Contemplative Education Links

Association for Mindfulness in Education (AME)
AME is a collaborative association of organizations and individuals working together to provide support for the growing interest in including mindfulness training as a component of K-12 education. They are committed to furthering training and research in the field, and organize conferences and lecture series to that effect.

Mindfulness in Education interactive map
The Association for Mindfulness in Education is compiling a list of K-12 mindful education programs. This information will be posted on an interactive map so that viewers can easily find mindfulness programs by geographic location. The goal of the map is to promote the spread of mindfulness education by highlighting the widespread nature of mindfulness education and facilitating networking among parents, teachers, and administrators. View the map. Submit info to the map.

Mindfulness Without Borders
By bringing basic mindfulness practices and social-emotional competencies into the classroom, this program helps students examine the processes by which they think, feel and act. They discover their fullest potential, and explore possibilities that lead to a culture of mutual respect, collaboration and positive concern for each other and the world.

Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at UMass Medical School (CFM)
The programs and activities of the center include the renowned Stress Reduction Program-the oldest and largest academic medical center-based stress reduction program in the country, as well as a range of professional training programs and corporate workshops, courses and retreats.

Center for the Contemplative Mind in Society
The center works to integrate contemplative awareness and contemporary life, to help create a more just, compassionate, and reflective society. Working in program areas that explore and promote the effectiveness of contemplative practices, they hold retreats and workshops; create publications; identify useful resources; and connect like-minded individuals and organizations to help promote a stronger network of people bringing contemplative practice to contemporary life.

Center for Courage and Renewal
Center for Courage & Renewal has helped foster personal and professional renewal through retreats that offer the time and space to reflect on life and work. Developed with author, educator, and activist Parker J. Palmer, PhD, and the Fetzer Institute, this approach was initially created to renew, sustain, and inspire public school teachers. Retreats are also offered to those in serving professions such as healthcare, clergy and law, as well as to anyone yearning to become more wholehearted in their life and work.

ChildSpirit Institute
This nonprofit educational research organization is dedicated to understanding and nurturing the spirituality of children and adults.

Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
CASEL's mission is to enhance children's success in school and life by promoting evidence-based social, emotional, and academic learning as an essential part of education, from preschool through high school.

Contemplative Education Program for Graduates at Naropa University
The Contemplative Education Program is a two-year, 36-credit low-residency degree program for practicing teachers and non-teachers. The program caters to teachers from all levels of instruction, pre-K through higher education. It is open to those who are interested in a nonsectarian, contemplative approach to teaching and learning.

The Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education
The Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education is committed to the Dalai Lama's vision "to develop the heart, be compassionate, work for peace in your heart and in the world." Founded in 2005 with the active support of the Dalai Lama, the Vancouver based Center has no religious or political affiliation. The DLC will build upon the Dalai Lama's unique and compelling appeal as a world figure who reaches out to all people with a message of compassion, kindness and mutual understanding.

The Dalai Lama Foundation
Established in 2002, The Dalai Lama Foundation's primary focus is in the area of education, promoting and developing projects and curricula for ethics and peace. Their efforts in the curriculum area are guided by an advisory board of professional educators. On their website you will find a wide range of resources for ethics and peace listed throughout our web site, including books and videos, resources for youth, and a knowledgebase with links to thousands of selected resources.

Fetzer Institute
The Fetzer Institute's mission is to foster awareness of the power of love and forgiveness in the emerging global community. This mission rests on a conviction that efforts to address the world's critical issues must go beyond political, social, and economic strategies to their psychological and spiritual roots.

Goldie Hawn Foundation
The Hawn Foundation develops and implements evidence-based mindfulness education programs in support of teachers and their students from grades K-12. An information hub on the cutting edge of mindfulness-based learning, we collaborate with learning theorists, educators, scientists and professionals, and share our work in educational, healthcare and community-based settings.

Impact Foundation, Smart-in-Education
The IMPACT Foundation draws on contemplative practices from across traditions, and works to design and promote learning programs that are relevant and applicable to the modern world. With a goal is to reintroduce contemplation into the mainstream by targeting three sectors: education, business and health care.

InnerKids
InnerKids is a national leader in teaching children self-directed skills to help them become more attentive and better regulate themselves. These skills take into account developmental differences, train focused attention and balance, and acknowledge clarity and compassion as part of the process in becoming more attentive and aware.

Inner Resilience Program
The Inner Resilience Program, a project of the Tides Center, was founded in the spring of 2002 in response to the effects of the events of September 11, 2001 on New York City schools. Their aim was to equip school staff and parents with the skills necessary to build back their inner strength, and to model these skills for the children in their care. Today they offer programs that aim to cultivate the inner lives of students, teachers and schools by integrating social and emotional learning with contemplative practice.

Learning to Breathe
Learning to BREATHE is a Mindfulness- based curriculum for adolescents created for a classroom setting. The primary purpose of the program is to strengthen emotion regulation skills. Goals of the program include helping students understand their thoughts and feelings, learning mindfulness tools for managing emotions, and providing opportunities to practice these skills in a group setting with activities and instruction tailored to their developmental needs.

Mind & Life Institute
The Mind and Life Institute is dedicated to fostering dialogue and research at the highest possible level between modern science and the great living contemplative traditions, especially Buddhism.

Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC)
MARC is dedicated to investigating, evaluating and disseminating Mindful Awareness through education and research. Through research, classes and outreach programs, MARC studies the impacts of mindful awareness on children, adolescents and adults, and offers learning opportunities that bring Mindful Awareness Practices to the faculty, staff and student body at the UCLA as well as the greater Los Angeles community.

Mindfulness in Education Network
The purpose of this network is to facilitate communication among all educators, parents, students and any others interested in promoting contemplative practice (mindfulness) in educational settings.

Mindsight Institute
Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, MD, is a psychiatrist who served as a National Institute of Mental Health Research Fellow at UCLA, studying family interactions with an emphasis on how attachment experiences influence emotions and behavior. He is currently an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and codirector of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. A best-selling author, he offers workshops around the world on the power of relationships and the mind to change the brain and transform lives.

New Horizons for Learning
Since 1980, New Horizons for Learning served as a leading-edge resource for educational change by identifying, communicating, and helping to implement successful educational strategies. Their role has always been to give visibility to effective teaching and learning practices and ideas that have not yet reached the mainstream, and to work in coordination with other reputable networks and learning communities.

The Open Circle Social Competency Program
Open Circle works with school communities to help children become ethical people, contributing citizens and successful learners. By helping schools implement the unique Open Circle Curriculum, they foster the development of relationships that support safe, caring and respectful learning communities of children and adults.

Passageworks Institute
The mission of the Passageworks Institute is to motivate, prepare, and support educators to implement its proven model for nurturing the inner lives of students and teachers.