Download the project brochure.
Mindful Educators is a training concept that goes against the grain: it isn’t based around innovative teaching, high performance or miracle formulas. Instead, it is a programme where we can reflect on our own roles as educators, to gain a deeper awareness of our own emotions, fears and needs.
After all, those of us who take care of others, such as teachers, also need to learn how to take care of ourselves.
Mindfulness is the mind’s essential ability to observe itself while in action, without passing judgement, allowing us to notice physical states, emotions, thoughts and behavioural responses.
At this complex time, where cultural contexts are accelerating and constantly changing, we believe it is necessary to promote emotional and cognitive self-regulation based on mindfulness. This mindfulness can then serve as a precondition to better navigate difficult situations, to ground ourselves, to point ourselves towards the goals we care about, and to access individual resources which are often unrecognised.
The history of Mindful Educators goes back a long way.
It has its origins in the book by Andrea Bocconi, Psychosynthesis for Educators (Psicosintesi per Educatori, published by ETS), inspired by the models of Humanistic Psychology, Neuroscience, Mindfulness and Body Consciousness, with a particular focus on Roberto Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis.
After piloting exercises and work plans in Italy, India, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Burkina Faso, we brought the experiences together in 2020 to create a series of protocols centred around educators as “people who fulfil a role”.
We are currently living through a period of radical historical change, where we are inundated by demands and information which constantly take us outside of ourselves, forced to respond in emergency mode to unprecedented issues. The most apparent consequences are stress, disorientation, unease and a lack of effectiveness. Before new teaching techniques can be absorbed, there is a great need for time dedicated to self-care, to reconnect with our own resources and professional experiences.
Over 200 educators have taken the course to date, but we would like to widen the reach of our contribution. Our dream is to be able to reach every provincial capital and spread the vision and methods of Educational Psychosynthesis. To this end, a manual has been released named “Psychosynthesis for Educators” (published by ETS) which will gradually be updated with the accounts of many experiences in Italy and abroad that need to be made known.
If you are a teacher or head, or work in another educational role, and would like to find out more, write to us at: info@educareverso.org.
The course is free of charge for all schools until the allocated budget has been used.
