Creating Space for Peace with Brain Breaks and Focused-Attention Practices

One part of peace education is creating a classroom environment in which students can experience a peaceful space. In the often high-stakes world of language learning, testing, and curriculum goals, it can be a challenge to integrate opportunities for this.

Educator Lori Desautels suggests that a combination of brain breaks and focused-attention practice during the class can not only help to reduce stress, but also to enhance performance.

“When presented with new material, standards, and complicated topics, we need to be focused and calm as we approach our assignments. We can use brain breaks and focused-attention practices to positively impact our emotional states and learning. They refocus our neural circuitry with either stimulating or quieting practices that generate increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, where problem solving and emotional regulation occur.”

Many of the suggestions she makes would be excellent for the language classroom and provide opportunities for creative language practice as well as a different type of thinking to refresh the mind and create a more peaceful classroom environment.