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Featured Community Partner and Teacher Development
It was Tuesday, June 26th - the first official day of summer break and twenty teachers (including some support staff) gathered at Open Spirit for a professional development day entitled, Rejuvenation: Breathing Room and Beyond. In partnership within the Framingham Public Schools, Open Spirit has planned and executed the “Nourishing Teachers/Strengthening Classrooms Project”. This day reaffirmed the project’s intention to offer nourishment and renewal to teachers in order to support and strengthen their classroom experience, and, thereby, support and strengthen our children and our community.
Sessions in mindfulness were led by four Open Spirit teachers:
- Eve Costarelli, Lead Teacher of Yoga/Mindfulness/Flamenco Dance for teachers and students of all ages
- Katherine McClean, Teacher of Yoga/Meditation/Mindfulness for teachers and adolescents
- Samela St. Pierre, Teacher of Yoga/Mindfulness/Art for teachers and students of all ages
- Kimberly McClure, Teacher of Yoga/Mindfulness/Wellness for teachers and students of all ages
Open Spirit teachers centered on not only great tips and tools for the classroom, but also facilitated activities for our teachers to directly experience mindfulness techniques. All sessions were research based, with a strand throughout woven in from the system’s work with Massachusetts General Hospital’s Benson-Henry Institute’s curriculum. Sessions included:
- Heart practices (bringing kindness to oneself)
- Movement activities (yoga, qigong, flamenco)
- An art activity in nature.
On behalf of Framingham Public Schools – we are grateful to Rosanne Kates for the Open Spirit partnership and this event recap, the Nourishing Teachers/Strengthening Classroom teachers, Dara Berry and Nicola Seaholm, for their great assistance with this event. Thank you also, Cheryl Aglio-Girelli and Mynette Shifman, adolescent nurses at Framingham High School, for maintaining this partnership and enthusiasm for developing mindfulness practices in our schools. Last but not least, huge thanks to MetroWest Health Foundation, the primary funder of our mindfulness work.
From Rosanne Kates:
As the day ended, I was filled with gratitude to see the vision of this project set in motion six years ago this month, thriving in our community. Our grantees’ and private donors’ support are most appreciated as we collaborate as a community to make this vision sustainable and expand it to reach more and more teachers and students in the Framingham Public Schools.
Open Spirit reaches its mission across so many projects and programs. We certainly are blessed to welcome more and more community members to our beautiful campus where we, “come together with open hearts to: Celebrate, Enable, and Inspire.”
Rosanne Kates, M.Ed. is the Founder and Project Director for the Nourishing Teachers/Strengthening Classrooms (NT/SC) Project