can you please indulge me for about 15
seconds I want us to take one breath
together so close your eyes take a nice
deep mindful inhale slow exhale open
your eyes believe it or not you’ve just
done your body good because you’ve
tickled your vagus nerve and by doing so
you’ve triggered the relaxation response
of your parasympathetic nervous system
now that’s the part of the nervous
system
that’s rest and digest or attend and
befriend
it’s like hitting the brakes of a car
that’s going through the fight-or-flight
response or it’s like rebooting by
hitting ctrl Alt Delete
now triggering the vagus nerve has been
shown to decrease stress decrease
anxiety it’s also an effective treatment
for PTSD and who’d ever think that
mindful breathing could alter our
moments alter our days and ultimately
alter our stories so why begin a TED
talk with a breath it’s because of the
four numbers I want to share with you
and these are four metrics that tend to
carry the weight of a School District
story now in this case it’ll be Webster
but the data I’m gonna share with you is
applicable to any district in Monroe
County any district in New York State
and any district across the nation
the first number 96 percent that’s the
graduation rate in Webster the second
number 90 percent that’s a number of our
graduates every fall that attend college
and you’d look at those two numbers and
you’d think wow that’s incredible
success the students and the staff and a
faculty must be feeling unabashed joy in
their academic pursuits and then I share
with you
next two numbers 29% that’s the
percentage of our middle school and high
school students who on last year’s youth
risk behavior survey which is a national
survey 29% of our middle school and high
school students reported have they
reported having difficulty remembering
things making decisions concentrating
because of emotional trauma or emotional
problems the same percentage 29% also
reported feeling so sad or so hopeless
every day
for two or more weeks that they stop
doing their normal activities that’s one
third of our students that’s 1,500 kids
in Webster the fourth number 25% that’s
the percentage of our students who take
some type of pharmaceutic to deal with
stress anxiety and depression and that
number is probably just as high if not
higher for the adults on our staff and
faculty when I saw those four numbers I
thought what the heck
I’d say something stronger but our Board
of Education is here tonight and I don’t
want this to be the last thing I do as
Webster is superintendent what the heck
also I thought there’s got to be more to
this story seriously why the dichotomy
our students seem to do really well on
high-stakes tests like ApS and SATs and
Regents exams but that success doesn’t
necessarily translate to success in the
emotional psyche we’re fooling ourselves
if we think that the pleasure centers in
our brain are gonna live off of a
dopamine high of getting a 3 9 GPA or
1350 on the SATs if we don’t emphasize
compassion joy and kindness with our
students just as much as we emphasize
success in algebra 2 in global history
or in ap biology we are setting our
students up and we’re setting ourselves
up for something that I call the Pez
dispensers syndrome where we take pill
after pill after pill
to deal with the stress and anxiety that
seems embedded in our daily lives so how
do we mindfully react to the numbers I
just shared with you we breathe we
mindfully thoughtfully systematically
and explicitly teach our students and
ourselves to breathe now I know what
you’re thinking I came to a TED talk for
breathing the mindfulness stuff is not
some hippy dippy granola-crunching
cosmic crap it is all about the science
the effect of mindfulness on your
amygdala which is that primitive limbic
part of your brain that takes over
during a stress response or the effects
of mindfulness on the prefrontal cortex
are undeniable as are the effects on
your neural chemistry and I could geek
out about the science for like the next
hour or so but I’ve got about a hundred
so in Webster we initiated a mindfulness
program across our entire district and
we even hired a mindfulness coach and we
were trying where we are trying to get
everyone involved in its exploration
from eight-year-olds to 18-year olds to
78 year olds our lunch ladies never
retired our mindfulness coach works with
our youngest students in pre-k all the
way up to our seniors in ap physics she
works with students in the marching band
and athletes and almost every one of our
varsity teams have even an old
stressed-out superintendent can learn
new tricks and mindfulness absolutely
works my anxiety and my panic attacks
have nearly disappeared hence I’m giving
a TED talk and my students even talked
me into singing in the musical so I know
as an educator I have a responsibility
for the academic achievement for my kids
but there’s so much more to the scope of
that responsibility as an educator I
want to make sure that all of my
students feel connected and safe and
valued and empowered and most
importantly they feel loved we have to
reach our students at their hearts
before we reach their heads now I am in
no way saying that we discount academic
rigor and only focus on emotional
well-being for our students and for
ourselves I’m also not saying that
mindfulness is some type of magic bullet
that will always result in happy kids
and cute puppies and unicorns and
rainbows there is definitely a balance
that needs to be struck and we must
strike it because when we do our kids
will feel more joy and more compassion
and think about our world right now man
do we need more joy and more compassion
just like we need more light and more
laughter and the stories that we write
and in the way that we walk through the
world together
and that reminds me of a quote by Rahm
Das and what would any talk on
mindfulness be without some kind of
quote from a guru Ramdas says we’re all
just walking each other home I want to
make sure that my students and my
friends and colleagues and my family
feel so loved it’s so connected that
they know that we joyfully and
compassionately have each other’s backs
because when we do we can breathe we can
share in the writing and the rewriting
of our stories and then together we can
walk each other home now 35 years from
now and to tell you the truth I don’t
care how mindful I am I will always miss
my hair but 35 years from now no one
remembers their precise test scores or
their precise GPA and to tell you truth
no one cares but what we will remember
is who walked us home thank you [Applause]
seconds I want us to take one breath
together so close your eyes take a nice
deep mindful inhale slow exhale open
your eyes believe it or not you’ve just
done your body good because you’ve
tickled your vagus nerve and by doing so
you’ve triggered the relaxation response
of your parasympathetic nervous system
now that’s the part of the nervous
system
that’s rest and digest or attend and
befriend
it’s like hitting the brakes of a car
that’s going through the fight-or-flight
response or it’s like rebooting by
hitting ctrl Alt Delete
now triggering the vagus nerve has been
shown to decrease stress decrease
anxiety it’s also an effective treatment
for PTSD and who’d ever think that
mindful breathing could alter our
moments alter our days and ultimately
alter our stories so why begin a TED
talk with a breath it’s because of the
four numbers I want to share with you
and these are four metrics that tend to
carry the weight of a School District
story now in this case it’ll be Webster
but the data I’m gonna share with you is
applicable to any district in Monroe
County any district in New York State
and any district across the nation
the first number 96 percent that’s the
graduation rate in Webster the second
number 90 percent that’s a number of our
graduates every fall that attend college
and you’d look at those two numbers and
you’d think wow that’s incredible
success the students and the staff and a
faculty must be feeling unabashed joy in
their academic pursuits and then I share
with you
next two numbers 29% that’s the
percentage of our middle school and high
school students who on last year’s youth
risk behavior survey which is a national
survey 29% of our middle school and high
school students reported have they
reported having difficulty remembering
things making decisions concentrating
because of emotional trauma or emotional
problems the same percentage 29% also
reported feeling so sad or so hopeless
every day
for two or more weeks that they stop
doing their normal activities that’s one
third of our students that’s 1,500 kids
in Webster the fourth number 25% that’s
the percentage of our students who take
some type of pharmaceutic to deal with
stress anxiety and depression and that
number is probably just as high if not
higher for the adults on our staff and
faculty when I saw those four numbers I
thought what the heck
I’d say something stronger but our Board
of Education is here tonight and I don’t
want this to be the last thing I do as
Webster is superintendent what the heck
also I thought there’s got to be more to
this story seriously why the dichotomy
our students seem to do really well on
high-stakes tests like ApS and SATs and
Regents exams but that success doesn’t
necessarily translate to success in the
emotional psyche we’re fooling ourselves
if we think that the pleasure centers in
our brain are gonna live off of a
dopamine high of getting a 3 9 GPA or
1350 on the SATs if we don’t emphasize
compassion joy and kindness with our
students just as much as we emphasize
success in algebra 2 in global history
or in ap biology we are setting our
students up and we’re setting ourselves
up for something that I call the Pez
dispensers syndrome where we take pill
after pill after pill
to deal with the stress and anxiety that
seems embedded in our daily lives so how
do we mindfully react to the numbers I
just shared with you we breathe we
mindfully thoughtfully systematically
and explicitly teach our students and
ourselves to breathe now I know what
you’re thinking I came to a TED talk for
breathing the mindfulness stuff is not
some hippy dippy granola-crunching
cosmic crap it is all about the science
the effect of mindfulness on your
amygdala which is that primitive limbic
part of your brain that takes over
during a stress response or the effects
of mindfulness on the prefrontal cortex
are undeniable as are the effects on
your neural chemistry and I could geek
out about the science for like the next
hour or so but I’ve got about a hundred
so in Webster we initiated a mindfulness
program across our entire district and
we even hired a mindfulness coach and we
were trying where we are trying to get
everyone involved in its exploration
from eight-year-olds to 18-year olds to
78 year olds our lunch ladies never
retired our mindfulness coach works with
our youngest students in pre-k all the
way up to our seniors in ap physics she
works with students in the marching band
and athletes and almost every one of our
varsity teams have even an old
stressed-out superintendent can learn
new tricks and mindfulness absolutely
works my anxiety and my panic attacks
have nearly disappeared hence I’m giving
a TED talk and my students even talked
me into singing in the musical so I know
as an educator I have a responsibility
for the academic achievement for my kids
but there’s so much more to the scope of
that responsibility as an educator I
want to make sure that all of my
students feel connected and safe and
valued and empowered and most
importantly they feel loved we have to
reach our students at their hearts
before we reach their heads now I am in
no way saying that we discount academic
rigor and only focus on emotional
well-being for our students and for
ourselves I’m also not saying that
mindfulness is some type of magic bullet
that will always result in happy kids
and cute puppies and unicorns and
rainbows there is definitely a balance
that needs to be struck and we must
strike it because when we do our kids
will feel more joy and more compassion
and think about our world right now man
do we need more joy and more compassion
just like we need more light and more
laughter and the stories that we write
and in the way that we walk through the
world together
and that reminds me of a quote by Rahm
Das and what would any talk on
mindfulness be without some kind of
quote from a guru Ramdas says we’re all
just walking each other home I want to
make sure that my students and my
friends and colleagues and my family
feel so loved it’s so connected that
they know that we joyfully and
compassionately have each other’s backs
because when we do we can breathe we can
share in the writing and the rewriting
of our stories and then together we can
walk each other home now 35 years from
now and to tell you the truth I don’t
care how mindful I am I will always miss
my hair but 35 years from now no one
remembers their precise test scores or
their precise GPA and to tell you truth
no one cares but what we will remember
is who walked us home thank you [Applause]
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