Morning Plenary Panel with Q&A

Cultivating Mindful Awareness Practices in K-12 Classrooms

This presentation will focus on the value added of  equipping  both adults and young people with some form of regular contemplative practice that can help them balance their emotions, increase compassion, and cultivate the capacity for stillness and reflection. We will discuss the elements necessary for successfully integrating mindfulness with social and emotional learning into a more holistic vision of k-12 education that includes this approach as a regular part of the school day and is embedded into the culture and mission of a school.

Linda Lantieri, MA has been in the field of education for over 45 years as a classroom teacher, assistant principal, director of a middle school in East Harlem, and faculty member at Hunter College in New York City. She is a Fulbright Scholar, internationally known speaker in the areas of Social and Emotional Learning, Contemplative Teaching and Learning, and Mindfulness in Education, and co-founder and a Senior Program Advisor for the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). She is core faculty of the Spirituality Mind Body Intensive M.A. Degree Program at Teachers College, Columbia University.

For the last 15 years, she served as the Founding Director of The Inner Resilience Program whose mission is to cultivate the inner lives of students, teachers and schools by integrating social and emotional learning with contemplative practice.

Linda is the author of numerous articles and book chapters and coauthor of Waging Peace in Our Schools (Beacon Press, 1996) editor of Schools with Spirit: Nurturing the Inner Lives of Children and Teachers (Beacon Press, 2001), and author of Building Emotional Intelligence: Practices to Cultivate Inner Resilience in Children (Sounds True, 2008, 2014).

Mindfulness, Neurodecolonization, Spirits in our Genes, the Great Inner Circle of Life, and the Science of Traditional Indigenous Contemplative Practices

In this presentation, Dr. Yellow Bird discusses his work in neurodecolonization, which applies neuroscientific, genetic, and microbiome research to mindfulness and traditional Indigenous contemplative approaches to address the pernicious consequences of colonization. He discusses how culture, traumatic colonization experiences, and perceptions shape our brain’s plasticity; affect our DNA, our microbiome, the expression of our genes; changes brain waves and shapes specialized brain cells such as mirror neurons; and alters our neurotransmitters and modulators. He will share how specific traditional practices of Indigenous Peoples can decolonize and heal.

Dr. Michael Yellow Bird is a citizen of the Three Affiliated Tribes, the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara. He grew up on the Fort Berthold reservation in White Shield, North Dakota. He has held faculty appointments in the Schools of social work at the University of British Columbia, University of Kansas, Arizona State University, and Humboldt State University. He is currently Professor of Sociology and Anthropology and Director, of the Tribal and Indigenous Peoples Studies program in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at North Dakota State University.

Dr. Yellow Bird is the author of numerous scholarly articles and book chapters and the co-author of “Holistic Pathways to Integrative Social Work” (forthcoming, with Dr. Kris Clarke); He is the editor of four books: For Indigenous Eyes Only: The Decolonization Handbook, 2005; For Indigenous Minds Only: A Decolonization Handbook, 2012; Indigenous Social Work around the World: towards Culturally Relevant Education and Practice, 2008; and Decolonizing Social Work, 2013.

His teaching, writing, and research, focus on Indigenous People’s mind-body health; mindfulness and neurodecolonization research, theory, and practice; the benefits of ancestral eating; and colonization and decolonizing theory and practice.

Can Teens Overcome Self-Criticism and Learn to Embrace Who They Are? An Introduction to Making Friends with Yourself: A Mindful Self-Compassion Program for Teens

Adolescence is a developmental period often marked by significant psychological and emotional challenges. In two research studies, self-compassion training has been demonstrated to address the big issues that many teens face today, such as stress, depression and anxiety. Specifically, the 8-week adolescent mindfulness-based self-compassion program Making Friends with Yourself (MFY), adapted from the 8-week empirically-based adult program Mindful Self-Compassion, created by Kristin Neff and Chris Germer, has demonstrated decreases in stress, anxiety, and depression post-program.

In this session, self-compassion will be defined and its distinction from mindfulness will be clarified. In addition, the structure and components of the MFY program will be articulated, and the outcomes of the research will be briefly explained. Several experiential practices from the program will be introduced and time will be provided for participants to respond to these practices.

Dr. Karen Bluth is Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina in the Program on Integrative Medicine and a certified instructor of Mindful Self-Compassion, an internationally acclaimed 8-week course created by Drs. Kristin Neff and Chris Germer. She is co-creator of the curriculum Making Friends with Yourself: A Mindful Self-Compassion Program for Teens, the teen adaptation of Mindful Self-Compassion for adults, and author of the book The Self-Compassion Workbook for Teens: Mindfulness and Compassion Skills to Overcome Self-Criticism and Embrace Who You Are. Dr. Bluth’s research focuses on the roles that self-compassion and mindfulness play in promoting well-being in youth. Additionally, she is Associate Editor of the academic journal Mindfulness.

As a mindfulness practitioner for 40 years, a mindfulness teacher, and a lifelong educator with 18 years of classroom experience, Dr. Bluth frequently gives talks, conducts workshops, and teaches classes in self-compassion and mindfulness in educational and community settings and trains teachers in Making Friends with Yourself internationally.

Registration: 8:00am

Super Early Bird: $125 (Before Feb. 22)
Early Bird: $175 (Feb. 23 – Feb. 28)
Regular: $250 (March 1 – March 9)