Compassion-based mindfulness training in teacher education: The impact on student teachers at a South African university

Abstract

This article presents findings from a teacher education study, exploring the implications of mindfulness training on student teachers in the context of a transitional society, South Africa. Western secular mindfulness has been expanding to new continents, from its origins in the East, and can now benefit from being contextualised. Recent critiques of the contemporary mindfulness movement identify elements that are missing from much secular mindfulness training, such as ethics, compassion, and social engagement. As part of a mixed methods research study, in-depth interviews were carried out with fourteen student teachers in Gauteng, aiming to understand the level and causes of their stress, and evaluate whether a mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) was beneficial. The study's findings extended the current literature, highlighting the benefits of including compassion practices in MBIs, particularly in stressful contexts. Compassion-based mindfulness has the potential as a practice that not only improves the resilience of individuals, but also becomes a means of enhancing social engagement. For student teachers in the global south, mindfulness balanced with compassion impacted on their experience of self-compassion, empathy and compassion for others and altruistic behaviour. Explicit compassion training could, therefore, address some of the current critiques of MBIs.

An online mindfulness intervention for medical students in South Africa: A randomised controlled trial

“…The encouraging quantitative and qualitative findings contrast with a statistically significant decrease in participants’ self-compassion. The literature reports varied results in self-compassion following MBI interventions: most frequently, increased self-compassion for others, 28 , 65 , 66 less frequently, others not, 67 , 68 possibly because self-compassion practices affect each person differently. 69 The possible reasons for this result may be the medical students’ participation increased the awareness of lack of self-care and self-compassion.…”

Fostering humanization in education: a scoping review on mindfulness and teacher education

“…The role of MBA in the mindfulness in education studies was to address the social-emotional context of the teaching profession and promoting teachers' social-emotional competences. The need for an MBA in the educational field is most commonly associated with teaching as a stressful occupation (Jennings et al, 2011;Newsome et al, 2012;Bernay, 2014;Dorman, 2015;Hue and Lau, 2015;Hartigan, 2017;Kerr et al, 2017;Trube, 2017;Garner et al, 2018;Tarrasch, 2019;Dewhirst and Goldman, 2020;Draper-Clarke, 2020). The heavy workload (Dorman, 2015;Hue and Lau, 2015;Dewhirst and Goldman, 2020), new policies and education reforms (Dorman, 2015;Hue and Lau, 2015), the urban or low-income settings (Dorman, 2015), low wages (Hue and Lau, 2015;Dewhirst and Goldman, 2020), student misbehavior, and classroom climate (Jennings et al, 2011;Hue and Lau, 2015;Hartigan, 2017;Garner et al, 2018;Dewhirst and Goldman, 2020) as well as difficulties with parents (Hartigan, 2017), are the contextual conditions that feed this stress cycle.…”

“…The heavy workload (Dorman, 2015;Hue and Lau, 2015;Dewhirst and Goldman, 2020), new policies and education reforms (Dorman, 2015;Hue and Lau, 2015), the urban or low-income settings (Dorman, 2015), low wages (Hue and Lau, 2015;Dewhirst and Goldman, 2020), student misbehavior, and classroom climate (Jennings et al, 2011;Hue and Lau, 2015;Hartigan, 2017;Garner et al, 2018;Dewhirst and Goldman, 2020) as well as difficulties with parents (Hartigan, 2017), are the contextual conditions that feed this stress cycle. Teacher attrition can result in resignations from the profession, teacher turnover, and physical and mental health issues such as burnout, depression, compassion fatigue, and even suicide (Jennings et al, 2011;Newsome et al, 2012;Hue and Lau, 2015;Kerr et al, 2017;Garner et al, 2018;Tarrasch, 2019;Dewhirst and Goldman, 2020;Draper-Clarke, 2020). This pressure can create an unstable school environment and affect the quality and effectiveness of educational work (Hue and Lau, 2015;Draper-Clarke, 2020).…”

“…Teacher attrition can result in resignations from the profession, teacher turnover, and physical and mental health issues such as burnout, depression, compassion fatigue, and even suicide (Jennings et al, 2011;Newsome et al, 2012;Hue and Lau, 2015;Kerr et al, 2017;Garner et al, 2018;Tarrasch, 2019;Dewhirst and Goldman, 2020;Draper-Clarke, 2020). This pressure can create an unstable school environment and affect the quality and effectiveness of educational work (Hue and Lau, 2015;Draper-Clarke, 2020). Teachers' social-emotional competence has been linked to their well-being, engagement, and effectiveness, as well as with job satisfaction, relational quality, and conceptions of classroom management (Jennings et al, 2011;Griggs and Tidwell, 2015;Hue and Lau, 2015;Garner et al, 2018;Dewhirst and Goldman, 2020).…”

“…The research on the "mindfulness of education strand" emphasizes reflective processes through humanizing research methods, which allow for the inclusion of the researcher's lived experiences. Humanizing research refers to the culture of deep and critical inquiry in teacher education (Ek and Latta, 2013;Walker, 2017;Draper-Clarke, 2020). Bernay (2014) uses MBA as a research object in itself in a hermeneutic phenomenological study (Bernay, 2014); other research uses humanization as research object using duoethnography (Draper-Clarke, 2020), the dialogic narrative approach (Ek and Latta, 2013), personal reflection (Strean, 2016), and self-study (Griggs and Tidwell, 2015).…”