Background[]
Mindful Pittsburgh Focused Attention comes four ways based upon the extended period of time that is devoted to the exercise every day:
- Digital_Badges/Mindfulness/1_minute
- Digital_Badges/Mindfulness/5_minutes
- Digital_Badges/Mindfulness/10_minutes
- Digital_Badges/Mindfulness/15_minutes
To go for a specific badge, the student makes a time commitment for that length of time, or longer, on a daily basis. This is a once-a-day, every-day task. This is for a streak. If you miss a day, sorry. If your streak gets broken, start over again at day one. To get the badge, do the task every-single-day for seven-consecutive days.
Insights[]
Focused Attention Exercise:[]
- A Focused Attention Exercise engages your ability to pay attention, decrease stress and increase your resilience. The focus attention exercise is much like playing catch with your attention. Just like playing catch with a ball, the more you practices, the better you get.
- Read the Focused Attention Exercise page for more instructions.
- For this badge campers must choose a place to practice the Focused Attention Exercise for 1 minute at home for seven days and blog reflections about the experiences practicing this mindfulness exercise.
- Three parts are necessary to completion
- Minimum time of session. This badge calls for 1-minute or more.
- Seven days in a row without skipping any day.
- Journal writing and sharing of reflections.
- Three parts are necessary to completion
Campers are encouraged to invite their parents and guardians to join in this mindfulness practice with them.
How to do the Focused Attention Mindful Breathing Exercise:[]
Sit comfortably balanced & upright in a place where you can focus on your breathing, with your eyes closed, feet flat on the floor. Attend to your sensations of breathing, and breath through your nose while belly breathing. Mindful breathing is just the ability to sit quietly, with eyes closed or slightly open, resting, not moving, with the intention to attend to your breathing. It sounds easy. Typically the mind quickly wanders… When it does, calmly, gently and acceptingly recognize that your attention has wandered, then label where your attention went, and then gently and without judgment, bring your attention back to being aware of your sensations of breathing. Every time your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back to your breath. Each time you bring your awareness back to your breathing, you are building your skill for attending to the present moment.
It helps to count on the in-breath, saying silently to your self, “one,” as you breath in… and on the next in-breath, “two,” … counting up in-breaths. For the first badge just continue focusing on breathing and counting for a minute.
The four phases in the process of focused attention mindful breathing:
- Recognizing: If the mind has wandered, notice this wandering.
- Labeling: Determine where the attention went, for example, “planning,” “recalling,” “rehearsing dialogue,” “judging,” “puzzling,” “itching,” “a sound outside the room,” etc.
- Accepting: gently notice and accept where your attention went, without judging.
- Refocusing: Gently return your awareness to the sensation of your breathing.
All this happens as you hold your intention to sit passively, not doing anything but sitting and breathing, just gently bringing your attention back to your breathing.
Mindfulness 1 Minute Description[]
This badge rewards 1 minute of mindfulness per day for a week.
This badge is awarded for completing 1 minute of Focused Attention Exercise--attentive belly breathing that emphasizes recognizing, labeling, accepting, and refocusing in the face of mind-wandering--per day for a week.
Completion Time[]
It will take a week to earn this badge by practicing the mindful, Focused Attention Exercise daily and reflecting on the results in writing.
Evaluation Criteria[]
- Practice the Focused Attention Exercise at home for 1 minute each day for a week
- Record journal entries or reflections on the experience each day and post them to a blog
- Consider inviting parents, guardians, or other household members to join you in participating
Artifacts[]
Badge Issuers[]
Summer Dreamers Mindful Eating Staff and Summer Dreamers Swim & Water Polo Coaches will issue the badges to students after they have verified the students' blog or journal entries and have been given verbal confirmation by the student of having completed the Focused Attention Exercise practice for the whole week for more than 1 minute per day.
Training[]
Summer Dreamers Swim & Water Polo coaches and Mindful Eating staffers will be oriented in the City of Learning badging process during their initial training by the Summer Dreamer supervisors and management before the summer session. As part of this initiation, they will be made aware of the requirements for the Digital Badges/Mindfulness/1 minute badge and be taught how to perform the necessary evaluation to award the badge.
Additional Considerations[]
This badge is part of the mindfulness suite of badges, and part of a near-identical set of badges that commemorate different lengths of time devoted to Focused Attention Exercise per day for a week. It will hopefully be a requirement of the program for the students to at least earn the least (1 minute) of the mindfulness minutes badges. Encouragement will also be given to set the 15 minutes badge as a final goal, whether earned first or after earning each of the other levels in prior weeks. If this badge encourages students to live in the present and maintain stronger focus and attention in life, then the badge will have been successful.