TDHS Mindfulness Class Helps Students Manage Stress and Achieve Success
Students taking part in-class exercises to promote the mind-body connection.
By Stephanie Bowen
In the depths of The Dalles High School, in what many have aptly referred to as ‘the dungeon’ over the years, you can find a white board that says “Everyday is a gift.”
There amid the industrial ambiance is something unexpected: a room filled with rejuvenation, a sense of peace, of calm, of purpose, of mindfulness.
Not that long ago, this room was home to the TDHS welding program, which has now been rehomed to the new skill center on the college campus, in order to expand the program and offer better safety and ventilation. And while the room still looks like a welding shop in many ways, it serves a much different purpose these days.
The room now belongs to TDHS teacher, Brian Greeley.
Last year Greeley, a longtime Spanish teacher at the school, added a new class to his teaching roster. One that has been proving to help students destress and increase their ability to stay engaged and stay on track academically and emotionally.
The class is simply titled: Mindfulness.
Mr. Brian Greeley.
Greeley’s Mindfulness class provides students with strategies they can use to self-manage when experiencing heightened emotions, such as stress and anxiety.
“Honestly, it's so amazing having at least one class that is stress free,” notes one of Greeley’s students.
Not only is the class stress free, but it also helps students to manage stress in their other classes, their relationships to others, and at home.
While the class may not check the boxes found in a typical curriculum, the class couldn’t have come at a better time.
The need for social/emotional education has only grown since the onset of the Covid pandemic. Just ask any teacher, and they’ll tell you exactly how hard it’s been to juggle keeping a classroom engaged and learning while also managing more social, emotional and behavioral issues than they’ve ever had to before.
The hardest part of it all?
Seeing students in the classroom struggle as a result.
Greeley, concerned with the dramatic rise of mental health challenges facing local teens, started digging into the science and theory behind the concept of mindfulness and what he could do to support his students' social emotional wellness.
Unfortunately, his concerns were all too real.
The CDC currently reports more than 1 in 3 high school students having experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. A staggering 40 percent increase over the past 10 years. Even more alarming to Greeley were the pre-pandemic statistics from the local 2019 Columbia Gorge Regional Community Health Assessment, which revealed that 11% of Gorge area high schoolers had attempted suicide. A heartbreaking but now dated number that makes one wonder what the numbers look like now.
While many confuse the term mindfulness with the word meditation, the two aren’t synonymous. Mindfulness is about teaching the awareness of thoughts, surroundings, and emotions, focusing on the present moment.
“It’s about not letting your mind get stuck in the past, or in the future, when your body is in the present,” Greeley notes. Combating stress with awareness.
Greeley now teaches and guides students through mindfulness-based practices and life management skills, such as self regulation, attention-awareness, and positive thinking.
On top of working through a textbook curriculum, classwork includes daily gratitudes, journaling, and promoting acts of kindness.
Students creating messages of hope and kindness on the front steps of TDHS.
He also makes it a point to get his students outdoors whenever he can, going on walks and leading them through simple exercises to activate their mind-body connection.
Students taking part in-class exercises to promote the mind-body connection.
Mindfulness classes are gaining traction both locally and across the nation. Both TDHS and Hood River Valley High School piloted their first classes this last year. This has allowed the two gorge teachers to collaborate closely with one another and share strategies.
Now in its second term, Greeley's students are undoubtedly finding success and the amount of positive feedback Greeley has received from students has been overwhelming.
Students report feeling less stress during the day and having more control over anxiety. It’s not just mental health that’s reaping the benefits either, students are also sharing that they are more active, practicing better eating habits, getting to sleep earlier, and staying off their phones more.
“I am starting to remove myself from negative things I don’t need right now,” one of his students remarks.
Others are finding personal strengths emerge, “I’m learning to calm down and think about things…I learned that drawing helps me because of this class.”
Academically speaking, mindfulness education has already begun to show a correlation with improved student focus, resilience, academic success, social skills, emotional intelligence, and behavioral management.
“It’s been really well received,” says Greeley, “I hope to see this program grow, not just in the high school, but for the whole district, as it is so needed for our students”.
In a world that seems to be increasingly stressful, Greeley has created a safe place for students to learn skills that will benefit not only their education, but also their friendships, their families, and their mental and emotional health.
Mindfulness has turned what was once ‘the dungeon’ into a safe haven.
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