health and body
Personality traits
Need for contemplative…
Sense of meaninglessness
Pressing youth issues
One's future
Home and family
Relationships with peers
Ecology of school
Female
Male

8. Results
The results show that 56% of students are concerned
about the quest for meaning of life, 42.4% are
concerned about the meaninglessness of life, 49.2%
experience a sense of emptiness, 45.2% stressed the
need to understand their spiritual development, 41%
highlighted the need for spirituality, 42.7% reported
having a need for a deeper understanding of oneself

9. Sources of self-development
.95
1.22
1.02
1.26
.64
.96
1.13 1.23 1.30
1.25
.61
.86
Male Female

10. • Students that experience the need for contemplative
dimension in their lives do not consider school
lessons as a great source to satisfy their needs for
education and self-development.
• Sense of meaninglessness does not correlate to any
of the source areas for education and self-
development.
• Students need greater support from school staff to
deal with their experiences.

11. Via internet
sources
Through
relationships
with others
Through
cultural
activities
(books,
theatre,
museums,
exhibitions)
In school
lessons
Through
social
activities in
school
In
extracurricula
r activities
Health and
body
.232**
.137*
.152*
.141*
.157*
,054
Personality
traits
.142*
.168**
.168**
.154*
.140*
-,013
Need for
contemplativ
e dimension
.225**
.152*
.252**
,027 .191**
,100
Sense of
meaninglessn
ess
,111 ,000 ,102 ,051 ,113 ,009
Pressing
youth issues
.125*
,049 -,013 .153*
.244**
.131*
One's future .219**
.234**
.159*
.168**
.202**
.132*
Home and
family
,104 ,092 ,073 ,087 .158*
,079
Relationships
with peers
.201**
,092 ,121 .148*
.299**
,071
Ecology of
school
.153*
.158*
.164**
,082 .211**
,112

12. Contemplative pedagogy
• The term contemplative indicates application
of meditative methods to learning pedagogies
in settings where meditation as such is not
taught. Contemplative pedagogy indicates
interiority or personal reflection.
• Contemplation involves openness and
presence to the current moment.

13. Context of Contemplative Education
• Since 1990 in the USA meditation has been integrated in
academic education. Movement of contemplative
education has become popular in institutions of higher
education (the University of Michigan, Naropa University,
Brown University, the University of Redlands in Rice
Univeristy, Emory University), Center for Contemplative
Mind in Society
• Over the past 10 years, youth-meditation programmes have
been developed in countries such as England (Mindfulness
in Schools Project, DotB - have trained more than 1,200
teachers in 38 countries), the USA (Mindful Schools and
MindUp), Canada (Mindful Education), Israel (The
Mindfulness Language) and India (The Alice Project).

14. The objectives of applying
contemplative practices to education:
• to enhance the cognitive skills of students, to
deepen self-awareness, to foster empathy, critical
thinking, creativity, compassion, and
communication. Contemplative education
teaches the skill of deep, disciplined,
nonjudgmental listening, toward oneself and
others
• not focused on the result or outcome, but the
process and the path of self-development during
all lifetime

15. Contemplative pedagogy seeks to integrate
three educational approaches – “three modes of
inquiry”:
• traditional academics or “third-person”
inquiry
• experiential learning or “second-person”
inquiry
• contemplative or “first-person” inquiry

17. Mindfulness
• mindfulness practice - friendly, non-judging,
anxiety-reducing, present-moment awareness
developed by persistently being attentive to
things usually left unnoticed (Brantley 2003)
• attention to the internal and external
experiences in the present moment

18. Are schools the right place to teach
meditation?
• Schools have contact with large numbers of children on a
regular basis and across their formative developmental years
where lifelong habits may be established
• A key purpose of schools is to cultivate learning “the mental
training of meditation is fundamentally no different than
other forms of skill acquisition” (Davidson&Lutz 2008:176).
• Davidson and Lutz’s (2008) research also shows that
meditation can induce plasticity in the brain that assists
learning.
• Meditation education aligns with the twenty-first century
notion of schooling which views learning as a holistic process
that seeks to educate students academically, emotionally,
socially, ethically and spiritually (Clonan et al. 2004).

19. Benefits of contemplative practice
Research over the past few decades has found that mindfulness training:
• decreases psychological distress including depression, anxiety
• increases scores of overall empathy levels (Shapiro, Schwartz, and Bonner 1998)
• shows stronger elevations of positive affect, quality of life, as well as mindfulness
(Nyklícek & Kuijpers 2008)
• enhanced attention (Jha 2007; Tang et al. 2007),
• cognition (Zeidan et al. 2010), cognitive flexibility (Moore 2009),
• strengthens compassion (Doty 2012, Davidson 2004)
• improves visuo-spatial processing, working memory, and executive functioning.
• enhances the ability to sustain attention (Zeidan et al. 2010).
• contributes to enhanced cognitive and academic performance (including attention
and concentration), management of academic stress, and the development of the
“whole person” increasing creativity, empathy, compassion, interpersonal skills and
self-awareness (Shapiro, Brown and Astin 2008)
• Decreased ADHD behaviors—specifically hyperactivity and impulsivity (Harrison,
Manocha & Rubia, 2004)
• increased sense of calm, connection to nature, and improved sleep (Wall, 2005)

20. True education entails a transformation of the human being
(..) This transformation results in the human capacity to live
the worldviews of others, and even further to sustain in our
mind and heart the contradictions that are an inevitable part
of engaging the beautiful variety of cultures, religions, and
races that populate this planet. We can sustain the
complexities of the world because we have learned to honor
and embrace the complex, conflicting components of
ourselves. Our inner accomplishments, achieved through
contemplative education, translate into outer capacities for
peace-building. From there it is a short distance to the
perception of interconnectedness and the enduring love for
others, especially for those different from us (Zajonc 2006:3)

21. Thank you for your attention!

22. References
• Brantley, J. (2003). Calming your anxious mind. Oakland, CA
• Clonan, S. M., Chafouleas, S. M., McDougal, J. L., and Riley‐Tillman, T. C. (2004). Positive
psychology goes to school: Are we there yet? Psychology in the Schools, 41, 101–110.
• Davidson, R. J., & Lutz, A. (2008). Buddha's brain: Neuroplasticity and meditation. IEEE Signal
Processing Magazine, 25, 176–174.
• Davidson, R. J. (2004). Well-being and affective style: Neural substrates and bio-behavioral
correlates. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (London), 359, (pp. 1395–
1411)
• Doty, J. 2012. The Place for Compassion in a Modern Age. Center for Compassion and Altruism
Research and Education webcast. Accessed June 14, 2016,
http://ccare.stanford.edu/videos/the-place-for-compassion-in-a-modern-age-james-doty-md/
• Harrison, L., Manocha, R., & Rubia, K. (2004). Sahaja Yoga Meditation as a Family Treatment
Programme for Children with Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder. Clinical Child
Psychology and Psychiatry, 9(4), 479-497.
• Jha, A. P. (2007). Mindfulness Meditation Modifies Subsystems of Attention. Cognitive Affective
Behavioral Neuroscience 7(2), (pp. 109–119)
• Moore, A. 2009. Meditation, Mindfulness and Cognitive Flexibility. Consciousness and
Cognition 18(1), (pp. 176–186)

23. References
• Nyklíček, I., & Kuijpers, K. F. (2008). Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction
intervention on psychological well-being and quality of life: is increased
mindfulness indeed themechanism? Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 35, (pp.331-
340)
• Shapiro, S. L., Schwartz, G. E. & Bonner, G. (1998). Effects of mindfulness-based stress
reduction on medical and premedical students. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 21(6)
(pp. 581-99)
• Shapiro, S., Brown, K., & Astin, J. (2008). Toward the integration of meditation into higher
education: A review of research. Retrieved from http://www.contemplativemind.org/
programs /academic/MedandHigherEd.pdf
• Tang, Y-Y., Y. Ma, J. Wang, Y. Fan, S. Feng, Q. Lu, Q. Yu, et al. 2007. Short Term Meditation Training
Improves Attention and Self-Regulation. Proceedings of National Academy of
Sciences 104, (17152–17156)
• Wall, R. (2005). Tai Chi and mindfulness-based stress reduction in a Boston Public Middle School.
Journal of Pediatric Health Care, 19(4), 230-237.
• Zajonc, A. (2006). Contemplative and Transformative Pedagogy. Kosmo Journal, Vol. V, No.1,
Fall/Winter
• Zeidan, F., et al. (2010). Mindfulness meditation improves cognition: Evidence of brief mental
training. Consciousness and Cognition, Jun; Vol. 19 (2), (pp. 597-605). Date of
Electronic Publication: 2010 Apr 03.