Mindful Learning: Teaching Self-Discipline and Academic Achievement

Today's teachers face unique challenges. They feel pressure to raise test scores and to cover the curriculum. At the same time, their students need more nurturing and guidance than ever. Mindful Learning shows how successful teachers put caring into action to provide both personal support and instructional enrichment. Using this approach, teachers integrate efforts to care for students as people--the "affective" portion of the curriculum--with efforts to extend their understanding of content--the "academic" dimension of instruction. In each chapter of Mindful Learning, Strahan illustrates strategies that help students maximize academic learning and make better choices about behavior. These strategies combine what teachers have learned about how the "mind" works best with what researchers have learned about how teachers most effectively promote "learning." The concept of Mindful Learning incorporates Gardner's "Theory of Mulitple Intelligences," Glaser's "Reality Therapy," and Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence." The result is a flexible framework that has proven successful in promoting achievement and self-discipline. Each chapter features classroom applications that are ready-to-teach as well as a summary of relevant research. A CHOICE Magazine Outstanding Academic Book of 1998.