"… Create a clearing in the dense forest of your life. …"
The irony of the context in which I'm hearing these words, taken from a poem by Martha Postlewaite, is not lost on me. I'm hiking through an actual dense forest—Rock Creek National Park in Washington, D.C.—listening to a podcast on mindfulness and simultaneously making a mental to-do list for the evening ahead of me.
This episode of Tara Brach's podcast—a free series of talks and meditations I love and absolutely recommend for educators—is all about the sacred pause. That is, how, when we stop goal-oriented activity even for 20 seconds, we silence our reactive, threat-seeking brain and tap into our full presence. In that presence, Brach says, lies our strength and freedom, our intrinsic worth as human beings and not humans caught in the trance of doing. Brach is a psychologist, meditation teacher, and author of several books, including Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha.
Although pausing gives us a fuller sense of the present moment and our whole beingness in it, it can be incredibly uncomfortable. I'll admit to fast-forwarding through the reflection and meditation segments of this podcast. Incessant doing, Brach says, gives us a sense of control over the very real threats and opportunities that constantly arise in our busy lives. Not to mention, culturally, productivity is intricately woven into our sense of worth. Educators might know this more acutely than any other profession. We can always be doing more for our students, but is that the point of learning and leading? What does the mask of doing prevent us from seeing in ourselves, our students, our colleagues, and our community?
To me, there's no prescribed way to invite a sacred pause into your practice as an educator. It can be in the seconds before you open your classroom or office door to start the day. It can be a centering activity, like when University of San Francisco education professor Candace Valenzuela starts every class by leading teacher candidates through a mindful meditation. Valenzuela believes these moments are essential to investing teacher candidates in education for social justice. "You need to feel this work in your body," she says. Starting class with a read aloud or just a moment with the lights off can help students settle into the present moment.
I know that pausing can sound out of touch with the realities of the classroom. As editors at ASCD, we constantly hear about time as a limiting factor in the work of educators. When I was a student teacher, I started every class like a racehorse out of the gates. Seize the energy and keep it high, dutifully post do-nows so that kids can get right down to the business of learning with clear objectives, monitor the class for on-task behaviors—this was my creed. These aren't all necessarily bad things; what's problematic is the tendency to hook into these relentless behaviors as the only model for effective education.
Studying the significance of pausing has helped me see that another model of teaching and learning—in which students and educators find the space to shift from the endless drumbeat of "do now" to "be now"—is not just possible but also necessary.
