The Mindfulness in Education and Peace Conference at Fox Haven Farm and Retreat Center was has created to explore the issues and barriers to personal and social transformation in educational, social work, health, humanities, art, and collegiate systems in our area. We are providing keynotes and breakout sessions, which explore and identify solutions at the individual, systematic, classroom, and community level. We are inviting, teachers, scholars, artists, health care providers, social workers, and caretakers who want to bring mindfulness into their work in order to support socially transformative ways of living and being in an increasingly complex world.

The Conference officially starts at 8:30 am with a communal meditation then opening address followed by the keynote address. All participants will then go to their first breakout session at 9 am, which will be selected in the morning during registration.

Sign up sheets for breakout sessions will be on a first come first serve basis and there will be a cut off due to classroom size. Please arrive early and on time in order to get the workshop you are interested in. Both All opening and keynote addresses will be in the barn and is open to all participants. There will be a Mindful Music Workshop as a closing and meditation after breakouts. There will be volunteers guiding everyone at the conference.

Optional 7:00 – 8 am – Rise and Shine Yoga with Tracy Blair

8:00 am – 8:30 am – Breakfast Provided and Registration -Lower/upper – Big Red Barn

8:30 am – Meditation – Introduction by Open Minds, Inc. Founders

9:15am – 10:10 am – Opening Address with Kaira Jewel Lingo

Kaira Jewel Lingo teaches Buddhist meditation, mindfulness, and compassion internationally, with a focus on activists, people of color, artists, educators, families, and youth. She began practicing mindfulness in 1997. An ordained nun of 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing, she is now a lay Dharma teacher based in Washington, D.C., leading retreats in the U.S. and internationally, and offering mindfulness programs for educators and youth in schools, as well as individual spiritual mentoring. She edited Thich Nhat Hanh’s, Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children and helped to start and develop Wake Up Schools, cultivating mindfulness in education. She explores the interweaving of art, play, ecology and spiritual practice and is a certified yoga teacher and InterPlay leader. She teaches each year at Schumacher College, an ecological college in the United Kingdom. In addition to her roots in the Zen tradition, she also practices and teaches in the Insight tradition, and is an affiliate teacher for the Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC. She contributed a chapter to the forthcoming book, Real World Mindfulness for Beginners, from Callisto Press. Visit kairajewel.com to learn more.

Keynote Address: Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams

http://angelkyodowilliams.com/
For over 15 years, she has deeply invested her time and energy to putting into practice her unwavering belief that the key to transforming society is transforming our inner lives. She has developed comprehensive systems for illuminating both practical personal change and the profoundly liberating potential of mindfulness, yoga, and somatic practices coupled with wisdom teachings. Calling for a paradigm shift that “changes the way change is done,” angel envisions the building of a presence-centered social justice movement as the foundation for personal freedom, a just society and the healing of divisions of race, class, faith and politic.

Both fierce and grounded, she is known for her unflinching willingness to both sit with and speak uncomfortable truths with love. Her work has been widely covered by such publications as New York Times, Boston Globe, Ms., Essence, Buddhadharma, Village Voice, and on the Oxygen Channel. angel notes, “Love and justice are not two. Without inner change, there can be no outer change. Without collective change, no change matters.” Whether in writing, teaching or speaking, her voice is unique.

Breakout 1:

Contemplative Practice Techniques for Special Needs Youth ( Panel Discussion) : Allison Morgan MA – (Zensational Kids) – http://zensationalkids.com/
Art, Nature, and Contemplative Practice as Tools for Healing Youth with Kimberley Williams and Ayano Strickland from One Common Unity ( Washington, DC) – http://www.onecommonunity.org/about-us/

Inner and Outer Peace in the Classroom and Beyond: Holistic Life Foundation, Inc./ School Program Teachers – http://hlfinc.org/programs-services/mindful-moment-program/

Featured Speaker: Dr. Karen Bluth has been practicing mindfulness for over 35 years and has attended numerous retreats at Insight Meditation Society, Southern Dharma Retreat Center, among others. She co-founded the Knoxville Interfaith Meditation Group in 1994, and practiced regularly with this meditation group for 18 years. Dr. Bluth received her mindfulness instructor training at the Center for Mindfulness at University of Massachusetts Medical School, and completed her doctoral training in 2012. Dr. Bluth’s research focuses on improving adolescent and family well-being through mindfulness interventions, and is particularly interested in how mindfulness practice can help adolescents navigate what can be a challenging developmental period. In addition to her mindfulness training, Dr. Bluth is a former educator with 18 years classroom teaching experience with children and adolescents. She is the Associate Director of the Program on Integrative Medicine at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Breakout 2:

Vanessa Durrant, MSW, LCSW-C, LCSW, RMT, RYT Owner Kindred Tree Healing Center

Mindful Parenting, The Brain, & Holistic Family Fun

In this workshop you will learn the foundation for mindful and intention based parenting as well as the brain science that supports this. We’ll learn about brain development in children across the life span and then learn ways to positively impact brain growth and attunement with our kids. This workshop will be both educational and experiential. We will utilize art, music, and yoga based activities to ensure that you leave this workshop with new tools to support your parenting journey.

Healing in Urban and Rural Environments through Community Gardening and Animal Therapy – Featured Rodney Stotts – https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/falconer-who-escaped-violent-past-uses-birds-of-prey-to-mentor-at-risk-youth/2012/03

Breakout 3

Connecting as a Community through Council Practice: Kelly Petrie, MA Contemplative Education – Naropa University – (In Dairy Parlor) – Media – (20 people max sign up) Publicity:http://www.susankaisergreenland.com/shoutout/kelly-petrie

Description: Council Practice, informed by Native American traditions, is a way to facilitate meaningfulinteractions within a group. Council strengthens connections to one’s community through candid and heartfelt conversations that emerge through a safe, story-telling container where everyone’s voice has an opportunity to be heard and honored. This presentation will explore a variety of council forms through interactive, experiential learning that takes place in Council Circle. Because of the intimate nature of this presentation, space is limited to a maximum of 20 participants.*

Peace Ecology – Connection to the Land through Contemplative Practice

Joann Coates Hunter – Fox Haven Farm and Retreat Center Director and Randall Amster – Georgetown University – Peace and Justice Professor and Department Head

Mindful Aging: Living with Vitality – Carla McAdams – Mountain Spirit Yoga – Middletown,

Circle up! An experience of Restorative Justice: Tarek Maassarani – ( 20 people this session)

Restorative Justice is a philosophy, and an attendant set of dialogue-based practices and principles, that center a community around equitable and inclusive relationships of trust, understanding, and collaboration. It has its roots in indigenous approaches to living in right relationship with one another, including traditions of storytelling in circle and re-integration of those who have harmed other members of the community. Peacemaking circles are one of the core practices in Restorative Justice, used for collective grieving, celebration, reflection, decision making, problem solving, community-building, reconciliation, and more. This session aims to offer participants an opportunity to experience the power of the circle and reflect on its potential for your school, work, and life.

About: Tarek is an adjunct professor of conflict resolution at the American University and regularly offers training and presentations on restorative justice to non-profit organizations, schools, parents, and police. Tarek is also the founding coordinator for the DC Alliance for Restorative Practices (DCARP) and a member of the Every Student Every Day Coalition Steering Committee.

Practicing Mindful Music – Closing

Max Bent is a human beatboxer and teaching artist with Young Audiences of MD. He works in schools across the state to celebrate the joy, and the noise, that is the human voice.
Max’s work as a beatboxer/vocalist has guided his exploration of vocal techniques from numerous cultures. Beatboxing has also served as Max’s vehicle into musical therapy, reading and speech, and breathing. http://www.maxmakesmusic.com

MORE ANNOUNCEMENTS TO COME and Look out for detailed workshop descriptions and times soon.

TICKET INFO: (Conference ticket includes breakfast, lunch, meditation, opening/keynote address, featured speaker, 3 breakout sessions ( 9 choices) , and Mindful Music session to close – plus optional Rise and Shine Yoga with Tracy in the morning )

$95.00 – General Admission
$85.00 – Public School Teachers
$65.00 – Students

Only 200 tickets are available.