Culture
What Mindfulness Does for Urban Kids
As alternatives to detention, school-based meditation programs help students cope with stress.
In a bright room at Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in Baltimore, a group of kids sit around the edge of a colorful checkerboard rug. They close their eyes, and an instructor walks them through a belly breathing exercise.
Technically, they’re there because they acted out: they got in a scuffle on the playground, or spoke out of turn in class. But this is not detention: the Mindful Moment Room is Robert W. Coleman Elementary’s attempt to break the entrenched cycle of disruption and punishment in schools.