Mindful thinking is a natural, multi-faceted human process.  It requires intent and an objective, a goal.

            First and foremost, students must want to intentionally learn.  They must be open-minded and receptive and want to learn.  Learners must want to and believe they can learn.  Having goals and intentions with an open mind to tackling a project is an essential element to mindful thinking and learning.

            Second, mindful thinking requires time and quiet reflection.  Turning off the TV, laptop, WII; and tuning out the phone and other people is a necessity for me, personally.  I have subbed in rooms where you can hear a pin drop.  I have subbed in rooms wherein a middle schooler will turn to a friend and say, “Why are we being so good?”  I always say, “I’m really old; and I like it quiet.”  Someone responding, “You’re not that old.” usually follows this; which, in turn, makes me feel good and laugh, so the students benefit from a happy sub.  I have found that virtually all students benefit from providing an authentic environment of meaningful learning, which includes a meaningful lesson with many examples, followed by a task and quiet time to process, analyze, and produce the objective, and I try to provide that.  I don’t quiver at talking, and realize each student is an individual, some requiring extra help, verbal assistance, positive re-enforcement, but only a very few require these constantly, and a great majority benefit from self reflection and individual, private successes at learning.  Being able to reflect on what you have learned is an essential element to mindful thinking and learning.  I believe we do this both consciously and unconsciously.  It enables us to put the puzzle together, have light bulb moments, analyze, and process knowledge more efficiently and effectively.

            We do much of what most people would term ‘mindless learning’ by doing.  Sometimes we can learn just by simulating and repeating something someone else has shown us.  For example, when showing a toddler how to build a tower of blocks, he sees and attempts to replicate the tower.  Is he thinking?  Yes, all his synapses in his brain are firing while trying to replicate the situation.  Most students learn by doing.  They increase vocabulary, knowledge, creativity and reading skills by reading; double digit addition, subtraction, or multiplication by doing many problems (using various traditional and untraditional methods).  Students understand science concepts from experimenting, proving, and disproving, not just by reading the theories from textbooks.

When students have learned something so well, they no longer have to think about doing it, is it mindless learning?  No, I say.  Key to mindful learning is the ability to relate concepts learned to real life experiences and applications.  They may take for granted the knowledge they have learned so well, they no longer have to think about how to do it, but being a human, it is impossible to turn your brain off, unless sleeping.  To me, knowledge is never useless and it is always applicable to solving real life dilemmas.  The knowledge grows.  The practical application of knowledge has been and will continue to be the key to human evolution and success.

            Finally, we as human beings are called upon to talk about and share what we have learned.  For some students, this is essential to learning, and they think mindfully only after talking it out with others.  For others, they rather master learning and knowledge, and then, share, discuss and collaborate with others. 

            In conclusion, mindful thinking and meaningful learning are a multi-faceted natural human processes, which require students be intentional and active to learn; reflective and constructive to be able to contextualize knowledge and learning into practical applications, and morally obligated to share and discuss their knowledge learned with the world, and mindless thinking is impossible.