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Published online: 13 May 2015. To cite this article: Terry .... a 'disruptive technology,' reforming even the most dysfunctional companies into kin- ... (10) nature of much VET, and attempts to move education for work towards a broader Deweyan ...
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McMindfulness in the workplace: vocational learning and the commodification of the present moment Terry Hyland a

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Education & Psychology, University of Bolton, Bolton, UK

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Arts, Media & Education, University of Bolton, Bolton, UK Published online: 13 May 2015.

Click for updates To cite this article: Terry Hyland (2015) McMindfulness in the workplace: vocational learning and the commodification of the present moment, Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 67:2, 219-234, DOI: 10.1080/13636820.2015.1022871 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2015.1022871

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Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 2015 Vol. 67, No. 2, 219–234, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2015.1022871

McMindfulness in the workplace: vocational learning and the commodification of the present moment Terry Hylanda,b* a Education & Psychology, University of Bolton, Bolton, UK; bArts, Media & Education, University of Bolton, Bolton, UK

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(Received 17 April 2014; final version received 22 February 2015) Originating in Buddhist contemplative traditions, mindfulness theory and practice – which foregrounds present-moment awareness and attention – has extended its modern secular and therapeutic applications into an exponentially expanding range of fields and disciplines including psychology, psychotherapy, mind–body health practices and education at all levels. Its potential usefulness in general vocational education and training has been explored by a number of researchers and practitioners, and its application in schools and colleges is receiving increasing attention. As with many popular educational innovations, the foundational values of mindfulness strategies have been distorted and subverted in a number of instances in which ‘McMindfulness’ programmes have been implemented with a view to the exclusive pursuit of corporate objectives and commercial profit. Such mutated examples of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are, to some degree, evident in certain spheres of the field of mindfulness and work in which the present-moment attention and stress-reduction aspects of mindfulness strategies are unduly separated from the ethical foundations for the purpose of outcome-based assessments linked to predominantly instrumentalist ends. As a way of guarding against such decontextualising developments in MBIs, a conception of mindfulness at work is recommended which foregrounds the ethical and affective components of vocationalism and which is informed by work-based and apprenticeship models of learning. Keywords: mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs); the mindful workplace; vocational values; McMindfulness; Buddhist training

Contextual background: mindfulness, work and vocational learning Mindfulness – the cultivation of present-moment attention and awareness – has become something of a boom industry since extending its influence from its original home in Buddhist contemplative traditions into psychology, mind–body health provision and education at all levels (Hyland 2011a; Williams and Kabat-Zinn 2013). The exponential growth and wide populist appeal of mindfulness notions are noted by Purser and Loy (2013) in their critical evaluation of what they call ‘McMindfulness’ programmes. As they observe with undisguised irony: The mindfulness revolution appears to offer a universal panacea for resolving almost every area of daily concern. Recent books on the topic include: Mindful Parenting, Mindful Eating, Mindful Teaching, Mindful Politics, Mindful Therapy, Mindful *Email: [email protected] © 2015 The Vocational Aspect of Education Ltd

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Leadership, A Mindful Nation, Mindful Recovery, The Power of Mindful Learning, The Mindful Brain, The Mindful Way through Depression, The Mindful Path to SelfCompassion. Almost daily, the media cite scientific studies that report the numerous health benefits of mindfulness meditation and how such a simple practice can effect neurological changes in the brain. (1)

Given such breadth of application it was perhaps inevitable that mindfulness techniques would be taken up by managers and trainers as tools for staff training and development. The Mindfulness At Work training organisation, for example, advertises its courses with the claim that:

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Cutting edge companies such as Apple and Google are testimony to the effectiveness of mindfulness at work. Mindfulness can help people to live superlative lives. In the workplace it helps them to build teamwork, enhance creativity & communication and resolve conflict. (http://mindfulnessatwork.com)

As Purser and Loy (2013) go on to observe: The booming popularity of the mindfulness movement has also turned it into a lucrative cottage industry. Business savvy consultants pushing mindfulness training promise that it will improve work efficiency, reduce absenteeism, and enhance the ‘soft skills’ that are crucial to career success. Some even assert that mindfulness training can act as a ‘disruptive technology,’ reforming even the most dysfunctional companies into kinder, more compassionate and sustainable organizations. (Purser and Loy 2013)

Given this vast array of claims for its effectiveness, it is easy to understand why, as Stone (2014) notes: Mindfulness meditation has exploded into an industry that ranges from the monastery to the military. Google, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Monsanto and the U.S. Army are just a handful of the many enormous institutions that bring meditative practice to their workforce. (1)

Many of the benefits claimed for mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) in education, health provision, psychology and now vocational education and training (VET) stem from the perceived deficiencies in systems and organisations in relation to the affective and value components of training programmes (Glomb et al. 2011; Goleman 2001; Hyland 2014; Siegel 2007). Emerging perspectives on apprenticeship as an ‘evolving model of learning’ (Fuller and Unwin 2011, 263) are increasingly applied to VET in general with – as in the recent Richard Review of Apprenticeships (2012) – learning in this sphere being conceived broadly as ‘a form of education’ (4). If vocational learning is a form of education it will need to cover a wider range of domains – including the social, moral and emotional – not just the usual ‘black box’ of workplace skills (Poortman, Illeris, and Nieuwenhuis 2011). Alongside the historical legacy of vocational education shaped by social stratification and subordination to academic studies (Hyland 2002; Richardson 2007) there has been a serious neglect of both the ethical (i.e. links with broader social values and networks of interests) and moral (i.e. values fundamental to human flourishing such as justice, trust and truth) foundations of VET (Hyland 2011b; Winch 2000). This is really quite surprising given the centrality of preparation for working life in all aspects of the education system from school to university. Jarrett (1991) argues that the ‘single most important goal for a teacher to work towards has to do with the basic attitude towards work’ (206) and similar sentiments inspire Warnock’s (1977) philosophy of education in which ‘work is, and always must be an ingredient of the good life’ such that a ‘life without work would always be less good than a life

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which contained it’ (144). Fish (1993) has pointed to the ‘morally impoverished’ (10) nature of much VET, and attempts to move education for work towards a broader Deweyan conception which ‘stresses the full intellectual and social meaning of a vocation’ (Dewey 1966, 316) have been developing in recent years. In the light of this more expansive conception of VET – which incorporates social, moral, aesthetic and affective values – a number of commentators have suggested programmes which include such values in both the means and ends of vocational curricula (Hyland 1999, 2002; Pring 1995; Winch 2000). More recently, James (2010) has outlined proposals for fostering moral values in workplace learning in an Australian context, and similar work is described by Bienengräber (2014) in the context of German business education. Many of these developments have been connected with research and development in mindfulness practice which indicates the efficacy of such work in enhancing learning in general (Langer 2003; Siegel 2007) and vocational learning in particular (Hyland 2011b, 2014). As discussed below, there is growing body of research evidence – to be added to the well-established findings in psychology, mind–body health practice and education (Siegel 2007; Williams and Kabat-Zinn 2013) – that MBIs can have a positive impact on workplaces in a wide variety of ways (Chaskalson 2011; Glomb et al. 2011). However, the widespread and often indiscriminate appropriation of mindfulness techniques by organisations and programme developers has resulted in conflicts and tensions between the foundational principles of MBIs and the pragmatic priorities of employee training and development programmes. As a preliminary to the examination of these issues, it would be useful to offer an account of the origins and development of mindfulness in recent years. Mindfulness – origins and development Mindfulness has become something of a boom industry over the last few decades thanks largely to the work of Kabat-Zinn (1990) who developed a mindfulnessbased stress reduction (MBSR) programme in his work at the Massachusetts Medical School in 1979. Since then the work of Kabat-Zinn and associates (Kabat-Zinn 2005; Segal, Williams, and Teasdale 2002; Williams and Kabat-Zinn 2013; Williams et al. 2007) has been responsible for a massive global expansion of interest in MBIs in a diverse range of domains including work in schools, prisons, workplaces and hospitals, in addition to wide applications in psychology, psychotherapy, education and medicine (Baer 2006). An internet search on the concept of mindfulness brings up around 18 million items and, in terms of publications, numbers have grow from one or two per year in 1980 to around 400 per year in 2011 (Williams and Kabat-Zinn 2013, 3; see also Mindfulness Research Guide, http://www.mindfulexperience.org/). Hanh (1999) – the renowned Vietnamese Buddhist teacher and campaigner for world peace and justice – describes mindfulness as being ‘at the heart of the Buddha’s teachings’. It involves ‘attention to the present moment’ which is ‘inclusive and loving’ and ‘which accepts everything without judging or reacting’ (64). Kabat-Zinn (1990, 1994) and associates have been largely responsible for transforming the original spiritual notion into a powerful and ubiquitous therapeutic tool based on forms of meditation and mindful practices. Mindfulness simply means ‘paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and nonjudgementally’ in a way which ‘nurtures greater awareness, clarity, and acceptance

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of present-moment reality’. Such practice – whether this involves breathing or walking meditation or giving full non-judgemental attention to everyday activities – can offer a ‘powerful route for getting ourselves unstuck, back in touch with our own wisdom and vitality’ (Kabat-Zinn 1994, 4–5). The various MBIs – in psychotherapy, mind–body health and education – represent connections between eastern spiritual traditions and western science. Psychology, psychotherapy and related fields are the ones which tend to predominate in terms of this process of mutual interrelationship. A number of psychologists and psychotherapists (Epstein 2005) have regarded Buddhism as a form of study of the nature of the mind. Germer (2005) asserts simply that ‘reading early Buddhist texts will convince the clinician that the Buddha was essentially a psychologist’ (13). The neuroscientific evidence about the impact of MBIs on the functioning of the brain – and the resultant possibility of changing cognitive, affective and psychomotor activity – are directly relevant to education in general and VET in particular. A good place to start is with the relationship between mind and brain. As Searle (1985) has observed, minds are caused by brains and brains are realised through minds. In this way, we are moved away from the misconceptions and dangerous confusions of the Cartesian body/mind dichotomy and led towards a perspective in which the mind is just another biological phenomenon. In a similar way, Siegel (2007) asserts that the brain ‘is an integrated part of the whole body’. He goes on to elaborate this statement: Because the mind itself can be viewed as both embodied and relational, our brains actually can be considered the social organ of the body. Our minds connect with one another via neural circuitry in our bodies that is hard-wired to take in others’ signals. (48)

What needs to be added to this is that ‘attention to the present moment, one aspect of mindfulness, can be directly shaped by our ongoing communication with others, and from the activities in our own brains’ (Siegel 2007, 50). Recent neuroscientific work indicates that, on the one hand, neural networks in the brain can be altered by experience and, on the other hand, that mindfulness practice can help to bring about such change. As Doidge (2007) observes, the ‘idea that the brain can change its own structure and function through thought and activity is … the most important alteration in our view of the brain since we first sketched out its basic anatomy and the workings of its basic component, the neuron’ (xv–xvi). He goes on to describe a wide range of cases – from physical ailments to emotional disorders – in which brain changes have been demonstrated to be connected with the enhancement of mind–body well-being. The description of mindfulness by Williams et al. (2007, 48) brings out the active, developmental and educational features of such practice. They note that mindfulness is: (1) intentional – concerned with cultivating an awareness of present-moment reality and the choices available to us. (2) experiential – focussing directly on present-moment experience rather than being pre-occupied by abstractions. (3) non-judgemental – it allows us to see things as they are without a mental assignment of critical labels to our thoughts, feelings and perceptions.

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Siegel (2007) has suggested that ‘at the heart of mindfulness is the teachable capacity for reflection’ and that this ‘learnable skill is just a breath away from being readily available as the fourth “R” of basic education’ (259–260). Siegel’s work has shown that ‘resilience can be learned through experience’ (Siegel 2007, 215), and he picks out the key features of mindfulness strategies – approaching rather than avoiding difficult states, replacing rumination with observation based on curiosity and kindness, and the reflection on thoughts and feelings using notation and labelling (Siegel 2007, 216–225) – as ways of establishing calm and stability by integrating left and right hemispheres of the brain. Given that left brain is connected with language and logic and right brain with emotion modulation, Siegel seeks to show how reflective thinking in mindfulness could produce the desired neural integration and coherence. A crucial element seemed to be in the use of labels to describe internal emotional states in mindful practice; the left–right zones seemed to be homologous such that activation in one linked with inhibition in another. The idea is that ‘language use in the left might dampen emotional arousal in the right’; the practical point is that ‘non-reactivity and emotional balance go hand-in-hand with the facet of labelling and describing internal states’. His conclusion is that: These experiences of mental notation teach us the skill of labelling to help balance our minds, not constrain them with top-down prisons. We learn that what before felt like an unchangeable and distressful feeling can now be observed and noted and we can come back to equilibrium more readily. This is the essence of a resilient affective style. (Siegel 2007, 226–227)

If we then connect this notion of changing the mind/brain through learning (unlearning and relearning) through experience, we can begin to see the powerful educative aspects of mindfulness-based approaches. Through the standard practices outlined in the literature – attending to the breath, mindful walking or movement or, indeed, any technique which helps us to still the restless and wandering mind and ‘learn to pay attention to the experience of paying attention’ (Schoeberlein and Sheth 2009, 12, original italics) – it is possible to reduce unhelpful rumination and experiential avoidance in our mental lives and, when appropriate, to switch off the automatic pilot for longer and longer periods. The move is from doing to being; as Segal, Williams, and Teasdale (2002) put it: In doing, it is often necessary to compute the future consequences of goal-related activity … As a result, in doing mode, the mind often travels forward to the future or back to the past, and the experience is not one of actually being “here” in the present moment much of the time. By contrast, in being mode, the mind has “nothing to do, nowhere to go” and so processing can be dedicated exclusively to processing momentby-moment experience. (73)

But the ethical and attitudinal bases of the practice also indicate that mindfulness ‘is not just about paying more attention, but rather about cultivating a different, wiser kind of attention’ (Williams et al. 2007, 99, original italics). Experiments using MRI and EEG brain scanning have demonstrated clear and direct connections between meditation and changes in the brain, particularly in relation to brain states and different types of emotion (Goleman 2003). The capacity to generate compassion, openness and ‘introspective skill’ (Goleman 2003, 11–23) in training the mind through meditation, have been observed in laboratory experiments with meditators. More specifically, the research found ‘a shift in the baseline of long-term meditators

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toward left anterior activation’ of the brain, and this left shift was also linked with enhancement of immune functions of people who had completed mindfulness courses. fMRI scans of the brain’s prefrontal cortex have connected negative emotions with the right area and positive feelings with the left (Goleman 2003, 340). Moreover, the ‘mode of avoidance’ (triggered by innate survival instincts) is, Crane (2009) informs us, also associated with:

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an increase in activation of the right frontal lobe relative to the felt. The other configuration is a mode of approach in which there is movement towards experience and a sense of welcome and openness to it. Approach is associated with an increase in activation on the left frontal lobe relative to the right. (39)

Research on the introduction of mindfulness in schools and colleges tends to confirm these findings. The ‘present-moment reality’ developed through mindfulness is widely acknowledged in educational psychology as not just ‘more effective, but also more enjoyable’ (Langer 2003, 43) in many spheres of learning, and there is now a wealth of evidence aggregated through the Mindfulness in Education Network (http:\ \www.mindfuled.org) about the general educational benefits of the approach. On the basis of work done in American colleges, Schoeberlein and Sheth (2009) list a wide range of benefits of mindfulness for both teachers – improving focus and awareness, increasing responsiveness to student needs, enhancing classroom climate – and students in supporting readiness to learn, strengthening attention and concentration, reducing anxiety and enhancing social and emotional learning. As they put it: Mindfulness and education are beautifully interwoven. Mindfulness is about being present with and to your inner experience as well as your outer environment, including other people. When teachers are fully present, they teach better. When students are fully present, the quality of their learning is better. (11)

The use of mindfulness in British contexts is showing similarly promising results. Burnett (2011) has shown its value when incorporated into moral/religious education or personal and social health programmes, and the controlled trial conduct by Huppert and Johnson (2010) with 173 secondary school pupils indicated a positive impact of mindfulness-based approaches on emotional stability and an increase in well-being. The therapeutic applications of mindfulness strategies were recommended in the report sponsored by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, Mental Capital and Wellbeing (Government Office for Science 2008), and there are a number of well-established centres for the research and teaching in mindfulness-based approaches: the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at the University of Wales, Bangor (www.bangor.ac.uk/mindfulness), the Oxford Cognitive Therapy Centre (www.octc.co.uk), and the University of Exeter (www.exeter.ac.uk). In addition to the studies noted above, a body of educational research evidence is beginning to emerge from the UK Mindfulness in Schools Project (MiSP; Burnett 2011). A project undertaken in secondary schools connected with the MiSP (officially called the .b project) by Hennelly (2011) involving 64 mixed gender pupils reported that mindfulness training brought about immediate improvements in adolescents’ functioning and well-being, and (on the basis of a questionnaire survey conducted six months after experience on the .b programme) established that these positive effects were maintained. More recently, a large-scale experimental project conducted by Kuyken et al. (2013) investigated the impact of mindfulness training in a study involving a total of 522 young people aged 12–16 in 12 secondary schools connected with the MiSP initiative. The results indicated that the pupils,

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who participated in the intervention reported fewer depressive symptoms post-treatment and at follow-up and lower stress and greater well-being at follow-up. The degree to which students in the intervention group practised the mindfulness skills was associated with better well-being and less stress at 3-month follow-up. (1)

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Many of these positive benefits of MBIs in education have been confirmed in the meta-analysis and review of recent research in the field by Zenner, Hermleben-Kurz, and Walach (2014). Mindfulness in the workplace Given the growing empirical evidence about the effectiveness of MBIs in educational settings it was just a matter of time before such approaches found their way into VET and employee training and development. Chaskalson (2011) has investigated the increasing use of MBIs in workplace settings and, as noted earlier, a number of corporations are now showing an interest in introducing mindfulness training for their employees (see Aetna.com 2014). Although Chaskalson initially appears to be examining the applications of mindfulness to training and work in general, the analysis is restricted mainly to the links between the efficacy of MBIs in promoting emotional intelligence (EI) at the level of management and leadership. Much is made of Goleman’s work in this sphere, particularly its applications in the workplace. In the light of his theories of EI (Goleman 1996), Goleman and colleagues (2001) had originally analysed data from competence models used in leading companies such as IBM, British Airways, Credit Suisse, as well as public sector organisations in the attempt to discover those personal capabilities that underpinned optimal performance at all levels. Chaskalson (2011) summarises these findings in observing that: The results of the analysis were remarkable. As one might expect, intellect was to some extent a driver of outstanding performance. But the higher the rank of those considered to be star performers, the greater their level of EI. When the comparison matched star performers against average performers in senior leadership positions, around 85% of the difference in their profiles was attributable to emotional-intelligence factors rather than to purely cognitive abilities such as technical expertise. (113)

Chaskalson goes on to cite a broad range of studies which indicate the importance of EI in teamwork, creative thinking, leadership and innovation in different work environments before explaining how MBSR programmes may contribute to the development of EI through the cultivation of insight, focus, concentration and empathy. In a concluding section (Chaskalson 2011, 164–165) there is a summary of the key research findings about the typical impact of the eight-week MBSR course on participants. These include: • • • • • • •

A reduction in participants’ levels of stress An increase in their levels of EI Increased interpersonal sensitivity Lower rates of health-related absenteeism Enhanced communication skills Increased concentration and attention span Higher levels of well-being and overall work and life satisfaction

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Similarly, Glomb et al. (2011) summarise the research on the effectiveness of mindfulness strategies in the workplace in terms of three main areas:

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First, mindfulness is associated with factors expected to influence relationship quality. Second, mindfulness is linked to processes indicative of resiliency. Third, mindfulness is linked with processes expected to improve task performance and decision making. (139)

The researchers go on to claim that these three elements represent ‘distinct work-related outcomes’ (Glomb et al. 2011) Some of the pitfalls of measurement in this field – particularly when tailor-made psychological tests based on self-reporting are used – will be discussed in more detail below. At this stage, it is worth pointing a number of related problems involved in applying standardised mindfulness courses such as MBSR/MBCT in work settings. Chaskalson (Glomb et al. 2011, 168–170) fully recognises the logistical problems of organising and delivering MBSR courses in the workplace. They are costly in time and effort to both employers and employees and – unless adapted to specific work environments – may seem remote from everyday working practices. More significantly – as may be discerned by the potential benefits listed above – they tend to be used primarily to develop skills and traits linked to productive workplace outcomes whether or not these are representative of foundational mindfulness principles. It is true that the affective aspects of learning have tended to be seriously neglected at all levels, and there are direct connections between educating the emotions and cultivating mindfulness (Siegel 2007; Hyland 2011a, 2011b). However, if emotional literacy and not general mindfulness becomes the primary goal – as seems to be the case in many current programmes – the viability of full eight-week MBSR courses for either employers or trainees becomes questionable. For this reason, workplace training in this sphere generally takes the form of short subject- or trait-specific courses (typically over one or two days) aimed at enhancing leadership, management or team working qualities (Aetna.com 2014; Mindfulness AtWork.com 2014). Moreover, the outcomes sought are almost always designed with any eye to increasing productivity as the overriding question becomes ‘Can mindfulness increase profits?’ (http://mindfulnet.org/2014). Glomb et al. (2011) also point to the tendency for MBIs in the workplace to converge on specific traits and outcomes which – though valued by employers – may be quite different from mindfulness qualities linked to individual well-being and employee development. All this is perhaps both predictable and in the nature of the economics of VET and trainee development, though it does raise the question of how such programmes are related to the broad concept of mindfulness outlined earlier. There seems to be very little scope here for the longitudinal cultivation of values and traits in keeping with the ethical and attitudinal components of mindfulness. It is worth emphasising that the standard eight-week MBSR course is itself only intended to be an introduction to and preparation for the lifelong challenge ‘to make calmness, inner balance and clear seeing a part of everyday life’ (Kabat-Zinn 1990, 134). Consequently, when even this short programme is further reduced to a few day or afternoon sessions, the inadequacies of quick-fix McMindfulness programmes are fully revealed. To have any lasting impact on trainees and employees, mindfulness strategies need to be woven into work-based learning (WBL) regimes and general working practices. There is, after all, a wide range of WBL models and experiences to draw

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upon, and some of the lifelong learning research in this field (Unwin 2012) dovetails neatly with MBI applications in the workplace. It needs to be said, however, that the inclusion of mindfulness in US army training regimes and by Google in staff development programmes (Stone 2014; Eaton 2014) clearly raises issues about the misuse or abuse of MBIs since foundational mindfulness values such as right livelihood and non-materialism are self-evidently and fundamentally at odds with aspects of the core business of corporations and the military. Criticising what he calls the ‘militarisation of mindfulness’ in the establishment of mindfulness-based fitness programmes by the US army, Purser (2014) points to the preposterous absurdity of divorcing mindfulness from its ethical foundations of compassionate non-harming in order to train soldiers to be more alert and efficient. Similarly, the use of mindfulness training to boost productivity, increase profits and encourage consumer materialism is no less outrageous and oxymoronic. Bazzano (2014) suggests that contemporary McMindfulness programmes have come to represent ‘a quick fix for the anxieties of late-capitalist society’ (164), and this must be an area of some concern for those involved in the educational applications of MBIs. Such developments represent to a paradigm case of the decontextualising and denaturing of both the original Buddhist concept of mindfulness and also the KabatZinn therapeutic vision which has been correctly labelled ‘McMindfulness’. It is also a classic example of the commodification of the educational enterprise which has been referred to as the ‘McDonaldisation’ of learning and teaching over the last few decades (Hartley 1995; Hyland 1999). McMindfulness and the commodification of the present moment Both the nature of the workplace applications of MBIs and the ways in which they are being evaluated present a number of potential problems and challenges for those committed to forms of mindfulness which seek to retain connections with the foundational principles which inspire them. Purser and Loy (2013) conclude with the comment that: While a stripped-down, secularised technique – what some critics are now calling ‘McMindfulness’ – may make it more palatable to the corporate world, decontextualising mindfulness from its original liberative and transformative purpose, as well as its foundation in social ethics, amounts to a Faustian bargain. Rather than applying mindfulness as a means to awaken individuals and organizations from the unwholesome roots of greed, ill will and delusion, it is usually being refashioned into a banal, therapeutic, self-help technique that can actually reinforce those roots. (1)

On another level, the wholesale expropriation of MBIs by academic psychologists and mind–body health professionals – reflected in the ever-burgeoning academic publications noted earlier – has exacerbated the ‘decontextualisation’ referred to by Purser and Loy by transmuting mindfulness practice into just another academic field of study. The overwhelming majority of such academic publications involve the quantitative measurement of mindfulness (Baer 2013) – the mutation of presentmoment ‘being’ into outcome-oriented ‘doing’. Such developments have led to a proliferation of mindfulness measurement scales, including the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, the Toronto Mindfulness Scale, and the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (Mindfulness Research Guide, 2014; http://www.mindfulexperience org/ measurement). All of these scales are

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connected with the various benefits of MBIs in the areas of depression, addiction and mind–body well-being, and it is such evidence-based positive results of the strategies which, according to Baer (2013), both justify such measurement and explain their consistent influence. As she concludes:

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Adaptations from the original Buddhist teachings may be necessary, and intended and unrecognised conceptual slippage may be hard to avoid. On balance, however, the benefits seem to outweigh the difficulties. (258)

All these developments – and the ‘conceptual slippage’ referred to by Baer – mean that contemporary MBIs are quite some way from both the Buddhist home of mindfulness and also the original secular therapeutic aims. Kabat-Zinn’s evaluation of all these developments is, naturally, both interesting and informative. Since his original work on the MBSR programme has spawned the current mindfulness revolution, Kabat-Zinn’s criticisms of contemporary developments are understandably nuanced. Acknowledging the ‘challenging circumstances relating to the major cultural and epistemological shifts’ as Buddhist meditation was introduced into clinical and psychological settings, Williams and Kabat-Zinn (2013) observe that: Buddhist scholars, in particular, may feel that the essential meaning of mindfulness may have been exploited, or distorted, or abstracted from its essential ecological niche in ways that may threaten its deep meaning, its integrity, and its potential value. (11)

The answer to such challenges is the ‘building of bridges with an open mind’ (Williams and Kabat-Zinn 2013, 12) between all western and Buddhist perspectives. It tends to be the development of the scales outlined earlier that cause certain commentators on contemporary trends – Grossman is notable in this respect – to be rather more strident in their criticisms of both the new directions taken by secular therapeutic mindfulness strategies in general and the quantification of mindfulness in particular. Since the exponential development of the mindfulness industry, Grossman (2011) has been forceful in his criticisms of mindfulness measurement scales, particularly those relying upon self-reports by MBI course participants. The key weaknesses are that they decontextualise mindfulness from its ethical and attitudinal foundations, measure only specific aspects of mindfulness such as the capacity to stay in the present moment, attention span or transitory emotional state and, in general terms, present a false and adulterated perspective on what mindfulness really is. Such developments are of precious little benefit to any of the interested parties whether they are, learners, teachers, mindfulness practitioners or external agencies interested in the potential benefits of MBIs. The position is summed up well by Grossman: Our apparent rush to measure and reify mindfulness – before attaining a certain depth of understanding – may prevent us from transcending worn and familiar views and concepts that only trivialise and limit what we think mindfulness is. The scientific method, with its iterative process of re-evaluation and improvement, cannot correct such fundamental conceptual misunderstandings but may actually serve to fortify them. (2011, 1038)

The proliferation of mindfulness scales which has accompanied the exponential growth of programmes has exacerbated this denaturing of the original conception, and it is now no longer clear precisely what is being measured. As Grossman and Van Dam (2011) note, such developments may prove counter-productive and unhelpful to all those working in the field. They argue further that:

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Definitions and operationalisations of mindfulness that do not take into account the gradual nature of training attention, the gradual progression in terms of greater stability of attention and vividness of experience or the enormous challenges inherent in living more mindfully, are very likely to misconstrue and banalise the construct of mindfulness, which is really not a construct as we traditionally understand it in Western psychology, but at depth, a way of being. (Grossman and Van Dam 2011, 234)

Along with the gradualness of mindfulness development, this ‘way of being’ is not susceptible to summative psychological testing. Instead, Grossman and Van Dam recommend formative assessment techniques employing longitudinal interviews and observations of MBI participants in specific contexts. More significantly, they go on to make the eminently sensible suggestion that ‘one viable option for preserving the integrity and richness of the Buddhist understanding of mindfulness might be to call those various qualities now purporting to be mindfulness by names much closer to what they actually represent’ (Grossman and Van Dam 2011, 234). Mindfulness, workplace training and right livelihood In the final analysis, the most telling criticisms of the misapplication of MBIs in the workplace are not those concerned with conserving doctrinal purity but – as the McMindfulness commentators note – the decontextualising of mindfulness from its foundational elements thus rendering it less effective in fostering the very qualities which prompted the introduction of mindfulness into workplace settings in the first place. The desirable workplace traits identified by Chaskalson (2011) and Glomb et al. (2011) – improved communication and working relationships, emotional resilience, heightened focus and concentration, and enhanced well-being – are essentially craft-like qualities and capabilities best developed slowly over time in line with WBL and apprenticeship models of vocational learning. Moreover, they are integrally connected with the affective and ethical principles which give meaning and purpose to mindfulness practice (Williams and Kabat-Zinn 2013). The concept of apprenticeship – like the traditional idea of craft (Sennett 2008) – brings together long-term knowledge and skill development, ethical practice and social-collective involvement, all factors which are vital to the regeneration of VET at a time when, until recently, short-termist skill training has held centre stage in the contemporary training market (Ainley 2007; Keep 2012). In this respect, the Report (2011) called for a major overhaul of the VET system in England and an increase in high quality apprenticeships for young people, and the DfE response to the key recommendations has thus far been generally favourable (DfE 2013). Moreover, the conception of apprenticeship as a generic model for VET and WBL in all spheres is now emerging on a global level (Fuller and Unwin 2011) and, as mentioned in the introduction, is now being connected with a broader conception of learning on all fours with education in general. In this area, it is interesting that the recent Cavendish (2013) on the training of care and support workers in the National Health Service in the UK called for long-term career training plans and the creation of a ‘higher apprenticeship’ system (9). Similarly, the Richard (2012) of apprenticeships recommended a movement away from the ‘intricate detail of today’s occupational standards, [and] the micro-level prescription of today’s vocational qualifications, which drive a focus on continuous bureaucratic box-ticking and assessment and obscure the real task of an apprenticeship’ and towards systems which ‘teach new knowledge and skills’ (6). These emerging holistic conceptions are fully in line with

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the notion of ‘learning as becoming’ (Colley et al. 2007) in workplace settings, and mindfulness strategies have special relevance here. Mindfulness is also about conducting life with skill – indeed, the notion of ‘skilful means’ (Keown 2005, 18–20) has a special place in Buddhist ethics and practice – and the development of the central quality of present-moment awareness can assist both in enhancing vocational preparation and in connecting this to all aspects of personal and social life (Hyland 2014). The Buddhist conception of ‘right livelihood’ (Hanh 1999, 113ff) incorporates many of the core principles of craft and skill development advocated by Dewey (1966): precise and careful work, training which incorporates affective and aesthetic elements, and connections between occupational work and the wider community. A particularly forceful expression of the links between mindfulness and craft is to be found in Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) in which the writer connects ideas about work and engineering craft with aesthetic notions and Zen Buddhist principles. Whilst riding his motorcycle around the USA, Pirsig reflects on the means by which such a remarkable feat of engineering has come about. As he observes: Precision instruments are designed to achieve an idea; dimensional precision whose perfection is impossible. There is no perfectly shaped part of the motorcycle and never will be, but when you come as close as these instruments take you, remarkable things happen, and you go flying across the countryside under a power that would be called magic if it were not so completely rational … I look at the shapes of the steel now and I see ideas … I’m working on concepts. (102, original italics)

Granger (2006) makes use of Pirsig’s ideas to illustrate the educational importance of Dewey’s ideas for both vocational and general education. Pirsig’s description of the differences between a ‘high quality’ and ‘low quality’ motorcycle shop and the characteristics of a craftsman-like mechanic are quoted by Granger. The ‘high quality’ mechanic has: Patience, care and attentiveness to what [he’s] doing, but more than this, there’s a kind of inner peace of mind … The craftsman isn’t ever following a single line of interaction. He’s making decisions as he goes along. For that reason he’ll be absorbed and attentive to what he’s doing even though he doesn’t deliberately contrive this. His motions and the machine are in a kind of harmony. (Granger 2006, 117)

Granger argues that ‘attending to things … means reaching out as complete beings to meet the world in a way that brings us closer to it as an equal partner in the full lived situation, and in the concrete and particular here and now’ (Granger 2006, 118). Such a conception of craft-like and careful work is on all fours with the nonjudgemental present-moment awareness at the core of mindfulness, and Granger demonstrates forcefully the value of such notions to educational theory and practice. Such values are also incorporated in Sennett’s (2008) comprehensive and painstaking analysis of the nature and significance of craftsmanship in human history. Craftsmen are ‘dedicated to good work for its own sake’ and all ‘craftsmanship is founded on skill developed to a high degree’ (20). Such work is inextricably linked to codes of ethics. As Sennett explains: Craftsmen take pride in skills that mature. This is why simple imitation is not a sustaining satisfaction: the skill has to evolve. The slowness of craft time serves as a source of satisfaction; practice beds in, making the skill one’s own. Slow craft time

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enables the work of reflection and imagination – which the push for quick results cannot. Mature means long; one takes lasting ownership of the skill. (Sennett 2008, 295)

The suggestion is that the ‘craftsman represents the special human condition of being engaged’ and that the emotional rewards of such engagement ‘are twofold: people are anchored in tangible reality, and they can take pride in their work’ (Sennett 2008, 20, 21). However, contemporary working conditions have worked against such values and qualities as craft skills have been marginalised and downgraded. Echoing many of Dewey’s criticisms of vocational education, Sennett observes:

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History has drawn fault lines dividing practice and theory, technique and expression, craftsman and artist, maker and user; modern society suffers from this historical inheritance. But the past life of craft and craftsmen also suggests ways of using tools, organising bodily movements, thinking about materials that remain alternative, viable proposals about how to conduct life with skill. (Sennett 2008, 11)

Similar ideas about the decline of craft skills and the devaluing of manual work in contemporary education and working life have been advanced by Crawford (2006) who argues that ‘the time is ripe for reconsideration of an ideal that has fallen out of favour: manual competence, and the stance it entails toward the built, material world’ (7). Defining craftsmanship as ‘simply the desire to do something well, for its own sake’ (9), and pointing to the ‘cognitive, psychic and aesthetic’ qualities of manual work, Crawford goes on – using diverse examples from Aristotle, Marxist critics of modern work, and the experiences of entrepreneurs such as Charles Sturt in the nineteenth century American industrial development – to describe skilled manual work (‘shop class’ in American schooling) as ‘soulcraft’ and the craftsman as a contemporary ‘stoic’ (11, 23). Interestingly, stoic values have also been linked with the Eastern traditions within which mindfulness originates by psychologists (Siegel 2007) and philosophers (Evans 2012) who advance practical solutions (similar to Dewey’s pragmatism) to current emotional, social and moral problems which, in large part, are what current MBI strategies are designed to address. Most of these perspectives on craftsmanship – and the social, moral and affective values which underpin it – can also be connected with the emerging wider conceptions of apprenticeship learning and VET and are fully realised in current programmes for the development of mindfulness and the origins in Buddhist principles. The key ethical tenets designed to foster benevolence, generosity, trust and responsibility are routinely referred to as ‘trainings’ in Hahn’s writings on Buddhist mindfulness (Hanh 1999, 94–98) with the clear implication that a long-term course of practice and developmental work will be required. Similarly, many of the original Buddhist teachings use similes and analogies which refer to the nature of work and working people such as farmers, metalworkers, potters and other artisans (Bodhi 2000). This central notion of mindfulness as work – with all its implications for training and the long-term enhancement of practice – provides a most appropriate guiding principle and inspiration for mindfulness at work interventions. Short-term McMindfulness strategies may offer quick-fix solutions to problems currently facing employers and industry but employees and trainees have much more to gain from the broader mindfulness training rooted in the ethical and affective components of MBIs. The pursuit of measurable outcomes to satisfy external bodies – though naturally an important feature of national VET systems (Keep 2012; Unwin 2012) – needs to be balanced against affective goals linked to the needs and interests of learners and trainees. The introduction of mindfulness into workplace

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settings has served to highlight some of the tensions inherent in this sphere, and has also foregrounded the importance of the holistic aspects of vocational learning emphasised in recent research calling for an acknowledgement of the ‘learner voice’ (Angus et al. 2013) in VET. Mindfulness just is a form of WBL and all the various ‘mindful workplace’ strategies have much to gain by attending to the ethical and affective components of foundational mindfulness practices.

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