11 Jun Meditation in school

‘Often I start my lessons with a moment of silence,’ says Mirjam, ‘sometimes a few minutes but occasionally even longer.’ Mirjam is a mathematics teacher. She is an enthusiastic educator, has a warm heart for her students and knows how to present the formulas so that the young people find mathematics enjoyable with her. ‘I was curious about the impact of meditation on their performance. Do you know what I observed?’

We are being interrupted. We are sitting on a terrace and the boy who brings the coffee to our table turns out to be someone I know. He attended a Zen retreat in France this summer with a Zen master I remember from the past. We have a chat. He wants to come by our dojo soon.

Slow is better
Mirjam feels undistracted. ‘Thank you,’ she says kindly to him. ‘The result was that these students worked a bit slower and completed fewer assignments.’ Oh what a shame, I thought to myself. As a meditation practitioner, I actually feel that meditation enhances concentration, but Mirjam wasn’t finished speaking. ‘The assignments were completed better. The students understood the theory better!’ ‘The theory sinks deeper in,’ I say. ‘Yes,’ says Mirjam, ‘and also in the long term, the students seem to perform better!’ ‘So what you’re really saying is: slow is better. That confirms what I think too.’

Doing more in less time
Because the pace of society is becoming faster and faster, we think we need to become more effective: doing more in less time. As a result, we schedule meetings back-to-back without a break, work through lunch or read something, and hardly take any time off in between. We have so much to do, so there is no time for a break!

Allowing your mind to rest
But what does this practical research aim for? It has the same outcome as I observe in myself: when you take the time to allow your mind to rest and alternate mental tasks with manual work where you let your thoughts flow freely, you work better. The quality improves, and I dare to say that you also get more done.

Free from compulsive lists
Mirjam attended the training ‘Stress-free Working with Time Surfing’ with me. This method frees you from compulsive lists and invites you to use your intuition. And although Mirjam is educated in the exact sciences, Time Surfing fits her like a glove.

*This post has been automatically translated from Dutch