PINE VILLAGE AND RESEARCH SCHOOLS INTERNATIONAL SHARE RESEARCH ON MINDFULNESS AND CONSCIOUS DISCIPLINE

Pine Village Spanish Immersion Preschool (http://mybilingualpreschool.com/) announces the start of a research study with Research Schools International (RSI)(http://sites.gse.harvard.edu/research-schools-international) focused on mindfulness and conscious discipline in both teachers and students in a preschool setting. After working together for a year studying the relationship between teacher self-care and caring relationships in the classroom, Pine Village and RSI are embarking on an ongoing research study to implement mindfulness practices for teachers and students.

Pine Village and RSI began their work together on mindfulness in the classroom over a year ago looking at the concept of self-care in preschool teachers related to observed caring behaviors in the classroom. After learning that self-reflection is a very important part of self-care, which helps teachers be more effective in the classroom and practice caring behaviors, Pine Village and RSI decided to focus the research study on implementing tangible programs around mindfulness techniques. The research and professional development will begin with teachers and staff in the 2015-2016 school year, who will ultimately model mindfulness and awareness techniques alongside the conscious discipline behavior for students in years to come. In theory, this practice will ultimately lead into the children organically learning self-regulating behaviors to better manage their emotions.

“We’re thrilled to be part of such an elite and worthy research study to improve the future of the educational system worldwide,” says Emma LaVecchia, Co-Founder of Pine Village Preschool. “When we connected with the RSI team, we pushed to learn more about this topic as we were passionate about testing our theories around social emotional development and conscious discipline. It was also amazing that Pine Village is already doing so many of the things that were talked about and has been since opening in 2001.”

Dr. Christina Hinton (https://www.gse.harvard.edu/faculty/christina-hinton) will share an overview of this research study at Harvard Graduate School of Education on Wednesday, October 28th at 7pm. For more information and to register, visit http://mybilingualpreschool.com/harvard-and-pvp/ or email enrollmentpvp@gmail.com.

About Pine Village

Pine Village is a Spanish Immersion Preschool, for ages 15 months – 5 years old, with eight small neighborhood schools located in the Greater Boston area. The schools launch children on a path to global citizenship by nurturing each child’s individuality and developing a passion for learning. Pine Village caters to those enlightened, globally aware families who are seeking to both jumpstart their child’s world language proficiency and strengthen their child’s multi-cultural awareness. http://mybilingualpreschool.com/

About Research Schools International

Research Schools International (RSI) was started by Dr. Christina Hinton (adjunct lecturer at Harvard Graduate School of Education [HGSE]), with the support of Professor Kurt Fischer (Harvard lecturer, now emeritus), and Bruno della Chiesa (a visiting lecturer at Harvard). The goal of the initiative is to link research with practice through an innovative approach that joins researchers and teachers in collaborative research that tackles education issues. RSI partners with schools from around the world to conduct research on an issue that is important and relevant for each particular school, and then disseminates the findings to the broader education community. http://sites.gse.harvard.edu/research-schools-international