Program Goals
MindUp is a social and emotional learning program intended to promote cognitive control, self-regulation, well-being, and prosocial behaviors in fourth- to seventh-grade students via a series of lessons in which “mindful attention” is taught and practiced in a classroom setting. It is designed to foster positive behavior and improve learning, while also increasing empathy, optimism, and compassion.
Targeted Population
MindUp is geared toward students in fourth through seventh grade (ages 9 to 12); this period is viewed as a window of opportunity to help children optimize their health and promote their positive psychological growth.
Program Components
The MindUp program focuses on mindfulness, which refers to bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis with a nonjudgmental stance. The program uses a 10- to 12-lesson curriculum, and involvement of all students in the classroom is required. It has an emphasis on taking content and extending the key components to other aspects of the curriculum and dimensions of children’s lives outside of school.
The curriculum has four key components, which include 1) quieting the mind through listening to a resonating instrument (chime) and focusing on the breath, 2) mindful attention of sensations, thoughts, and feelings, 3) managing negative emotions and negative thinking, and 4) acknowledgement of self and others. Each part of the program builds upon previous lessons and skills, moving children from focusing on subjective, sensory-based experiences (e.g., mindful smelling, mindful tasting) to cognitive experiences. In addition, lessons involve performing acts of kindness and collectively engaging in community service–learning activities aimed at changing the classroom environment to one of belonging, caring, collaboration, and understanding.
The MindUp program draws ideas for lessons from the book, Mind Power for Children – The Guide for Parents and Teachers (Kehoe and Fischer 2002). Lesson topics covered over the course of the program include introduction to mindfulness, learning about affirmations, concentrating on positive emotions and outcomes, learning how to eliminate negative thinking, acknowledging one another, understanding goal setting as a group, having a healthy body, making friends, and celebrating successes. Each lesson lasts approximately 40 to 50 minutes.
Mindfulness trainings involve a set of practices that typically include meditation exercises and bringing awareness to daily activities. These practices consist of sitting in a comfortable position, listening to a single sound, and then using breath as a focal point for being mindful in the present moment. Mindful training exercises are to be practiced three times per day (3 minutes for each practice). Affirmations and visualizations are practiced in combination with mindful practices.
Program Theory
The MindUp curriculum is grounded in developmental neuroscience, mindfulness awareness, social–emotional learning, and positive psychology. The program focuses on pre- and early adolescence, because research has shown that it is during this developmental stage that personalities, behaviors, and competencies begin to merge into forms that persist into adolescence and on into adulthood (Eccles and Roser 2009). During puberty, executive functions in the prefrontal cortex (cognitive control) and self-regulation experience significant growth and change, and mindfulness trainings are used to support their development.
MindUp draws on a social–emotional perspective, which suggests that children with positive social and emotional skills demonstrate resiliency when confronted with stressful situations and experience more success and positive psychological growth. The program is also guided by research on mindfulness and its relation to well-being and positive psychology (Schonert-Reichl and Lawlor 2010).
