65% of the children come from the highest level of deprivation. ![]() “Inspirational messages laminated on walls, but not lived.” Success at Three Bridges When Jeremy first began working at Three Bridges, a program like MindUP would have been more challenging to integrate because the staff weren’t “in that space.” But when he finally introduced it, it felt familiar because it gave a framework and language to something that the adults at Three Bridges had been talking about in more abstract terms for years. He first learned about it in Canada, where he did his principal training (MindUP was actually born in Vancouver nearly fifteen years ago). Jeremy introduced MindUP to Three Bridges three years ago. ) The first thing Jeremy did to turn around Three Bridges was to carefully listen, and then to make this practice a core value of the school. (You can see a video of a teacher demonstrating this lesson here. This practice of “leaning in” reminded me of Lesson Four of the MindUP program, “Mindful Listening.” Through this lesson, MindUP helps children train their brains and ears to better regulate their attention, focus and hear more carefully. What we end up doing is that we don’t lean in, we lean away. “Because when things get crazy we are always thinking about what’s next. What does Three Bridges do, exactly, to set itself apart as the happiest school? “One of our big ideas this year is about leaning in,” Jeremy emphasizes, “about how we need to lean in to relationships, families, children, each other.” (In schools that implement MindUP, teachers lead Brain Breaks with their students for three minutes, three times a day.) “Leaning In” It’s a core MindUP practice and many might argue it’s completely age-agnostic. The “Brain Break” for example, is a focused, disciplined breathing exercise that promotes healthy stress management (research has shown that Brain Breaks, among other factors, increases stress regulation in children). ![]() Though MindUP’s core curriculum is focused on children (ages three to fourteen years old), Jeremy’s comment about using MindUP for his teachers isn’t the first time I’ve heard adults wanting to adopt the practices of MindUP to support their own mental well-being. “When I originally learned of MindUP, my first thought was, ‘wow, what an impact this would have on our staff’.” He wanted the adults to be happy and develop mindful practice in their own lives first. I find it an interesting and bold move that with the pervasive school rhetoric of “kids first,” Jeremy first made the work about the adults. Teachers should be happy to come to work,” he said. “Adults must flourish for kids to flourish. Jeremy’s keen on this point, so his pathway to creating “the happiest school” was first about taking care of the teachers and staff. With a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention in the UK and US, it seems a lot of young adults think that becoming a teacher is a terrible idea. “Schools should be the beating heart of the community… for everyone. This sentiment is at once commonplace and alarming. ![]() It’s in a book by Bronx-born teacher, Ira Schor, in which he reflects about his youth, sharing that: “like many kids, I loved learning, but not schooling” ( Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change). I discussed this point with Jeremy, and shared my obsession with a quote that’s guided my entire career as an educator. It’s a bit ironic and sad that happiness isn’t often a quality that we (adults and children) associate with schools.
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