The Mindful Teacher, 2nd Edition

“This updated and expanded second edition of The Mindful Teacher presents a truly inspiring vision of educational change. It is essential reading for all who agree that it is time to spark a quiet revolution of learning in which teachers and their students can truly flourish.”
—Michael Schratz, president of the International Congress of School Effectiveness and Improvement

“When reforms in some education systems result in alienated teaching rather than improved learning, it takes a book like The Mindful Teacher to remind all that education has deeper meaning and substance than merely achieving performance indicators. This book has a very important message for all educators!”
—Pak Tee Ng, National Institute of Education, Singapore, author of Educational Change in Singapore

This new and expanded edition of the bestselling The Mindful Teacher provides educators everywhere with practical ideas for improving teaching and learning. Dennis Shirley and Elizabeth MacDonald have created “Mindful Teacher” seminars that enable teachers to focus their craft so that students can learn with dignity and purpose. This updated second edition includes completely new sections on the promise of teacher leadership, the strengths and perils of technology, and schools in the midst of change. The Mindful Teacher is an indispensable and timely resource for all educators who seek to transform schools into places of learning and joy.

Book Features:

1. Nitty-gritty descriptions of teachers leading grassroots change.
2. Practical recommendations on ways to retain the best of previous practices while creatively blending them with new innovations.
3. Useful ways of using principles of mindful teaching for thinking through the affordances, as well as the distractions, that accompany new technologies.
4. Research-tested approaches to whole-school change that honor the work of educators and accelerate the learning of students.

The Mindful Teacher describes real educators in real schools working with real students. It bridges the rapidly evolving field of mindfulness studies with educators’ lifelong quests for substantial and sustainable improvements in the educations we provide our students.

Dennis Shirley is professor of education at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. Elizabeth MacDonald is a teacher in the Boston Public Schools.

Praise for the First Edition of The Mindful Teacher!

"MacDonald and Shirley offer the reader a rich description and examination of one professional development program—one that takes teachers' dissatisfactions to heart; provides a framework for contemplative and deliberative exploration; and recognizes the transformative capacity and inherent limitations of any human, educational, and institutional endeavor...It is a work for both the newcomer and those experienced with contemplative educational orientations." 
—Teachers College Record

"Will be treasured by educators everywhere." 
—Thomas Payzant, Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools, 1995–2006

"Must-reading for anyone who cares about the future of democracy." 
—Deborah Meier, 45 years of experience working in public schools

"All those who care about education and our schools will cherish The Mindful Teacher." 
—Ann Lieberman, Stanford University

"This is the book I have been looking for. The Mindful Teacher is conceptually rich and practically feasible. I have no doubt that 'the seven synergies of mindful teaching' will inspire teaching well beyond North America." 
—Jonathan D. Jansen, author of Knowledge in the Blood: Confronting Race and the Apartheid Past and Vice Chancellor and Principal, University of the Free State, South Africa