June 10, 2013
The Flor Rotnes, a married couple and Danish educational consultants, miss many opportunities to “create a mindful classroom” in this well-intentioned effort. Mindfulness—being “aware of what is happening in our present experiences, with compassion, insight and with an intention to create joy”—has obvious uses in education; to literally have “everybody present” could only lead to deeper learning for students. Still, this repetitious work could have been much stronger if the authors had spent more time unpacking the obvious and laying out the steps to put their suggestions into practice. Instead, too much time is spent stating and restating the importance of mindfulness to the individual (not even necessarily to the student). Even as the authors define their terms, they miss taking the crucial next step to connect those terms to everyday classroom practice. The book is laced with anecdotes and folk tales that the authors attempt to link with their lessons on mindfulness. The one chapter that deals explicitly with children and mindfulness is filled with strong reasoning and age-appropriate exercises. Unfortunately, it takes 10 chapters to get there.