More US Schools are Taking Breaks for Meditation. Teachers Say It Helps Students' Mental Health

The third-grade students at Roberta T. Smith Elementary School had only a few days until summer vacation, and an hour until lunch, but there was no struggle to focus as they filed into the classroom. They were ready for one of their favorite parts of the day.
The children closed their eyes and traced their thumbs from their foreheads to their hearts as a pre-recorded voice led them through an exercise called the shark fin, part of the classroom's regular meditation routine, The Associated Press said.
“Listen to the chimes," said the teacher, Kim Franklin. "Remember to breathe.”
Schools across the US have been introducing yoga, meditation and mindfulness exercises to help students manage stress and emotions. As the depths of student struggles with mental health became clear in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year endorsed schools' use of the practices.
Research has found school-based mindfulness programs can help, especially in low-income communities where students face high levels of stress or trauma.
The mindfulness program reached Smith Elementary through a contract with the school system, Clayton County Public Schools, where two-thirds of the students are Black.
GreenLight Fund Atlanta, a network that matches communities with local nonprofits, helps Georgia school systems pay for the mindfulness program provided by Inner Explorer, an audio platform.
Joli Cooper, GreenLight Fund Atlanta's executive director, said it was important to the group to support an organization that is accessible and relevant for communities of color in the Greater Atlanta area.
Children nationwide struggled with the effects of isolation and remote learning as they returned from the pandemic school closures. The CDC in 2023 reported more than a third of students were affected by feelings of persistent sadness and hopelessness. The agency recommended schools use mindfulness practices to help students manage emotions.
“We know that our teenagers and adolescents have really strained in their mental health,” CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen told The Associated Press. “There are real skills that we can give our teens to make sure that they are coping with some big emotions.”
Approaches to mindfulness represent a form of social-emotional learning, which has become a political flashpoint with many conservatives who say schools use it to promote progressive ideas about race, gender and sexuality.
But advocates say the programming brings much-needed attention to students' well-being.
“When you look at the numbers, unfortunately, in Georgia, the number of children of color with suicidal thoughts and success is quite high,” Cooper said. “When you look at the number of psychologists available for these children, there are not enough psychologists of color.”
Black youth have the fastest-growing suicide rate among racial groups, according to CDC statistics. Between 2007 and 2020, the suicide rate among Black children and teens ages 10 to 17 increased by 144%.
“It’s a stigma with being able to say you’re not OK and needing help, and having the ability to ask for help,” said Tolana Griggs, Smith Elementary's assistant principal. “With our diverse school community and wanting to be more aware of our students, how different cultures feel and how different cultures react to things, it’s important to be all-inclusive with everything we do.”
Nationwide, children in schools that serve mostly students of color have less access to psychologists and counselors than those in schools serving mostly white students.
The Inner Explorer program guides students and teachers through five-to-10-minute sessions of breathing, meditating and reflecting several times a day. The program also is used at Atlanta Public Schools and over 100 other districts across the country.
Teachers and administrators say they have noticed a difference in their students since they’ve incorporated mindfulness into their routine. For Aniyah Woods, 9, the program has helped her “calm down” and “not stress anymore.”
“I love myself how I am, but Inner Explorer just helps me feel more like myself,” Aniyah said.
Malachi Smith, 9, has used his exercises at home, with his father helping to guide him through meditation.
“You can relax yourself with the shark fin, and when I calm myself down, I realize I am an excellent scholar,” Malachi said.
After Franklin’s class finished their meditation, they shared how they were feeling.
“Relaxed,” one student said.
Aniyah raised her hand.
“It made me feel peaceful,” she said.

For years, Tunisians have been picking bright red peppers, combining them with garlic, vinegar and spices and turning them into a saucy spread called harissa. The condiment is a national staple and pastime, found in homes, restaurants and food stalls throughout the coastal North African nation.

Brick-red, spicy and tangy, it can be scooped up on bread drizzled with olive oil or dabbed onto plates of eggs, fish, stews or sandwiches. Harissa can be sprinkled atop merguez sausages, smeared on savory pastries called brik or sandwiches called fricassées, The Associated Press reported.
In Nabeul, the largest city in Tunisia’s harissa-producing Cap Bon region, local chef and harissa specialist Chahida Boufayed called it “essential to Tunisian cuisine.”
“Harissa is a love story,” she said at a festival held in honor of the chili paste sauce in the northeastern Tunisian city of Nabeul earlier this month. “I don’t make it for the money.”
Aficionados from across Tunisia and the world converged on the 43-year-old mother’s stand to try her recipe. Surrounded by strings of drying baklouti red peppers, she described how she grows her vegetables and blends them with spices to make harissa.
The region’s annual harissa festival has grown in the two-plus years since the United Nations cultural organization, UNESCO, recognized the sauce on a list of items of intangible cultural heritage, said Zouheir Belamin, the president of the association behind the event, a Nabeul-based preservation group. He said its growing prominence worldwide was attracting new tourists to Tunisia, specifically to Nabeul.
UNESCO in 2022 called harissa an integral part of domestic provisions and the daily culinary and food traditions of Tunisian society, adding it to a list of traditions and practices that mark intangible cultural heritage.
Already popular across North Africa as well as in France, the condiment is gaining popularity throughout the world from the United States to China.
Seen as sriracha’s North African cousin, harissa is typically prepared by women who sun-dry harvested red peppers and then deseed, wash and ground them. Its name comes from “haras” – the Arabic verb for “to crush” – because of the next stage in the process.
The finished peppers are combined it with a mixture of garlic cloves, vinegar, salt, olive oil and spices in a mortar and pestle to make a fragrant blend. Variants on display at Nabeul’s Jan. 3-5 festival used cumin, coriander and different spice blends or types of peppers, including smoked ones, to create pastes ranging in color from burgundy to crimson.
“Making harissa is an art. If you master it, you can create wonders,” Boufayed said.

More US Schools are Taking Breaks for Meditation. Teachers Say It Helps Students' Mental Health