Meditation Practice Changes How We Teach And Listen

Knowing about mindfulness is easy. Practicing it, especially when life is loud, is when everything changes. In this episode, Amy Edelstein brings an inspiring and insightful  conversation about why real practice matters for educators, students, and anyone who wants more stability, clarity, and joy in daily life. 

She brings illustrations from her recent 8-day training intensive for new  Inner Strength Classroom instructors, why she began the training with a two-day meditation retreat before touching curriculum, classroom management, or pedagogy. 

As she describes, "When we immerse in stillness, we learn to observe mind, thought, and feeling without grasping, judging, or trying to force experience to be different. That direct experience can dissolve layers of stress and return us to presence. We also explore “just this moment” as the only time we ever live, and how that changes the way we relate to memory, worry, and the stories we carry into the school day."

For all educators and really for everyone committed to living a balanced and fulfilling life, this is a great episode to start this school year with. 

Subscribe, share the episode with an educator friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

What if your teen's complaint of "I'm bored" is not something to fix? It's something to encourage?

In this episode of The Conscious Classroom,  Amy Edelstein explores the  value of unstructured downtime for adolescents. Drawing on neuroscience — including Marcus Raichle's research on the brain's default mode network — Amy explains how boredom activates self-reflection, empathy, imagination, and creative problem-solving, all essential for teen identity development.

Amy shares personal reflections on rest, unpacks why over-scheduling and screen time crowd out this vital internal reflection, and offers practical contemplative practices parents can invite teens to try, from sensory awareness exercises to "sauntering" inspired by Thoreau. 

Tune in for a compelling case to protect unstructured time this summer — and give your teen the space to simply be.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

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Summer is supposed to feel like space, yet so many families enter the break with the same tight grip they used all school year. I’m Amy Edelstein, and I’m inviting you to consider a different kind of summer for teenagers: less optimization, more presence. When life is overscheduled and overstimulated, the mind loses the room it needs to roam, integrate, and create. When there’s slack in the day, something surprising happens problems quietly solve themselves, imagination returns, and young people get to hear their own inner life again.

Join Amy Edelstein as she unpacks why unstructured time matters for teen development and mental health, and how our adult pace becomes a powerful lesson about what “being grown up” looks like. Instead of chasing the next big activity,  explore small, concrete alternatives: unplanned walks, noticing overlooked corners of your neighborhood, sitting by water, and simply spending time together without an agenda. 

Let yourself unwind, and learn to model that for the youth in your life.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this session of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein brings to life the connection between meditation and creativity and how this can be employed in the classroom. 

She articulates how blending mindfulness with creative writing helps young people find their voice, regulate their inner world, and build real confidence through imperfect drafts. Sharing a simple structure educators can use to create community, deepen attention, and protect imagination in a time of constant stimulation and fast AI tools, you'll finish listening ready to start your own Meditation & Creative Writing Retreat!  

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In a rare podcast, our host Amy Edelstein shares a personal experience of meditating at the site of the Buddha's awakening in Bodh Gaya back in 1985. 

In her inimitable narrative style, you'll feel the chill of a predawn rickshaw ride, the rustle of Bodhi leaves, and the mind challenge of conquering challenging mental states. 

Through Amy's experience, you'll settle into the posture of true meditation, open, curious, and willing to discover. 

If you’ve ever tried to “win” at practice, chased a perfect sit, or judged yourself by your mental mood, this personal account offers a reset rooted in classical texts, and supported  by lived experience. 

Listen, reflect, and then try it: loosen your grip and let the moment show you what the nature of consciousness is. 

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Why awe belongs not the makers, not the machines...

Awe belongs to the makers who dare, persist, and stand by their work. 

In this episode, Amy Edelstein opens with a striking contrast: Olympic snowboarders whose courage makes us hold our breath, and synchronized robots whose elegance points back to the human minds that designed every leap. 

From that lens, she digs into a question shaping classrooms and homes everywhere: how do we welcome synthetic intelligence as a powerful collaborator without losing the accountability, empathy, and taste that make learning transformative?

She highlights the quiet--and stultifying--drift toward bland, ownerless content and why it leaves us numb. Then she suggests  a better path: the choreography of co-creation. You’ll hear how teens can volley ideas with AI, test the edges, and return with sharper insight—while still being responsible for the outcome. 

Drawing on mindfulness and the principle of right speech, she shares practical ways to center intention, timing, and impact in everything your teen writes, says, or publishes. Instead of chasing polished shortcuts, she champion the process that forges inner strength.

Throughout, Amy returns to what truly moves us: human tenacity, honest feedback, and the joy that comes from work we can proudly own--and from the responsibility to own it!

This is a call to educators, parents, and creators to raise standards, not lower them; to use tools boldly and love the craft more; to keep empathy alive while technology accelerates the pace. 

If this conversation sparks something for you, tap follow, share it with a friend who cares about the future of education, and leave a quick review so others can find the show. 

Your voice helps keep the human in the loop.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

A simple request for the time turned into a lesson on hidden defaults and the values they carry. When Alexa, perhaps the most popular voice assistant offered eight new voices, Amy Edelstein follows the breadcrumb trail from “small” UX choices to big cultural scripts that land in our homes and classrooms. Along the way, she unpack how labels like “professional” for a male voice and “soothing” for female voices quietly reset expectations for students who are still forming their sense of agency and identity.

She looks at the idea of “meme carriers”: everyday cues, tones, and rituals that spread norms, for better or worse. From monks walking for peace to smart devices whispering who belongs in the boardroom, she looks at how these signals shape what young people believe is possible. 

Sharing strategies to teach meta-awareness, Amy offers methods on how to guide teens to notice who writes the menu of choices, what got left off, and how to envision the values that lift us up. She leads a guided meditation that helps listeners touch clarity, compassion, and strength .

Looking ahead, she offers a sketch for values-aware AI in education: tools that enable cross-cultural exchange with nuance, establish firm safety boundaries, and make empowerment the default. 

If you’re an educator, parent, or builder who cares about how design choices ripple through student lives, this conversation offers both reflection and action.

Please like, subscribe, review, share with a friend. Your insights fuel future episodes!

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this episode, Amy Edelstein unpacks why mindfulness goes beyond technique and how wonder is a key ingredient that develops authentic leadership in young people and adults. Mindfulness as only an add-on falls short of what it can be and how awe, gratitude, and presence foster the qualities of autonomy and leadership that are becoming more and more important. She encourages reflection on the wonder of human capacities, at a time when there is much attention on the capabilities of synthetic intelligence. 

In this session, Amy will

• contrast typical executive coaching models with the Inner Strength model of cultivating inner strength for outer stability 
• reframes mindful awareness as reverence for our capabilities, not only as a productivity tool
• explores gratitude for how evolution has unfolded, leading to the beauty and diversity of life on earth, and see that as a foundation for empathy and courage
• shows how intuitive leadership does not need to be sloppy, it can be  informed, integrated and multi-faceted discernment
• invites educators to point students to wonder and to see mindfulness in terms of what it can reveal rather than as a tool to address only deficits

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

What if the most powerful classroom tool isn’t another strategy, but a deeper way of seeing? In this episode, Amy Edelstein explore show purpose, presence, and philosophical clarity can reshape teaching from the inside out—so young people feel safe to grow, wonder, and lead with heart.

As Amy reflects on the quiet force of Jane Goodall’s life—her translucent presence, her unflinching observation of beauty and brutality, and her devotion to conservation—and translates those lessons into daily actions educators can take: walk lighter, listen longer, hold paradox without flinching.

 We then meet Peace Pilgrim, who turned values into motion, walking tens of thousands of miles as a living argument for peace. Her witness is a blueprint for schools: align methods with aims, structure learning for cooperation, and make compassion visible when tensions rise. 

Threaded through the episode is a case for philosophy as a practical compass. When conflict and noise escalate, ethical reflection keeps action aligned with the world we want to build.

Be sure to settle yourself before a long guided meditation to help you connect with the deeper currents you want to share with your students. 

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this episode, Amy Edelstein shares a practical, developmentally appropriate guidance on teaching mindfulness to middle schoolers. She describes how to adjust practices to this age group, with a focus on structure, repetition, and emotional intelligence. 

Paying attention to their emerging selfhood, a teacher can guide that emergence while recognizing that students are still very group oriented. 

Short, tactile practices, playful competition, and thoughtful repeated transitions help students build mindfulness habits that will last.

Tips and Guidelines in this session:

• modeling calm, order, and consistent routines

• keeping practices short and repeating for depth

• focusing on emotional intelligence over abstract discussions around the thought process

• focusing on emotional intelligence through role play

And other activities will help you design a session and a set of classroom activities that will build your students' self knowledge, resilience, and happiness. 

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

For teachers feeling overwhelmed by global challenges and classroom responsibilities, this episode offers a lifeline of wisdom. Amy Edelstein delves into the transformative power of letting go—not as abandonment of responsibility, but as a profound acceptance that creates space for growth.

Just as great trees stand witness through storms and seasons, we can bear witness, standing still, mindfully being with emotions without trying to fix them. We can practice being present with our own anxiety, grief, or despair. Inner work is essential. When we metabolize our emotions, we become capable of authentically seeing our students as unique individuals deserving of personalized attention.

The Refuge Ritual: How 5 Minutes Before Class Can Change So Much

In this episode Amy gives several practices, so you can create that space for yourself and as you create inner space the outer space will be there too. 

Magic happens when we educators do our inner work: students feel our authenticity and respond with trust. They become willing to step outside their comfort zones, support each other, and experience the joy of learning in community. In a world of educational bureaucracy that can unintentionally dehumanize, these practices bring humanity, personalization, and connection back into our classrooms.

Ready to transform your teaching experience? Listen now, then visit innerstrengtheducation.org for more resources to support your journey toward conscious education.

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If you enjoyed this episode please leave a review!

Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this episode, Amy Edelstein explains why she included the lessons on systems thinking in the Inner Strength Teen Mindfulness Program. 

Teaching students how to understand their experiences within larger systems, helps them manage stress by seeing interconnections across time and society rather than taking challenges personally.

You'll learn why:
• Teaching teens to think in context allows them to see how their current stressors connect to broader historical developments
• Systems thinking serves as powerful self-care by revealing our interdependence and reducing feelings of isolation
• Understanding interdependence helps students not overpersonalize challenges, reducing depression and reactivity
• First graders successfully used systems diagrams to solve playground conflicts by identifying intervention points
• Looking at friend dynamics as systems rather than just individual personalities creates new solutions
• Focusing on what makes whole systems work well naturally leads to better outcomes for individuals
• Mindfulness creates space to acknowledge personal feelings while still seeing the bigger picture
• Systems thinking helps students identify upstream leverage points for positive change rather than just trying to "fix" themselves

As always, Amy invites you to experiment with systems thinking in your own life and practice. See what happens and whether you can internalize this profound shift in perspective! 

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

We explore how to end the school year with mindful intention and purpose by creating powerful rites of passage that help students recognize their growth, learn from challenges, and prepare for summer with confidence.

• Experiential mindfulness activity for you, the listener, to help all teachers acknowledge their own accomplishments, learn from challenges, and recognize personal growth
• Creating conscious endings for students that transform an academic year closing into a meaningful rite of passage
• Guiding students to re-contextualize mistakes and identify their new capabilities and responsibilities
• Helping students create summer support systems with identified go-to people for different needs (fun, advice, safety)
• Developing "streak buddies" and activity plans to maintain positive habits during unstructured summer time
• Teaching the balance of strong moral values while holding space for growth after transgressions
• Implementing simple celebration rituals that honor the journey shared between teachers and students

To learn more about these practices, visit innerstrengtheducation.org where you'll find additional resources and information about conscious classroom approaches.

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this episode Amy Edelstein explores what it can meet to root in our True North, our deepest values, when we lean into how education needs to transform.

The questions surrounding education's future form an intricate web: How do we pause and reflect while simultaneously responding to the immediate needs of our students? Who funds it and why? What outcomes do we desire? How do we serve students with vastly different backgrounds and trajectories? 

When confronting  complexity, Amy looks at how returning to a "true north" of universal human values—compassion, care, and recognition of each person's dignity—provides both stability and flexibility. 

This podcast explores the essential paradox of educational transformation: we need time for deep reflection, yet our students continue growing each day, requiring immediate guidance. By embracing both patience and urgency, holding our preconceived ideas lightly while standing firmly in our humanity, we create space for innovations that honor both the passionate curiosity of youth and the thoughtful discernment needed for lasting change.

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

The educational landscape is undergoing a profound transformation through artificial intelligence, and mindfulness education stands at this exciting frontier. In this thought-provoking exploration, Amy Edelstein reviews Sal Khan's new book "Brave New Words" and unpacks the potential and challenge of AI tutors to support students' inner development, while maintaining crucial human connections.

Amy examines Khan's great success with Khan Academy and the AI Khanmigo, looking specifically at how AI tutors can personalize learning experiences, making first-class education and tools more accessible. 

AI tutors can deliver mindfulness content in students' native languages, honor cultural contexts, and support English language learners in contributing their unique perspectives despite language barriers. Imagine a classroom where students speaking Mandarin, Ukrainian, Spanish, and Vietnamese can all engage with the same wellness curriculum, then bring diverse insights to group discussions. 

With proper guardrails preventing misinformation and protecting privacy, these systems can safely guide students through their inner development journey.

Amy discusses the need for a mindfulness AI tutor that integrates contemplative practice with systems thinking, helping students see knowledge as interconnected rather than compartmentalized. By connecting well-being and self regulation concepts across neuroscience, psychology, physics, and ethics, AI can help students discover meaningful relationships with our world as a whole and enable students to feel their spheres of interest grow.  

There are valid concerns about digital overuse, however thoughtfully designed educational AI offers something fundamentally different—tools that address each student's needs while building community.

Join Amy on this journey into the possibilities of conscious technology. 

If you're interested in contributing to the development of mindfulness-based AI tutors or have feature recommendations, connect with us at innerstrengtheducation.org and help shape this next chapter in educational innovation.

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein questions the use of the popular idiom "returning to analog."  While agreeing with the sentiment that we reconnect with the preciousness of our humanity as technology continues to advance rapidly, she questions placing that sentiment within in technical context. Amy discusses the balance between digital experiences and the visceral richness of our awareness and connections and looks at some of the questions surrounding Ed-Tech and the integration of AI into the classroom. 

Key themes include:
• Exploring the concept of returning to analog in a digital age
• Evoking the transcendent experience of listening to analog music
• Highlighting the sacred nature of the emergence of human awareness in the broad sweep of evolutionary history 
• Emphasizing the importance of genuine human relationships
• Discussing the role of AI and its potential impact on learning and relationships
• Advocating for mindfulness and contemplative practice in the classroom and its connection to our humanity 

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

This episode of The Conscious Classroom with Amy Edelstein invites us to explore the power of setting meaningful intentions and to learn how to let go of will-based resolutions as the most effective means to create lasting transformation.  

By uncovering our deepest values and nurturing inspiration from within, we can align our actions with what truly matters to us and engage in positive change, both personally and collectively.

Amy will delve into:
• Identifying the value of intentions rather than resolutions
• Reflecting on our deeper cares as we set our trajectory for the New Year
• Overcoming feelings of disempowerment and frustration
• The significance of inspiration in maintaining motivation
• Addressing cultural norms the negatively impact youth and how to positively support young people
• Embracing stillness and reflection during meditation
• Recognizing our capacity for goodness and positive change
• Encouraging a supportive community through shared intentions

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Holidays are awe-filled and also can bring about feelings of sadness, grief and loneliness for ourselves and our students. Join Amy Edelstein in this episode of The Conscious Classroom Podcast as we explore how to let go into the present moment and find the posture that allows us to be with what is with grace, strength, and presence.  

The holiday season can be a challenging time, filled with mixed emotions and societal expectations. As educators, we have the unique opportunity to guide our students through these complexities with grace and awareness. This episode goes deep with a guided meditation that will transcend the superficial and allow you to access an experience of presence that can sustain and fulfill you. 

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Experience the essence of creativity and dedication with Amy Edelstein as we journey with her to CoSM, the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors in the Catskills. This episode celebrates Alex and Alison Gray, the visionary artists who have devoted decades to the transformative power of art. For their entire adult life, they have been expressing their own adventures in consciousness through their unique for of art, becoming leaders and pillars of the psychedelic art movement. They exemplify how art can be a conduit for personal and collective growth, and their center stands as one of the rare collective spaces where people can come to explore the inner and artistic expressions in a collective and collaborative fashion. 

For educators seeking to reignite their passion, this episode is a heartfelt exploration of rediscovering the 'why' behind teaching. Amy shares a compelling exercise from her professional development sessions, inviting teachers to open to themselves and re-acquaint themselves with their vocation or calling to teach.  This introspection often reveals a profound sense of purpose that transcends standard metrics like test scores. Experience how nurturing these inner drives can lead to more enriching and vibrant educational experiences for both teachers and their students. Enjoy this episode of the Conscious Classroom, which unravels  the pillars of learning spaces which foster joy, creativity, and transformation.

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Creating Positive Spaces with a Grateful Mindset

It's so simple, could it really change our outlook, experience and classrooms?  In this episode of the Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein looks at ways that gratitude can transform our experience and deepen our understanding of presence, interconnectedness, and awe. 

You will see how we can shift our perspectives, working with everyday events like traffic irritation, and cultivate a very different mindset. It's not lightweight, it can have a real impact and reveal profound truths about the nature of our world. 

Discovering how when we foster gratitude we not only improve personal well-being, we also build a deeper sense of connection and belonging. This can create  a ripple effect in our classrooms and communities.

Step into the Conscious Classroom with Amy as she explores practical tips and educational insights to nurture mindfulness and awareness. This episode is designed for anyone passionate about making a positive impact, particularly educators working with teens.

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Do you feel like you're authentic in your teaching and in your life? 
How does we "become" more authentic? 
Can mindfulness bring authenticity or is it more than that?

In this episode, Amy unpacks the elusive quality of authenticity. We all think we know it when we see it but how do we develop it? 

Authenticity brings integrity and stability into our classrooms. Embracing vulnerability and aligning with our core values revolutionizes our teaching and enables our students to trust and let go so they can learn. 

Join Amy in this episode of the Conscious Classroom podcast as she uncovers the essence of authenticity and its transformative power in educational settings. With a focus on mindfulness and restorative practices, she outlines how educators can foster a genuine connection with their students, moving beyond arbitrary emotional outbursts into emotional intelligence, which leads to a place of integrity and growth.

Key to developing authenticity is self-knowledge, deeply exploring our motivations behind and supporting students in facing challenges on their own. By integrating mindfulness as an orientation to life, we embody authenticity and create a safe, supportive, and fear-free learning environment. 

Listen to the end to close with a guided meditation that will open up a new relationship to being present, available, and true to yourself, which in turn will contribute to a more resilient and impactful educational experience for both teachers and students.

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Discover the secret to finding profound contentment even in the most stressful times. What if you could cultivate a deeper sense of fulfillment through mindful awareness and systems thinking? On today's Conscious Classroom podcast, Amy Edelstein guides you through transformative insights that will help you create  spaces for rejuvenation. You'll learn how to  harness the power of meditation to develop an inner sense of wholeness and simplicity, empowering you to maintain a backdrop of contentment no matter the challenges you face.

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Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

What happens when a student fails to show up for a crucial presentation? Explore the profound lessons on commitment and responsibility in this episode of the Conscious Classroom podcast. Join me as we unpack the culture of individualism and what that means when we try to instill a sense of commitment and purpose in our youth. 

In this episode we also delve into the impact of feelings of loneliness and alienation that students experience, how the pandemic exacerbated this, and why our situation today only underscores the necessity of fostering a connection to a purpose greater that oneself. Stay engaged with our transformative educational journey, and find more resources at www.innerstrengtheducation.org

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Can shifting the focus for teachers from content to connection be the key to lifting adolescent loneliness?

Journey with Amy Edelstein on this episode of the Conscious Classroom podcast as she unpacks the role of teachers as moral exemplars, following the principles laid out by Plato.

You'll explore how transmission occurs and why teachers impact not just  academic success, but also ethics, values, and personal connection that can make a real difference in students' lives.

Amy shares a personal story of how her fifth-grade teacher from Linden Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, left a lasting impact, perhaps without even knowing it. This teacher's personal interest and encouragement created an environment where students felt valued and capable.

Amy delves into the transformative power of human connection and mentorship in education, showing how the behavior and attitudes of teachers can profoundly shape the futures of their students.

Tune in to rediscover the heart of teaching and its irreplaceable role in creating a Conscious Classroom, nurturing wisdom, virtue, and critical thinking.

Plato, The Republic

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In this episode we pack two levels of insight that are mostly at odds with one another when it comes to improving educational design. We examine the dual landscape of educational innovation, where grand visions and data analysis for systemic change clash with the hands-on challenges of classroom application. Working with systems thinking, the fact that we are all innovating around the same core issue, Amy Edelstein illuminates what can become  synergy between high-level design and practical program execution. For true reform to be meaningful and pragmatic, we must work with the tools that help us create a harmonious blend of scalable ideals and individual needs. Working with mindfulness and experiential systems tools, we can uncover ways to value and view insight from these two different vantage points. 

Amy shows how to work with  the Continuum Exercise, a simple yet powerful  tool that gives people the visceral experience that we usually focus on the specifics and differences and yet we could focus on the unity, context, or system we are all addressing.  Lifting above the spectrum of diverse opinions can catalyze a pivotal 'aha' moment that goes beyond bridging differences to transmitting  a sense of unity.

 Whether you're an educator, a student, or simply passionate about the future of learning, this conversation promises to offer invaluable insights into creating educational spaces where innovation, collaboration, and consciousness thrive.

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Jim Crow's Pink Slip - Dismantling the Education Gap with Amy Edelstein

In this episode of The conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein helps illuminate the little-known history and ongoing influence of resistance to de-segregation within America's education system - and how mindfulness, being conscious and aware of our biases, is an important part of our work to redress inequity. Leslie Fenwick's seminal work, Jim Crow's Pink Slip, serves as a guide and compass, unveiling the long shadow left by the  dismissal or demotion of a significant number of black principals and educators after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. 

This episode offers a deeper understanding of past injustices and their lasting impact and also shows some approaches that can support our efforts to shift the educational landscape. Expect to uncover why representation across racial and cultural lines is more than just a number—it's about students being able to see themselves in the leaders in their learning journey and a call to bring about change in our classrooms for each student and for the benefit of society at large.

Additional reading related to this episode can be found here:

•  Jim Crow's Pink Slip by Leslie Fenwick
• https://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/TCZ/Book%20Reviews%20Collection%202022/July%202022/Jim%20Crow%27s%20Pink%20Slip-1659381190.pdf
• https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2022/0912/How-the-1954-Brown-decision-still-influences-today-s-teaching-ranks
• A Diverse Teaching Force Is A Quality Teaching Force
• Why Diversity Matters

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Unlock the synergy between mindfulness and innovation as Amy Edelstein explores the relationship between these two orientations in this episode of the Conscious Classroom. Imagine a learning environment where the air is alive with creativity, and students and teachers alike are inspired to view the world through a lens of fresh possibilities. This discussion unearths the possibilities that contemplative practice can reveal, and shows how marrying innovation and inner exploration is working.  In Inner Strength Education's pilot project with 10 student interns explore the XPRIZE Connect innovation curriculum and Inner Strength Education's tools of open awareness and paradigm shifting. Students learn to tap the inner freedom of shedding outdated paradigms, and discover how to loosen their unconscious hold onto fixed reference points. Through contemplative practice and mental habits, they learn to work with a 360-degree perspective that challenges, refines, and enhances their understanding of education and purpose, and their ability to envision a healthy and holistic world we'd all want to live in. 

Guided by Amy Edelstein, you will practice the transformative exercise of open awareness, a technique that transcends the noise of everyday distractions and brings into focus our own field of awareness. Open awareness is a tool educators can weave  seamlessly into the fabric of school life. Discover how this technique aids in academic pursuits like group work and test preparation and also enriches the teaching experience. By fostering a more conscious learning environment, we lay the groundwork for an educational future that resonates with our highest ideals—a future we can imagine and work to bring to fruition together. 

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In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein unpacks the importance of teacher happiness and how to use mindful awareness and perspectives to improve teacher wellbeing and sense of possibility prior to making practical changes, which undoubtedly also need to occur. 

Amy explores the impact of educators who tap into their passion, setting the classroom tone and invigorating their students with a love for learning. In this insightful episode, she dissects how a teacher's zest for their craft can revolutionize the traditional learning space, fostering innovation and a thriving environment for both students and educators. The goal of this is to understand the perspective -- and  to lay out practical steps that will reignite the spark in our educators' eyes, ensuring that their connection to teaching becomes the cornerstone of educational success.

The role of Assistant Principals takes center stage, revealing their unique ability to steer a school through their own calm and caring leadership. Amid their diverse responsibilities, these unsung school heroes can demonstrate the power of stillness and mindfulness in a nurturing educational ecosystem. Hear a heartwarming description of how a simple, intentional, mindful approach can open up communication with a student, revealing hidden struggles, and helping resolve school conflicts. showcasing the unexpected ways in which leaders can make a real impact. 

Join Amy for a compelling episode that reimagines the future of education by  emphasizing the essential role of teacher wellbeing and the transformative potential of a mindful approach.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

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Discover the keys to unlocking our children's potential in an era where education is at a crossroads and technology's influence is undeniable. This enlightening journey through the world of learning reveals how an evolved mindset, coupled with a transformative educational system, is essential for nurturing the curiosity, purpose, wisdom, and respect desperately needed today. Amy delves into the challenges presented by outdated institutions, and the pressures faced by both students and educators as they navigate the fragmented structures of modern society. While mindfulness is a tool, and a valuable one, what it reveals is our choice over how to relate to our own minds, showing us that mindfulness is not another pill but rather a perspective and tool that enriches our experience and gives us a greater sense of autonomy over our lives. This is invaluable for students today and their teachers. 

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Discover how the relationship we forge with AI in our classrooms can go beyond mere functionality to touch the very core of our humanity. Join me, Amy Edelstein, as we unveil the transformative potential of AI when approached with the same reverence we approach the great mysteries and subtleties of sentience and life. It's an invitation to infuse our relationship to educational technologies with wonder, respect, and a co-creative spirit that not only advances our learning tools but also shapes the hearts and minds of learners. By instilling these values, we contribute to a learning environment that resonates with life’s mystery and fosters empathy among students, paving the way for a more compassionate and interconnected world.

This episode isn't just about the integration of AI; it's about how the spirit in which we do so can cultivate sensitivity, awareness, and a move toward a society anchored in love. 

Thank you for joining me on this reflective and inspiring exploration as we aim to craft a more conscious and caring future.

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In this episode, Amy Edelstein reflects on a recent trip to India, which raised intriguing and inspiring possibilities as she visiting with the founders of the Happiness Curriculum, that reaches 1.7 million students each day. She also explores AI potential and urgency to train AI on compassion and wisdom and scale that use for the benefit of all. She also shares the value of reflection, retreat, and time to let our minds open up to new ways of seeing as essential to keep our relationship to life and those we teach awake and alive.

References:
Happiness Curriculum, Delhi School System
"Care as a Driver of Intelligence in Humans and AI"
Sheldrake, Rupert. Dogs that Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home.
Safina, Carl. Beyond Words

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There's a hidden superpower in a regular teen activity that will provide support for teachers as well as students. This inclination, when activated, encouraged, and guided can create a safety net for students, build webbing so classrooms feel warm and encouraging, catch students who are falling behind, and bring out the sensitivity and protectiveness of some of the most unruly students. What is it? Friendships. Yes, simple friendships. In this episode, Amy Edelstein talks about how to structure the friendships and the positive benefits that come when students begin to support each other's successes, connect in simple ways to help each other stay on track, and even model positive challenges ahead. As always, this episode is practical, philosophical, and experiential. Enjoy this roadmap and the meditation that goes along with it!

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In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein shares from the heart about the impact of the eruption of war between Israel and Gaza, and that pain that is bringing to so many in the region and beyond. How do we provide steadiness and guidance within our classrooms? How do we rise authentically and demonstrate care that goes beyond divisions? Included is a long guided meditation (not to be practiced while driving), starting with open awareness to access the goodness of the human heart, and moving into insight practice, from that space observing all that is arising in a way that is compassionate, helpful, and calming. 
Holding all those who are suffering with care. Please donate to your favorite humanitarian effort, anywhere in the world, and help provide some immediate relief. 

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In this episode, The Future of Education, Amy Edelstein explores a visionary approach to teacher training. If we are to truly inspire teachers and students to engage with their own learning in an innovative and even prophetic way, the training grounds that prepare teachers to teach must exemplify that new world and its higher values. Far too many people are concerned about how AI and Augmented Virtual Reality might subvert learning and far too few are imagining the frontiers that can be created in a virtual reality training ground, where the context is of engaged learning that rests on and fosters our higher human development. From  Socratic dialogue, to libraries of Alexandria, to the Buddha's monastic university at Nalanda, we have rare examples of education that went broad and deep, and fostered amazing breakthroughs in philosophy, ethics, mathematics, science, literature, theater, art, and more. 

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In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein shares insights about the potential and peril of new AI tools and considerations explored in the recent C20 meetings on Technology, Security and Transformation. As a panelist for the convening on Technology & Education, Edelstein was able to share views on the importance of teachers and teaching, and how to meet this brave new world with caution and optimism.

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In this episode, Amy Edelstein looks at the difference between empathy and compassion, exploring the elements of compassion that allow it to become a source of our own joy and upliftment. She also illuminates how detachment, universality, and self-care enable us to orient ourselves around compassion and fuel our own resilience and upliftment.  

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In honor of Women’s History Month,  Amy Edelstein was invited by Villanova University's School of Business to  unpack what it takes to pursue our own calling, break limits, and strive to for excellence in our work, our personal growth, and our contribution to the world. 

These days, we are pressured to achieve in so many spheres, from the obligation, as  leaders, to the bottom line to our own desire for a positive and holistic value set that takes into account our planet, our community, and our own interior life. As women, we're told the glass ceiling no longer exists, and yet we still find ourselves rubbing the bruises when we bump into it. 

In this session, Amy  shares insights and successes to help us orient our life around passion and purpose, while also standing out as leaders in an increasingly competitive and divisive world. She spent three decades researching the impact of cultural assumptions on our own ability to succeed as well as transformational and contemplative methodologies that help individuals and groups realize their higher potentials. In 2014, she founded Inner Strength Education in Philadelphia, which has grown into a successful non-profit and is now one of the largest school-based teen mindfulness programs in the US, having trained more than 22,000 high school students in Philadelphia, with evidence-based results. 

Amy unpacks lessons learned to reveal how, in the classroom and in the world, we can  pursue authenticity as well as traditional notions of success, and gain valuable insights into how a life well lived may perhaps be the greatest contribution we can make to our world in these fractured and difficult times. 

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Virtual Reality Education is not a future prospect. Higher Education spaces like Morehouse College have already taught full semesters using VR. This Metaverse is rapidly expanding into K-12. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein asks who is thinking about the potentials of this space to train us to be truly mindfully compassionate, awakened humans? And what are the downsides to a world where young people become increasingly more mediated in their relationships and their learning? This episode provides a view into the future that's already happening and asks some important questions that we want to respond to now while it will be much easier to have a hand in helping shape for the best what is coming in AI.

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In this episode, Amy shares a brief look at how our awareness of large scale systems that we can intuit through our mindfulness practice and through exploring the interconnected systems we see in nature and in the structure of the cosmos can reveal new solutions to our very entrenched problems. For teens who are discouraged and feeling defeated by the issues of the world and in their lives, this way of seeing can ignite optimism, interest, and passion to make the world a better place. 

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A Freedom Worth Striving For - Reflections in Independence on the American Holiday 4th of July

What makes freedom exalted? What can our students aspire to when the "freedom" they have been taught to cherish is either - in the case of politics and social orders - profoundly inequitable and even harmful or - as in the case of personal freedoms - exacerbates a sense of existential anxiety with its proliferation of choices and optionality and its dearth of guidance and directives that ennoble. In this short reflection, Amy Edelstein explores freedom, purpose, and courage in the footsteps of Paul Tillich, and looks at how we can create classroom structures that promote the aspiration towards a more profound expression of our humanity and potential. 

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These recent weeks have seen the scourge of senseless gun violence tearing through a school, a supermarket, and neighborhoods across America. In this episode, Amy Edelstein reaches deep into the power of meditation to imprint in us the undeniable experience of interconnectedness and love, a love that inspires us to want to dispel ignorance rather than fight (even for a cause) in ways that only create more division and separation. This entire episode is both a guided meditation and a deep reflection. 

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Purpose Driven Education and the Role Mindfulness Can Play

In this episode, Amy Edelstein talks about the role of purpose in teen flourishing.  When people are connected to a purpose greater than themselves, they experience more resilience, ability to persevere through challenges, sense of connection, and happiness. We can work with tools of mindful awareness to help students connect with their own values and imbue their lives with greater meaning. As educators, we can contextualize any subject we are teaching within a framework of higher purpose. This helps shape our student's ability to interpret their journey in a positive light, learn from their mistakes, and feel fulfilled and significant as they learn and grow. 

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In this episode, Amy Edelstein explores the power of purpose and the value that speaking about purpose with youth has on the rest of their lives. She discusses the great Stanford Educator and Author William Damon and his book The Path to Purpose , which looks at the impact of materialism and our fast-paced technological world on the exploration of greater goals. Going as far back as Aristotle, tapping into Erik Erikson and Piaget, Damon bolsters his argument in favor of purpose as a key foundation for youth happiness, resilience, success, patience, and also humility.  We'll look at how mindfulness can cultivate a sense of meaning and purpose and how we as educators, parents, or mentors can support youth development. 

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The world renowned and beloved Vietnamese teacher Thich Nhat Hahn passed this week at the age of 95. This episode is dedicated to his work and life, bringing mindfulness to a secular environment, connecting deep mindfulness practice with social, political, and environmental activism, and being a powerful -- albeit profoundly gentle -- activist for change. We value and honor his life, his spirit, and the work he has left behind. The world is brighter for his presence.

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In this episode, Amy Edelstein talks about the need of our times for greater courage, centeredness and connection to presence, or being. This episode and its guided meditation will start the new year off on a positive and directed note. 

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Can technology empower rather than divide? Can we train robots to exhibit the empathy of their operators in humanitarian situations? How is Inner Strength looking ahead and the possibilities for supporting youth wellness through technology? Join Amy Edelstein in dialogue with XPrize semi-finalist and Inner Strength Board Member Anthony Holland.

In this final installment, Tony and Amy answer audience questions about their own search for meaning and purpose and the potential they see in creating a positive culture for all to benefit from. 

More at Inner Strength Education

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Can technology empower rather than divide? Can we train robots to exhibit the empathy of their operators in humanitarian situations? How is Inner Strength looking ahead and the possibilities for supporting youth wellness through technology? Join Amy Edelstein in dialogue with XPrize semi-finalist and Inner Strength Board Member Anthony Holland.

In this second part of the dialogue, Tony and Amy go more deeply into issues facing students and how Inner Strength is working to empower and heal. 

More at Inner Strength Education

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Can technology empower rather than divide? Can we train robots to exhibit the empathy of their operators in humanitarian situations? How is Inner Strength looking ahead and the possibilities for supporting youth wellness through technology? Join Amy Edelstein in dialogue with XPrize semi-finalist and Inner Strength Board Member Anthony Holland.

More at Inner Strength Education

Support the show

If you enjoyed this episode please leave a review!

Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

Subscribe so you don't miss a single episode and Review so your friends can listen too.  

Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Adventure in Zanskar: one woman's solitary journey to reach physical and metaphysical heights

This episode of The Conscious Classroom is a little different, some fun. I just published a memoir about a solitary trek I undertook in the highest mountains of the world, the western most corner of the Tibetan Plateau, and area called Zanskar, India.

I simply couldn't wait to share it with all of you. It'll take you on a journey in 1983  through a region virtually untouched by western materialist culture and show you what's possible to realize when we dare to go beyond our conventional limits.

You can grab your kindle copy here! (Or paperback or hardback for gifts)
Please share a review when you finish it'll help others find the book. Enjoy!

As acclaimed author Andrew Harvey wrote, 
A thrilling book takes us into the heart of one of the most powerful spiritual places on Earth - Zanskar. It is a must read for all those who love and recognize the healing power of place and the adventure that spiritual travel can open up. 

“This is a beautiful book for every woman who has ever wanted to do something extraordinary.  ... Amy's story is sure to light a fire within you to expand your own horizons and tap into untold dimensions of inner strength, courage, determination, and resilience.” 

— Claire Zammit, Ph.D., Founder, FemininePower.com

"If you are looking to lift your spirits, read this book—it will lighten your heart and show you a path to lasting happiness."

— Marci Shimoff,  #1 NY Times bestselling author of Happy for No Reason

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If you enjoyed this episode please leave a review!

Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Do you often relate just to the ways teens present in the classroom and forget that what goes on in their personal reflection may be much deeper? Teens present in all their awkward ways, they are in a growth stage and sometimes it feels like their bodies don't quite fit their minds and emotions or vice versa. Remember, there may be much more going on under the surface that is significant and should be acknowledged. In this episode Amy Edelstein shares some subtle insights into the nature of thought and awareness that a student had after just two lessons. She also shares a much more troubling experience a teen in the very same class was having. Insight and gun violence can affect teens sitting within 5 feet of one another. This podcast explores how we can tend to it all.

For more guided audios and classroom tools, visit Inner Strength Education
Download my free mindfulness app for teens on the App and Play Stores! 

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Recently I've been asked, "How does your Inner Strength school mindfulness program help prevent gun violence?" 

When you are being asked that in a city that has one of the fastest rising rates of gun violence per capita in the United States, that's a serious question. In the last 4 weeks, we've seen 4 shootings at schools, with multiple youth killed. 

This has led to some serious soul searching. How does a focus on conscious awareness impact such a specific soul-wrenching external event?

Join Amy Edelstein for this impassioned and thoughtful exploration of Mindfulness as a foundation for social transformation and violence reduction

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

We all know play is important for little kids. Imagination, working out scenarios, assuming roles. It's how kids develop a wider sense of being in the world. Play is also important for teenagers. They need to have fun while learning. Play can also break up the day, change the rhythm. It teaches important and deep values as well. Games help students see each other in a different light, some students who are less skilled at call and response classroom questions, may excel in game format. It teaches teamwork and leadership. Games support creative thinking by allowing students to think laterally, out of the box, looking for solutions or shortcuts or tricks to excel. Games allow for healthy competition, and no hard feelings if one doesn't excel. Join Amy Edelstein, founder of Inner Strength Education, as she shows how to relate specific games to mindful awareness, how to use games when teaching mindfulness to teens, and how to realize their value as a teaching tool for whole person wellness. 

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Back to school this year is new territory. How can we manage our own sense of uncertainty? How can we build a welcoming class environment for students who have experienced so many challenges over the past year, challenges which haven't ended. 

In this Back to School session, you'll learn:

•  5 Anchor Tools to manage stress in the moment, in the classroom
• 3 Anchor Tools to ritualize and create a positive environment around health, hygiene, and transitions for your students
• 3 Anchor Tools for you to create a pause between your workday and your time after work. 

Let me know what you think!
What anchor tools are you using to ground and stabilize you and your classroom?

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this episode, Amy Edelstein talks about why pursuing happiness is not selfish. She looks at what happiness is, why caring about our own happiness and the happiness of others is foundational to creating a positive learning environment, and how to shift students' orientation so they care about the well being of the classroom community. In this session, Amy leads a long guided Love & Kindness mindfulness practice on caring for the whole. 

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this episode, Amy Edelstein explores what we learned about students, teaching online, and essentials during this past year. What supports students' well-being? How do we create relationship even when we are not in the classroom? When we are forced to simplify, what rises to the top as the most important learning tools? The pandemic brought out the importance of well-being, for positive health outcomes and for ability to stay steady in a tense and uncertain world. Amy illustrates how to use mindfulness in the classroom and how to continue to apply the lessons learned during the pandemic in the months and years to come.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this, our third and final episode of this mini-series The Post Pandemic Classroom, we are going to look at how to support students who are returning to school having lost someone during the pandemic. Students often try to hide their grief or don't know how to process emotions, and the school day marches on with little room for the holistic learning and care. Grieving is a tender and an instructive time, creating the space in a classroom for students to take their time to process will serve them their entire lives.

We will look at both loss and bearing witness to serious illness, as well as the rising tide of gun violence and the grief, fear, and anxiety it brings to whole school communities.

Share your thoughts and comments, leave a review, or explore some of Amy Edelstein's indepth courses at The Conscious Classroom.

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Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

The second episode in this series looks at the phenomenon of teens who are reluctant to go back to the classroom, who are afraid, ashamed, or anxious about their peers' response to them. These students need support to break the ice. They will need to be able to trust the boundaries set up in the class. In this episode, Amy Edelstein will share some tools for the classroom and attitudes that will help you invite reluctant students back to in person learning, while respecting their boundaries and their concerns.

To go deeper, visit www.TheConsciousClassroom.com for courses and other learning materials. 

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

We are coming towards the end of the year, Districts are sending out plans, metrics, and expectations for the coming year. Oftentimes, without enough discussion and recognition that this Fall will be one unlike previous years . . . and we don't really know what to expect. Teachers are tired. It's been a trying year. There's hope on the horizon with the coronavirus vaccine and social groupings and businesses coming to life again. But COVID left its mark on us, and has on our students. Many students have fallen behind without the support of in person teachers and friends. Some have witnessed frightening illness, or have lost a loved one. We need to allow ourselves to unwind so we can be there for our students. 

In this session, the first of a 3 part series, Amy Edelstein will explore this foreign landscape and set up some good habits to help you unwind over the summer and be restored and grounded come September. 

The Conscious Classroom podcast brings mindfulness, social emotional learning tools, principles from positive psychology and systems thinking to help you build more awake and aware classrooms and activate students' natural inclination towards learning and care.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, we explore the art of contemplative writing, mindful journaling. It is a practice that can help us as teachers access our deeper purpose which sometimes gets buried beneath submitting grades and filling out forms for the District. Mindful journaling helps us untie knots, allow different perspectives, and take risks in our thinking. It creates the conditions for empathy for our students and insight into how to create a safe environment for our students to grow and thrive. 

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Wow, many schools are going back to full-time in person classrooms. There are many emotions to navigate! Relief and worry. Now is the time to work with all the mindfulness momentum to dial back self-defeating worry, frustration, and concerns. In this episode, we're going to work with the: 

Three Keys of Positive Habit Building:
1. Noticing or being mindful and attentive to goodness and beauty. 
2. Reinforcing what we notice through practice, the consistent habit of letting go.
3. Acknowledging the goodness, beauty, strength we have experienced to ourselves and to another. 

When we appreciate our ability to build positive habits of mind, we cultivate that all important quality of resilience. And as all teachers know, resilience is key to being a happy, effective, and conscious teacher. At any time, but especially now.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Highlighted in this podcast are the real concerns teachers are facing right now, named, so that you can externalize them and then create space and care for your own wellbeing. We work on three primary steps for stress reduction and self care.  For more on free Self Care MasterClass for Educators visit www.TheConsciousClassroom.com

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Giving students choice over many small activities and decisions in the classroom sets a tone of respect, appreciation, value, and collaboration. Any classroom has an inherent power dynamic. Teachers with good classroom presence command authority and provide wholesome structure. And, they also are able to facilitate an environment of choice and buy in that feels safe to students. When an environment is safe, stable, reliable -- and collaborative, students experience a sense of positive self-esteem. They learn to value their choices and their experience. Mindfulness activities are a perfect container in which to nurture these important qualities, by giving students choice. As always, we will a little practice together. Enjoy!

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Does work ever stop these days? It's not just negotiating with all the demands, it's setting boundaries. Here are some ways to set limits and allow yourself to keep your sense of energy, agency, and positive parameters. Mindfulness tools really do help stretch time and enforce boundaries. In this era of ongoing demands, there's no better time to work with them to support your own wellbeing and that of all those you live and work with. 

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this episode, Amy outlines the seven different learning styles. During the pandemic, while most students are learning online, we need to make special effort to reach different types of learners. Learn the 7 different styles and how to give mindfulness cues and classroom cues that appeal to different learners. 

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

The New Year is a time when all of us make resolutions to improve, accomplish, and achieve. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein will talk about how to use the tools of mindful awareness and contextual thinking to tap into a student’s passion to learn. When we feed their inspiration and show them how to recognize their own desire to grow, we set the stage for positive classroom culture. As always, we’ll practice mindfulness exercises and other experiential tools.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Joy to the World starts with sending joy to ourselves. Most of us probably believe that but how many of us practice that? Here are some special tips for deepening your experience of joy and restoration during this holiday season. Included is a long guided meditation for better sleep. You can use this year-round and start to make your nights something to look forward to!

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Holidays are a time of giving and family. For students who are resource-challenged, this time of year can be challenging. In this Conscious Classroom episode, Amy Edelstein shares mindfulness tools and perspectives to bring the spirit of the holidays into your classroom. You will learn how to emphasize human connection, care, and appreciation and transform worry and concern into positivity and joy.

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Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Teaching in an online environment due to coronavirus restrictions has required us to deal with new and challenging questions. How can we teach if we can't see our students faces? How do we know if they are comprehending or struggling? Do we demand that they "camera up" or do we allow them to find their way? In this episode, Amy Edelstein talks about online teaching and how to invite but not impose a visual on students. She shares easy to implement techniquest that create relationship and encourage some kind of visual and also discusses equity and respect issues to allow students to keep their home lives private. 

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Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

When there's distraction in the classroom and students are disengaged or wound up, our inclination as teachers is often to clamp down, to try to control. We do that with greater or lesser degrees of success. But after that, how do we feel? Those are the days that usually leave us more spent, drained, and wound up. 

In this episode, Amy talks about establishing our own anchor as a way to coalesce our classroom community. Using mindfulness and other contemplative techniques, we ground ourselves and establish a compelling and safe space for our students that exerts its own gravitational pull. We can calm, focus, and redirect much more easily from here.

Guided meditation included, which you are warmly encouraged to do - for your own center and relaxation, so very important during this time of coronavirus spread.  

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Thanksgiving is a time for conscious appreciation, recognizing the gifts in our lives, even during hard times like these days during the pandemic. How to we build gratitude and what is the relationship between gratitude, awareness, and ease? 

In this episode, Amy Edelstein will share some insights about the deeper dimensions of gratitude, how our culture and self-sense can serve to obstruct our appreciation for connectedness, and how, once we begin to build our muscles of thanks it makes us extraordinarily happy. 

As always, mindfulness exercises to build conscious classrooms are included.

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Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this Conscious Classroom episode, Amy Edelstein will explore different ways to think about gratitude as well as several different mindfulness practices that you can share with your students to cultivate a deeper sense of care in your classroom.

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Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Gratitude feels good. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein will talk about building a culture of thanks. As we lean into the Thanksgiving season, it’s a time where we can begin to bring in awareness of the things that we’re grateful for and start helping our students appreciate so much around them. Specific gratitude practices, questions, and meditations will help you build a culture of thanks in your classroom.

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COVID-19 has changed all our lives. Students, Teachers, Parents . . . . But regardless of the medium you are going back to school - online or in person or blended, it really is great to be back in class. Learning, teaching, connecting is perhaps more important than ever. When you don't take school for granted, which we can't in these times, the school connections become even more precious. Enjoy this exploration and some guided meditation. 

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Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Awareness is the foundation of stability, good relationships, and creative learning. Mindfulness techniques help teens cultivate self-knowledge – the awareness of their habits of thought and behavior, their likes and dislikes, and the way they feel happiness and sadness. In this Conscious Classroom episode, Amy Edelstein will shed light on how we cultivate awareness and lead you through meditation exercises you can do in your classroom.

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Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this Conscious Classroom episode, Amy Edelstein will share mindfulness tools and tips to raise the level of enthusiasm for learning. She’ll illuminate why mindful perspective taking can shift students from blasé to interested in simple but profound ways. You’ll learn how to inspire your students to seek that experience of “being in the zone.”

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

It’s the start of the school year. Hey, no smell of new textbooks, no bulletin boards to decorate, no lockers to assign, no bells and the patter of hundreds of pairs of shoes clattering down the hallways. This year is quiet. Buildings at rest. Teachers and students at home, each in our own little spaces, connecting via . . . what seems like magic . . .  our bodies and voices broadcast as little bits of numeric data, miraculously appearing on the screen in front of us. How do we humanize this experience? How do we create a sense of togetherness and community? How do we energize tired bodies and tired minds? Join Amy Edelstein for an exploration of - S.P.A.C.E. - 5 practices you can work with to create a more conscious classroom. Put these in your toolbox to help set up the most welcoming virtual atmosphere and to use as touchstones throughout the year. 

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

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Love of learning is essential for youth to truly internalize information. Contemplative exercises, contextual seeing, and the practice of re-framing our worldview cultivate a student’s curiosity. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein will talk about how to shift a student’s experience from overwhelm to interest, and how to work with the art and science of observation and reflection. As always, the episode will include information and practice.

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Bruce Lee, the iconic martial artist, often spoke about the value of a mind like water -- fluid, flexible, soft enough to go around obstacles, persistent enough to carve a hole in rock, and forceful enough to uproot tall trees or buildings. Water can be invisible as steam, transparent in its liquid state, and hard and opaque as ice. Our minds can be as flexible and powerful if we know how to cultivate attentive calm, precise discrimination, and flexible perspectives. In this episode, Amy Edelstein will talk about using the metaphor of a Mind Like Water to inspire these qualities in the classroom. 

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Good relationships with adults and peers help teens navigate mental and emotional challenges more effectively than any other intervention. Friendships gone sour can snuff out the light of enthusiasm in an adolescent. How do we help our teens learn the art and science of friendship? In this Conscious Classroom episode, Amy Edelstein will map the cartography of friendship. She will guide you in mindful awareness practices you can use with your students to help them learn how to be better friends to themselves and to others. You will also learn some of the Inner Strength tools that we use in our classrooms to help students identify those qualities that are important in a friendship and strengthen those traits in themselves.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Hard to believe, the end of the school year is upon us! In this Conscious Classroom Webinar, Amy Edelstein will lead you in some reflections and meditations that will celebrate the year’s victories, allow more challenging times to be assimilated and transformed into lessons learned, and consciously close the year so everyone can enjoy the summer break ahead.

This episode looks at how to bring in celebration in the time of COVID-19 and protests for equality and the end of racism. Teens are still teens and need to celebrate milestones, rights of passage, and have levity and joy. 

We will also look at summer resources to help teens navigate the lack of structure and support, and unease that sometimes arises when they are faced with the long stretch of the vacation months ahead.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Resistance and frustration is an inevitable human reaction to the stressful conditions we are living in. We can learn to allow, observe, and be with our responses as they are, without creating more tension or negative self judgment. Self care means treating ourselves with kindness, learning how to be gentle when needed and how to turn our minds away from thought patterns that sap our vitality and well-being. 

Working with tools such as breath, body scan, or love & kindness all affect different parts of the brain and produce different long term changes if we keep practicing. We'll touch on what creates changes in our state experience and what leads to lasting effects or changes in our personality traits. We will also look at conditioned guilt or habit of minimizing positivity in order to seem more "empathetic" and consider the value and importance of accessing the irrepressible positivity of life. 

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

In this episode of special support for educators during the time of school closures looks at how we build our inner capacity so we have a little more strength. Our inner systems feel like they have very little give right now. How do we create a little more space for all the frustration? We'll talk about expanding our context, deepening our understanding of interconnectivity and using awareness to focus. By expanding our context, we'll look at the miracle of how our world came into being, the beautiful evolutionary story. We'll also explore interconnectivity, how everything emerged from something else and how if you trace back far enough you can see that none of us are actually isolated and separate from everything else around us. It doesn't mean we won't keep missing the people we love, we are social beings, but we will see that we are deeply interconnected. In two long guided contemplative practices, we'll look at how to cultivate ease by being patient, even if we believe we are not very good at letting go. 

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

The end of the school year is a special time. Conscious endings and appreciation for the heartwarming things that happened during the course of the year make all the difference. As educators, we need to learn to let go, nourish ourselves with lessons learned, and release ourselves to enjoy the downtime. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein will help you end the year on a note of positivity and resolution.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Have you ever thought about why they say "Patience is a virtue"? Virtue is not only meant  as an inherent moral goodness but also as a quality that we can develop if we apply ourselves to it over time. It is not necessarily easy to cultivate. Patience is  a coveted character trait. During the times of great challenge, we naturally want the hardship to be over. We want to return to a life of relative ease, stability, and familiarity. The reality is, upheavals of the magnitude we are experiencing now have ripple effects extending well into the future. There are many uncertainties. Many unknowns. Many contingencies. Cultivating patience through the emotional and practical ups and downs is essential for our own well being and for us to be positive guiding forces in the lives of the students we teach and the colleagues we supervise. 

Mindfulness teaches us to be patient and interested in what is. It teaches us to work with the immediacy of our experience, to watch sensations, thoughts, and feelings arise and pass away. It reveals how within a great unchanging concern, there are infinite small pieces that are constantly vacillating. Our experience is not static. Becoming aware of the constant movement supports the practice of patience, it captures our attention, it keeps us alert and watching rather than bored, apathetic, or resigned. 

Work with the contemplations this week to open your own ability to be interested in your experience. Notice how that interest brings about a willingness to be with what is. That willingness enables you to be patient and allow. 

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Teens are more stressed than ever before. The cloud of testing looms large over students and anxiety about grades and performance can incapacitate ordinarily happy kids. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein will teach you how to help your students use mindfulness and other systems thinking practices to do their best and to gain confidence from the learning and victories they've had over the entire year.

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Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

How can we integrate all we are thinking and feeling at this time? What is the Body-Mind connection? When we take into account thought patterns, the frameworks we rely on to make meaning, and the quality of our awareness, we start to open up and integrate our entire experience. 

Just paying attention without also examining the context within which we are paying attention is partial. Just exploring our worldviews and interpretive frameworks without paying attention to the qualities of consciousness and to the clarity of our own awareness is also partial. In this episode you'll be led through some body scan for relaxation so you can better manage your own experience.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Kids are naturally full of energy. That energy, when channeled helps learning. And yet, as teachers we crave calm. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom Calm, Amy Edelstein will show you that calm doesn’t always look “quiet.” And quiet isn’t always calm. You’ll learn more about how to create authentic calm, ease of being, and openness in your classroom. As always, we’ll do some mindfulness and perspective taking practices to experience and to promote ease of being in the classroom.

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Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Patience is a virtue. In our era of ever-increasing speed and ever-decreasing attention span, cultivating this virtue may be harder than ever. And yet we must. We must both cultivate our own patience and that of our students. In this Conscious Classroom episode we will work with mindful awareness tools to develop patience. Amy Edelstein will shed light on how and why doing something as simple as watching the breath, becoming aware of thoughts, and noticing sensations can improve our tolerance and our care.

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In the age of coronavirus, everything has changed. Usually at this time, students would be focusing on testing skills. Now they are needing to cultivate many new habits, some good, some not so good. How do we support them to learn in a relaxed way? How do we help them to bypass self-consciousness and drop into their authenticity and creativity? Join Amy Edelstein for insight and experiential tools to develop relaxed and alert focus. For more, visit www.InnerStrength.Education

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

The foundation of good learning is a good relationship with one’s teacher or mentor. Building Love & Kindness practices into your school day creates a culture of appreciation, respect, kindness, and care. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein shares some simple ways that you can work with compassion building tools, allowing students to embrace goodness. In a culture where students are exposed to violent video games and acrimonious public discourse, building in care into the classroom is a welcome focus for both you and your students.

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Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

We are living through a great cultural change, while we are in the midst of something so big it is hard to see what is changing and where it will leave us. Still, as educators, this is the time to use the best of our historical knowledge and context setting to think in constructive ways about these times and to challenge our students to think in the same way. During the Civil War, Walt Whitman wanted to create a poem so noble, so beautiful that it would end war. "Song of Myself" sadly did not put an end to war but it did introduce an incredible vision of acceptance and equality, heralding the LBBTQ movement and profound recognition of our universality as well as our uniqueness. Henry David Thoreau looked at the devastating pollution and overcrowding of early industrialization, and with "Walden" laid a foundation for the environmental movement. With these and other examples, Amy Edelstein shows how we can think about these times and create a vision for a future that is more caring and just than the recent past we are coming out of. 

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In times of challenge, like we are presented with now during the Coronavirus epidemic, when we feel overwhelmed and ill-equipped to handle the situation, small tools and actions can help bring groundedness, stability, and courage into our lives. Join Amy Edelstein in this episode as she shares ways to exercise a degree of choice over our circumstances and in so doing build strength. We'll keep our eyes on the bigger picture and be able to better support our students and ourselves. 

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Life has been upended as we know it. Now more than ever, we need tools that will provide our students with calm during the storm, compassion when nerves are fraught, and curiosity about how we can emerge triumphant and proud. In this episode, Amy Edelstein looks at the coronavirus and what that means about priorities for ourselves and our students.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Racial stress occurs every day in diverse classrooms. Tensions between students, between teachers, on the news all affect how well we connect and teach our students. In this powerful episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein shows how mindfulness skills can diffuse racial tension and create a classroom of openness, respect, and love.

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Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Holiday season is a time for family, warmth, and peace. For all too many of our students, holiday time is a time of stress, sadness, and distance between media images of gifts and neighborhoods of lack. Many teens, even those who come from stable homes experience depression and loneliness at this time. In this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein shares mindfulness tools that support teens over the holiday break to stay happy and connected with themselves.

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Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds.

Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.