Chapter 7: Moving Toward Mindfulness: Instructional Expressions of Caring in Mathematical Education

In this study, we describe a teacher’s beliefs about caring and their effect on his instructional practice, including changes he made over time. The lens of mindfulness theory, particularly as described in relationship to High Reliability Organizations, is used to consider the alignment of this teacher’s instructional choices with mindfulness approaches, as well as potential ways to support this teacher’s future actualization of his goals. The study demonstrates that mathematical instructional expressions of caring can be assessed in terms of levels of mindfulness and that this categorization provides insights for support of increased mindfulness in mathematics instruction. Additionally, the results suggest that this kind of support may help to increase student development of essential attributes such as creative and critical mathematics thinking.