{"id":1394,"date":"2015-08-09T11:01:22","date_gmt":"2015-08-09T16:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maryville.edu\/mpress\/?p=1394"},"modified":"2017-02-15T12:15:29","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T18:15:29","slug":"colleen-hennessy-alumni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maryville.edu\/mpress\/colleen-hennessy-alumni\/","title":{"rendered":"Colleen \u2018Coke\u2019 Hennessy, \u201963: New Practice – Mindfulness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading time: 2 minutes<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPay attention!\u201d If you are a parent, teacher, or coach, you\u2019ve used the term thousands of times. And most of us will admit the admonition often doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s because we don\u2019t teach children how to pay attention,\u201d says Colleen \u201cCoke\u201d Hennessy, \u201963. After 36 years of practicing law, she\u2019s found a new profession. Hennessy teaches children how to better control their bodies and minds, and educates teachers on how to help support the practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s called mindfulness \u2013 mindful breathing, slow deep breaths,\u201d Hennessy says. \u201cIt helps us focus on what\u2019s going on in our bodies right now. We relax, we become aware. We pause before reacting so we can make a choice about our best response in that moment. Teaching mindfulness to children moves the locus of control from a teacher or parent to the children themselves. It\u2019s a tool for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hennessy was nearing the end of a successful law career in 1997 when she read about mindfulness and the teachings of Jon Kabat-Zinn, an internationally known scientist, writer and meditation teacher. She attended his classes and became hooked on his work, which combines science, medicine and meditation. She continued reading and attending seminars, and learned about teachers who were employing the concepts in elementary schools.<\/p>\n

Today, she is six years into her permanent volunteer post as mindfulness teacher at St. Margaret of Scotland School in south St. Louis. Each month she teaches 21 classes of pre-K students through eighth graders about breathing, patience and finding answers. Twice a year, she holds training sessions for teachers, who incorporate mindfulness in their classrooms on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeachers and parents report that the kids really get it,\u201d Hennessy says. She tells the story of a second grader who had worked hard on a complex snowman in the yard. Suddenly, his little brother ran out and toppled it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe older boy announced to his mother he was going to his room for mindfulness breathing,\u201d Hennessy says. \u201cHe used the tool to collect his thoughts, then came back outside and rebuilt the snowman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her decision to teach children in retirement came out of her years as a student at Maryville, Hennessy says.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of our education was a service component,\u201d she recalls. \u201cThrough serving we learned that giving back was part of life. It wasn\u2019t always about taking. That\u2019s what I\u2019m doing now with mindfulness teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally published in the Spring 2015 edition of<\/em> Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵAPPMagazine.<\/p>\n

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