Library media specialist Tanya Lucas works with students on how to better become more mindful through meditation practices. 

Lucas teaches different exercises and meditation techniques to help her students become more mindful. Her goal is for students to better connect their mind and body. Lucas also enjoys the ability to give her students time to take a break from thinking in the school day. 

How it started 

Lucas has a bachelors of science in English degree from IUP and a masters degree in curriculum from Penn State. She is currently studying applied mindfulness from the University of West Chester. 

“I really wanted to learn more about what mindfulness was and how it can be taught to high school kids, so I can better relay what I am teaching to students and even other teachers,” Lucas said. 

Lucas taught at the Milton Hershey school for 10 years before deciding to move back to Altoona so her children could be closer to their grandparents. She was hired as an English teacher; however, she then was recruited as librarian. 

“The old librarian and his assistant recruited me to be the librarian. They thought I would make a great librarian, but I didn’t want to be one. I really liked the assistant librarian and I thought it would be a good change. It has really been amazing. It has given me the opportunity to be creative and to really get to know kids. All the fun things about being a teacher without having to grade things,” Lucas said. 

Lucas’s past has led her to practice mindfulness. 

“I experienced some anxiety and stress in my own life, and after experiencing that I was able to recognize it in others. I saw a dramatic increase in anxiety and stress in high school kids over the past 10 years, which ironically coincides with the creation of Instagram,” Lucas said. 

Lucas’s contribution to different classes

Lucas works with many classes on meditation skills including literature and psychology classes, dance classes, health classes and others. 

Sophomore Emily Berkheimer meditates with Lucas for her health class. 

“I do think that it helped me. It’s nice to let my mind rest sometimes. Especially since I’m in high school, and my brain is always working. It has helped me to step back and take some time to simply focus on the moment,” Berkheimer said. 

English teacher Nicole Fuller frequently has her students meditating with Lucas.

“The whole purpose of the class is to understand more about why we act the ways we do and why those around us act the ways that they do and build empathy for those who are around us in our daily lives. It’s easy to learn theories but meditation gives the opportunity for that self reflection. It’s not very often when you learn something that you get to sit with it and think with it for a while and question how it plays a role in your life and meditation does that,” Fuller said. 

Why Lucas finds mindfulness important 

According to Lucas, mindfulness can be very beneficial to strengthen the brain. 

“To just spend 10 minutes just thinking about thinking and how your mind works is a novel idea. You’re building new neural pathways; in the brain research of 1990 to 2000s we realized you can change your brain, and then it just really got into education. I really just changed my brain in two to three years, the way I viewed the world, the way I interacted with people. And I thought ́wow if I could do this for kids, if I could help kids do this, it would be amazing.́ It took me until I was 50. It would have been fascinating if I could do that when I was 5,” Lucas said. 

Lucas believes being mindful becomes easier the more students practice, just like running. 

“It’s an exercise to get rid of chronic tension and stress patterns. It creates a new neural pathway that allows your brain to connect with the sensations and feelings in your body faster. Every time you practice something, the pathway in your brain gets stronger. Just like students shooting foul shots over and over again, the muscle repetition, that muscle fibers repeat the same movement and that pathway between the mind and the physical movement gets stronger. So through experiencing that you have created a new neural pathway that allows your brain to know into your body faster. There is so much potential with that,” Lucas said.

According to Lucas, mindfulness can help people become kinder and nicer. 

“The same thing happens whenever you see the negative in life, the mind thinks you want to find negative experiences so then your brain looks for negativity bias. The same can happen for positive thinking. Why do we think the worst, because that’s what we’ve been taught, so why can’t we do the same with positive thinking. So when I train my brain to see the negative it’s doing it, and when I train my brain to see the positive it’s doing it,”  Lucas said. 

The benefits of teaching high school students mindfulness

The human brain is not fully developed until age 25. 

“Imagine the potential of a 5 year old who when they get upset they can regulate because that pathway is there and they can feel and know when they are upset so they can take deep breaths and then those feelings go away. School is the perfect place to teach this. We say the pledge of allegiance, so why can’t we take a minute to connect our mind and body,” Lucas said. 

Lucas believes mindfulness should be taught early in life. 

“I would love for mindfulness to be experienced in K [kindergarten] through 12 not just in Altoona School District but other school districts. It really has the potential for children to understand and harness the power of their own mind,” Lucas said. 

Lucas plans on continuing teaching mindfulness in the future. 

“The goal is that even outside of the room you are able to catch yourself in your thoughts and then focus again. People tend to become nicer and kinder when doing this. I just hope that more students are willing to try, and that more teachers realize it’s more than just a place to relax,” Lucas said.