It should be clear that a school classroom embracing a ‘thin’ version of mindfulness might look, sound and feel quite different to one embracing a more ‘thick’ version. The former might be more concerned with maximising student attention, focus and emotional stability in order to support behavioural compliance and enhanced academic performance. The latter might be more concerned with developing students’ personal awareness and responsibility, building a classroom culture of compassion, respect and deep listening, and calling into question competitive individualism as the basis for student motivation.
This touches on some of the concerns raised by Ronald Purser and McMindfulness. For McCaw, the questions that we need to consider is what is the type of mindfulness being taught, who decides this is what it looks like and what are the implications of this. It would be interesting to use the Modern Learning Canvas to frame this.