SEL in Action
SEL in Action
Episode 12 Guest Podcast with Matt Clarke & Randie Sykes
On this special guest episode, Matt Clarke interviews Randie Sykes about how they integrate mindfulness into their classrooms and schools.
Matt Clarke is the department head of English Language Learning at Fraser Heights Secondary in Surrey, British Columbia. Throughout his diverse experience as a classroom educator he has worked to integrate mindfulness in meaningful ways that support students’ social and emotional development. He is currently pursuing his Masters of Education at the University of Ottawa while working to ensure diversity and equity-mindedness within education.
Randie is a busy mom, wife, sister, and school counsellor. Experiencing the postive affect that mindfulness can have in one's life, Randie is passionate about using her experience to help others. In addition she completed her Master's in School Counselling Degree in 2017 with a focus on Mindfulness and its efficacy in the school setting. Randie is currently supporting youth and families within the public school system. As a YMCA trained Mindfulness facilitator, Randie runs group teen mindfulness sessions in her high school where she works as a school counsellor.
You can connect with Matt on Twitter at @mrclarke7.
Hello, and welcome to the SEL in Action podcast. The podcast where we discuss what social emotional learning looks like in educational and professional settings. I'm your host Heather Woods. And today we have a special interviewer and their guest. This is a interview from a class project one of my previous students did that I felt really speaks to how social emotional learning can be implemented and thought about for educators but also for students. So I want to welcome Matt Clark, a teacher from BC, Canada. And he is interviewing Randy Sykes who is a school psychologist as well in British Columbia. So I will turn it over to them.
Matt Clarke:I thought we probably would be improtant to introduce ourselves. So we know each other from teaching an LST back in the day, but now you have left LS t Learning Support Team. Yeah. And you now filled these amazing boots as
Randie Sykes:I am a school counselor at Fraser heights. So I this is my fourth year as a school counselor, and it has been Interesting.
Matt Clarke:Interesting in a pandemic year. Yes. And a blended online year. Yeah. Three learning here. Yeah, then coming back here,
Randie Sykes:right. And for start and stops. Yeah. And transitions are really awesome. for teenagers. They love change. I'm being sarcastic.
Matt Clarke:So we're gonna chat about mindfulness. But I thought that we should kind of honor where you come from in this conversation as well. Like, you know, it's a it's a it's a chicken in the egg situation. So not really, completely confident, like you kind of introduced me to mindfulness in the classroom and lst. But for you, okay, what you practice? I'm like you you practice mindfulness outside of school. But Was that something that came before you bringing it into the classroom?
Randie Sykes:Yes. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good question, actually. And in fact, like, I've done a lot of thinking about that, about that relationship, like, chicken egg, right. So there's lots of folks that will are interested in mindfulness, but they don't necessarily have a personal connection to it. And we'll try to implement it in the classroom. And there's the other way around, where you have a personal relationship with the first and then you implement it in the classroom. And so there's no right or wrong, I think, if you're, if you're want to talk on mindfulness, it's supposed to be really simple. It's supposed to be very user friendly. And all mindfulness is it's just paying attention being being aware. And so you can do that in a variety of ways. You don't necessarily need to have a personal connection to it. I did. And so my story is, I actually used it for myself during a really, really difficult time. We had that strike, two teacher families.You know, things were, things were hard, and we actually ended up getting a job, like a part time job, we went back to like, when we were in our early 20s, although we had a mortgage, you know, in this warehouse, and I found I waited tables, Yes, I remember. Oh my gosh, yes, with the things that we had to do to adapt to that time of, of change, and then adapt. But also, I think what I found was I needed a coping skill to deal with the internalized stress of of that. So I just was finding myself I couldn't sleep at night, my mind was racing, I was waking up with like, like, sweaty kind of like until I was like, you know, stressed out. And then I took my kids actually to the international Buddhist temple just because they have a really cool statue there. And I wanted, sorry, not statue, but it's the basically an iconic figure, made it of gold. And I wanted to show Elliot and I walked in, and there was a big poster that said, free mindfulness classes. And I was like, whoo, this is fun. Like, I would love to learn more about this. And to be honest, I kind of buy into that kind of culture to like the New Age kind of stuff. And so I was like, Oh, this is fun. And it was terrifying. My first time there was super structured and I learned from Buddhist monks, the Buddhist way, the traditional, which was a tough learning curve. But Wow, like what an amazing practice. No one is teaching you it's all you teaching yourself and listening and absorbing the energy of other people practicing with you. It is such a different way of learning and it's all about allowing yourself to slow down which is super scary and being okay with being with yourself. Which I found was terrifying. And then that learning was like what Like, I have a choice here now, what do I, what am I going to do about that? Am I going to continue to ignore myself and that fear? Or am I going to lean into it? And at that time in my life, I had nothing else to lose. And so I leaned into it. And yeah, and I practiced for four years at that temple. And it was amazing, good experience.
Matt Clarke:So how does it then make its way into the classroom, especially when you consider that your your background was in meditation as a as a as a secular? Yeah, act, right. And then when we really bring it into the classroom, that's one of the big barriers is, you know, having these conversations with students and parents and beliefs that, you know, when we talk about mindfulness being meditation, like you said, only as one of the options of being mindful. Like there's sometimes there's walls get put up when we hear that kind of religious based foundational language around all of it.
Randie Sykes:100% I think that we've, you know, there's Jon Kabat Zinn is like the one of the like, biggest, I think the one of the first educators on mindfulness, and he really did a good job, I think of separating the religious connotations from like, no, there's actual, like medical scientific rationale behind this practice. And, and this is why, and they did a study in like the 60s where he was like, bring me all have the people you cannot fix. And I will practice mindfulness with them. And it was like one of those 60s trials, I was like, and then I'll give them LSD. Anyway. So that was like, kind of the first separation and that happened. I'd say, like in the in the 60s was a big push for that. But bringing into the classroom, especially in our school, we have a large population of Chinese students and I, the minute you bring up the word like meditation instead of mindfulness, immediately, it's like, they they either have a connection, or they have an aversion. Sorry, sorry, I think neither. They're like, Oh, that's so interesting. Like I want I totally practice that on my own. I want to, I want to do that. Yeah, more interested in I want to learn more about that. And then other kids were like, Oh, no, no, our family does not practice that we're not Buddhist. We're, we're a Christian. Yeah. And so teaching kids that no, this is not anything to do with religion, per se, this is this is just a self regulation strategy, calm your emotions with them or deal with stress.
Matt Clarke:So I think you obviously I mean, this maybe goes without being said with the you would believe that schools is a place to practice mindfulness, but that there's an appropriate place.
Randie Sykes:I think, that if we don't start teaching kids to slow down and practice one thing at a time, it's going, it's already killing them. And when I say killing, I mean that like, literally, but but by and large, mostly it's, it's just they're not coping with, with modern, modern living, it's too much. It's just too much. There's so much going on. And we're not meant to know as much as we know. And technology has really accelerated the like amount of input. And what do we do with that input. And so many kids with the fact like their, their brains are not fully formed their ability to like, slow down and process information and say, Oh, this is the most important thing, I should focus on this. They just don't have those abilities yet. And so some, some actually say that mindfulness with teenagers is not appropriate because of that. Some would argue that, but actually, I felt the opposite. That teenagers need this. And yeah, it's scary. They don't want to do it. When you tell them they have to put away their phones or turn them off, or take them God forbid, the stress level woof. But over time, it gets easier. And so the reason why, just going back to bringing it into the classroom, the reason why I brought it in to the classroom is because I was working with kids that were not coping, and it wasn't Learning Support environment, where I was being asked to support them with their learning, but I would sit down beside a child that was absolutely vibrating with emotion. And asking them to open up their textbook to page 52. And let's look at number three together. What like, No, I'm not going to be doing that. I'm going to be asking this kid to take some deep breaths. I'm going to be asking them to you know, visualize A place that they feel safe. You know, I'm going to be doing all these strategies. And I was naturally because because who I who I am and my personal practice, I was bringing some of that stuff in. But I didn't make yet the connection that I was, oh my gosh, this is mindfulness. Yeah, until I did my own masters in my own inquiry project around mindfulness and self regulation in the classroom. And then it was just like, my brain exploded. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, this is the missing piece.
Matt Clarke:It's mindfulness is a tool and that self regulation, that emotional regulation piece that precedes any kind of academic performance, or any we can't even get there until we have dealt with this state that we're in Yes, essentially, yes, yeah.
Randie Sykes:Shankar, who is a prophet UBC wrote that book like calm alert and learning. And we if we don't have students in place, and zones as a good, good way to explain that to kids, right? If you're not in the green zone, you're not in the learning zone. Right? And so like, the question then is, how do we get there? And if we can't get to green, how do we get a little bit closer? Right, and when we slowly so we're, we're working with people, we're not working with students when we're doing this. And so it's totally different perspective shift for teachers as well, which is, which facilitates connection and relationship. That's huge. I found immediately, kids were coming to me, not just not just for their brains, but for their for their hearts, like they wanted to connect, because I was giving them the time,
Matt Clarke:there's a change in your in your classroom climate, because it slowing it down. Yeah, and bases everything on relationships first and being ready to learn before the actual learning.
Randie Sykes:Yes, and coming out of so we would do meditation Mondays. And we would, we would do it in the morning on Mondays. Sorry, before each class on Monday, so throughout the whole day, and I felt we chose Mondays. Because the weekends are tough for a lot of these kids, and they come from families that are a lot of pressure, a lot of teenagers, they're going to have issues at home. And so we wanted to give them that time to process their weekend. And then also we would have a talking circle afterwards. And so we would give them time to process, and then it would come to the circle. And then we would ask them if they wanted to share anything. And so that would give them an opportunity then to make meaning out of that processing. And do it in an environment where they were together. So they were not alone. And there was a teacher facilitator. So it was so powerful for those kids. And they felt really grounded and centered and connected at the beginning of their week made such a difference.
Matt Clarke:You know, in talking to some of our other colleagues who do some like mindfulness Mondays are something on Monday to really ground the week seems to be a very common theme here. And these conversations, yeah, but also other pieces that happen throughout the week, that all kind of connected back to mindfulness. Because I think through throughout most of the literature, and the research and everything, mindfulness really focuses on meditation as the practice. But there's all these other things that go with it, like gratitude, and positivity. And just general well being that there's these other activities that staff have talked about that they do like these fist pump Fridays, or even like dance Friday is just getting up and moving, that I'll build kind of into that mindful piece of just being more aware of your body more aware of your emotions, more aware of your stress, more able to label all of those things. And I know that in LST you also had a guy that you had that conversation but you had a reflective piece about the heart. The mind, body, yeah.
Randie Sykes:Yeah. heart, mind body. And it was very interesting, like because we used it, so the heart, heart, mind body, so it would be where did you so the body would be kind of easy for students to identify, I found that they were, they could tell me like, okay, when you were meditating, or when you were sitting still, sometimes I wouldn't even use the word meditation because I could hear I could see it in their face puke, they already have an aversion to it. And, you know, if they would say, Oh, my back hurt, or, you know, it was weird. like two minutes into my meditation, I just felt this like wave of calm, come over my body. And, and then another person. I remember a very common one, another person wrote, I could feel my stomach muscles being very tight. And when I was aware of that, I relaxed them. And it made a big difference to my ability to sit still for longer, right? And so like all these little physical awareness, like how, how that affects your mind and your body and your heart health all connected. And then the mind was like, What thoughts came up? Was there a theme? Was it mostly about the weekend was it around an event that happened? And then the heart is like, kind of, how are you feeling during that time, like, during your meditation, sometimes we have, we're having a good day and we're like, I'm the best meditator on the planet. I'm winning this for sure. And then you come out of it and you're like, I'm saved all my problems are saved. Every time it's gonna be like that now, and then the next time you go to sit on the carpet, it's like, wow, I'm a mess. Yeah. And I can't focus and, and so it's it's interesting for kids to just be aware of how they're feeling that day. And we have a way of, of blaming ourselves for that, and judging ourselves. And so we would have a lot of Congress, especially teenagers, or adults, anyone judges, except for maybe three year olds.
Matt Clarke:My three year old judges
Randie Sykes:judge themselves himself.
Matt Clarke:Judges my ability to spread peanut butter. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Randie Sykes:Yes, endless. But you know, I think it's so healthy, healthy for them to be like, you know, except just be like, you know, this is happening today. And don't blame meditation. Don't blame yourself. This is just the way the natural wave and rhythm of life and really normalizing that. And, yeah, that's a huge thing.
Matt Clarke:Yeah. I like things I think we talk too much about or the research talks too much about self awareness and self management, but self acceptance as a as a part of it, as well being like, this is where I'm at, there is no winning meditation, like I'm in the body. And I'm in the mindset that I am in and I'm honoring that place. Yeah, I think is really important to moving forward. Yes to, you mentioned teachers as facilitators. Now, that's a big thing, right? Like, in the efficacy of implementing mindfulness in classrooms is that it has to be with a trusted adult, or a teacher, or a community member that's knowingsome of the research they have, like people come in that know these programs, right. So they're like program trained instructors, and it's effective in the study. But then in the long term, there's not that relational connection that we've been talking about. So it kind of seems like in the classroom, it really starts and ends with teachers as facilitators, but then there's like, you know, people are nervous to step into implementing this or introducing this in the classroom for all the reasons that we've already said, like, there's blocks when you talk about it, there's that secular non secular piece to bridge, there's the there's the how to right and there's the environmental piece of like, I don't even know how to set this up in my classroom. my classroom is rows of tables. And that doesn't really seem a place that's apropos to sitting down and being mindful, or the announcements Come on, are there hallways noises loud? Like how do I even enter this? So what would your like? elevator pitch be to educators that are like thinking about or tackling, bringing mindfulness into the class?
Randie Sykes:Yeah, so my, I am very biased in the sense that like, I can't, I can't imagine an experience of bringing mindfulness into the classroom without having a personal connection with it first. To me, that was absolutely critical in how I, how I present it to the kids. Authenticity is 150% critical for teaching mindfulness. If you're like, Okay, everybody put your head down a little snooze, click, you know, when you put on some, like peaceful music. Yeah, that's not mindfulness, that's resting, which is also good, but it's not mindfulness. So really, understanding what that process is, and how incredibly difficult it is, is it is needed. In fact, being a master of meditation or or doing it for longer than a month is not required. But you know, you should give it an honest effort before you bring it into the classroom. Because I think for kids, having those like really honest conversations about man, it's frustrating. Like, this is frustrating. Sitting with ourselves is hard. But at the end of the day, if we can't sit with ourselves, then we shouldn't be sitting with other people, either. We have to be okay with ourselves first. Yeah, it starts it starts at home and then extends out. Yeah. So it's like inside out, rather than outside in concept, right.
Matt Clarke:So, and you always practice what you preach. And I think that was a big thing. Yeah. to like, it wasn't like, like you said, just play the app or whatever. Because there's no judgment on the fact that maybe you're doing a guided meditation through a program, right.
Randie Sykes:I was doing using that program. Yeah, it was helpful. But I would say like, I would also use my own anecdotes like, man, I was at the temple on the weekend. And this, you know, was watching these monks. I'm thinking to myself, like, just got back from Guilford mall, but myself and your aritza top can't wait to put it out, like talking about how to be how to be mindful in the real world. And making that accessible for kids is what is required of a facilitator. Not necessarily like being a mom. And doing all like really living intensely like that, because that almost deters kids too, right?
Matt Clarke:Yeah. No, I was thinking more like, like you are practicing mindfulness alongside the kids. It's not, it's not the opportunity for 10 minutes for you to go on your email, like, Oh, yeah, you were doing it, we were doing it. And then in that top back, you're like, you know what, today was really tough day for me too, because I was feeling to the office For Whom the Bell Tolls?
Randie Sykes:Me like two minutes, okay. My time is valuable. So I would say that if you're not practicing with the kids, then why are the kids practicing? Right? That's, that's what they're thinking. You if you're, if you're asking them to step outside of their comfort zone, and you're not willing to do that yourself, you can't, you can't do that. So I mean, you can but it's not, they're gonna, they're gonna pretend it's and close your eyes. And you know, so the authenticity is key. Create setting up the environment is key, very challenging in a school. You're right. Lots of lots of interruptions in schools, holy cow, but even more of a reason to bring in mindfulness, getting administration on board. So and putting a sign outside of your door. We are, you know, mindfulness is practice being practiced here this morning, please, please be quiet, I think is a great also. message for students walking the halls that this is what we do here, like we slow things down, okay? school school is a place where we can be calm and quiet and close our eyes, because it's a really vulnerable position to be in. Another little trick is getting kids to like, turn and face the wall. So they're not because they're teenagers are so socially aware that they actually cannot focus on their meditation. So just removing all barriers that they want to sit in a chair, let them sit in a chair. If they want to fidget with something, let them fidget with something. It's all about making them comfortable. As much as possible, because facing themselves is the biggest fear. So just making that as comfy as you can, too, for them to do that hard work.
Matt Clarke:Facing themselves as the biggest fear I like them. I think that I mean, I think that's teenagers and beyond anybody sitting with yourself? Yeah.
Randie Sykes:Where am I going? What do I have to do in five minutes? What do I do last month? Oh, crap. 10 years ago, I did that. Yeah, your brain is like a monkey mind. And it's always judging you. It's always your internal critic is always there, whether we like it or not.
Matt Clarke:Well, thank you for spending some time and sitting down. I feel like it's apropos to say that schools are a busy place since you're literally being paged out of this meeting to go to another meeting. So we'll leave it there. Thank you.
Heather Woods:You've been listening to the SEL in Action podcast. I want to thank our guest interviewer Matt Clark, and his colleague, Randy Sykes, for sharing their thoughts and the research that Matt had done, as well as the experiences and research that Randy has done on mindfulness in the classroom. I hope that you learned a lot from this episode, and I hope we have more of these guest presentations as well. Feel free to connect with Matt on social media. His information is in the show notes. As always, feel free to connect with us at Sal in action on Twitter, Facebook, and the website and Instagram as well. Thank you so much for listening and we hope you have a great day.