Core Curriculum

Abstract

In 2020-2021, many university and college students and faculty experienced heightened stress given new virtual learning environments, the persistent digital divide, the global COVID-19 pandemic, and other issues. The author shares how offering students mindfulness pauses during virtual classes helped them to do the ‘heavy lifting' of unpacking challenging policy issues, from the ongoing human rights violations that Indigenous peoples continue to face around the world to the lack of policy action on the climate crisis. Students shared that the mindfulness pauses provided opportunities to check-in with themselves in a more holistic way, enabling them to concentrate more effectively on difficult subjects and to feel more empowered. The mindfulness practices offered a way for students to resist the ‘gravitational pull' of the Default Mode of neo-colonialism in the process of decolonizing themselves, as illustrated in an applied theoretical framework that the author co-created called The Default to Deliberation Framework (D2 Framework).