US schools take meditation breaks; teachers say it helps students' mental health

It was almost the end of school term and more specifically the third group of the Roberta T. Smith Elementary School students still had few days to go before they would be out of classes for summer holidays and one hour more before lunch time but there was competition of any sort as the students entered the class. They were waiting for one of the favorite parts of the day among them. 
 
The children shut their eyes and slid their thumbs from their foreheads to their chest as the recorded instrution told them to do the shark fin, which the classroom does every day for meditation. 
 
“Feel the chimes,” Kim Franklin the teacher encouraged them, “Breathe. ” 
 
From the U. S schools, academies have been adopting yoga, mediation and similar exercises so that children could deal with pressure and feelings. Describing student stress levels in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed the practices, cited above. 
 
Studies have indicated that school based mindfulness interventions are beneficial particularly in schools in low income neighborhoods where the learners experience high levels of stress or trauma. 
 
 
The mindfulness program of Clayton County Public Schools arrived at Smith Elementary via relevant contract, and two-thirds of the learners at the school are Black. 

An Atlanta-based network that connects communities with local nonprofits, GreenLight Fund Atlanta, assists Georgia school systems in financing the mindfulness program offered by an audio-based organization called Inner Explorer. 
 
Interview with Joli Cooper, the executive director of GreenLight Fund Atlanta, requested that it was the group’s priority to fund an organization that would be useful for the communities of color in the Greater Atlanta area. 
 
Children across the nation faced the consequences and challenges arising out of isolation and remote learning as they came back from the pandemic school shut down. In CDC’s survey carried out in 2023, the results showed that over one-third of the students noted experiencing symptoms of persistent sadness and hopelessness. The agency suggested that schools should embrace the use of mindfulness exercises to boost the students’ management of emotional issues. 
 
“It is now certain that our teenagers and adolescents have stretched their mental health to the limit,” CDC Director – Dr. Mandy Cohen said to the Associated Press. “Oh, there are genuine talents that we can provide our teens so that certain feelings are not overwhelming them. ” 
 
Techniques of mindfulness are a part of social-emotional learning that has caused heated debates among many conservative politicians who accuse schools of turning their kids into liberal woke Social justice warriors. 
 
However, supporters of the programming note that the attention to students’ welfare needs is long overdue. 
 
According to Cooper, if one is to consider the statistical figures in Georgia specifically, it is regrettable to note that children of color with both suicidal inclinations and accomplishment are not few. The participant reflects on the availability of psychologists thus his/her comment: “When you talk about the number of psychologists willing to work with these children, there are inadequate number of psychologists of colour. ” 
 
It also details that black youth hold the highest rate of suicide increasing speed out of all racial categories as estimated per the CDC. Statistics have it that while between 2007 and 2020, the suicide rate of Black children and teenagers of age 10 to 17 has risen by 144%. 
 
“It’s a stigma with being able to say you’re not OK and needing help and having the ability to ask for help,” agreed Tolana Griggs, Smith Elementary’s assistant principal. “Considering the multi- cultural populated school and willing to know the students more, the attitude of different cultural group and their responses towards various things it is pertinent to be open to embrace everything multicultural. ” 
 
A national survey conducted showed that on increasing student enrollment in schools that are mostly made up of students of color, there is limited access of children to Psychologists/Counsellors in relation to their counterparts in schools that have predominantly White students. 
 
The Inner Explorer programme provides the students and teachers with a variety of specific breathing, meditating and reflection exercises that take 5 to 10 minutes several times a day. The program also is applied in Atlanta public schools and over one hundred other districts all over the United States of America. 
 
Proponents of mindfulness have it that teachers and even administrators indicate that there is a difference in their students today as compared to before when they introduced mindfulness into their daily practice. Little Aniyah Woods, 9 years old has stated that the program has assisted her “calm down” and “not stress anymore. ” 
 
“I am comfortable with how I am, but Inner Explorer just makes me be even more of myself,” said Aniyah. 
 
Including an individual called Malachi Smith who really has been doing some exercises at home and with his father’s facilitation he was led through some meditations. 
 
‘You can swizzle the shark fin and I always snap out of it and you know, I am a good scholar,’ Malachi said. 
 
When Franklin’s class was through with their meditation, they said how they felt. 
 
“Relaxed,” one student said. 
 
Aniyah raised her hand. 
 
“It made me feel peaceful she said. ” 
 
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