UBC professor Kim Schonert-Reichl joins Dalai Lama at Vancouver Peace Summit

Kim Schonert-Reichl is jetting around the world, trying to save humanity. That might be an exaggeration, but not much of one. Reached by the Georgia Straight while grabbing a drink at Vancouver International Airport, Schonert-Reichl had just returned from Ottawa, where she met policy advisers for the Public Health Agency of Canada. At YVR, she was waiting for a flight to Spain, where she was scheduled to give a lecture on emotional intelligence.

Schonert-Reichl, an associate professor at UBC, has researched child development for more than 20 years. Her most recent work is with the Hawn Foundation, assessing the effectiveness of a program called MindUP. It focuses on promoting mental well-being in children and is garnering attention around the world. At the centre of this program is Vancouver’s public education system.

“This program basically gives children experiences in learning how to focus their attention and be more mindful, as well as develop compassion, empathy, and caring for others,” Schonert-Reichl told the Straight. If preliminary results are any indication, she added, MindUP has the potential to give students a greater capacity to learn.

Schonert-Reichl mused about what it would be like if these skills were instilled in children at a young age, better enabling them to cope with their emotions. “You would have a society where people care for others and are kind and helpful. You’d have no more wars, really!”

Schonert-Reichl’s work makes her a natural participant in the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education’s Vancouver Peace Summit: Nobel Laureates in Dialogue (September 26 to 29). The event will bring together the Dalai Lama and other Nobel Peace Prize winners, plus a host of renowned thinkers such as Eckhart Tolle, Karen Armstrong, and Ela Bhatt. (Archbishop Desmond Tutu was scheduled to attend but has suffered a ruptured disc and cannot travel. His daughter, Mpho, will appear in his place.) The conference’s stated goal is to address the world’s social, cultural, and economic challenges.

Victor Chan, founding director of the locally based centre, organized the event. He told the Straight that the summit’s keynote speakers are people who have proven they can turn words into action.

“Ideas are a dime a dozen,” Chan said in a telephone interview. “We have people coming to the summit who are able to walk the walk, who have personally created enterprises and organizations that have made tremendous differences in people’s lives.”

On that note, Schonert-Reichl is finding that MindUP is not just an idealist’s dream. Her research is firmly rooted in neurology and behavioural psychology.

Schonert-Reichl brought MindUP to the attention of the Vancouver school board in 2005. Lisa Pedrini, the VSB’s manager of social responsibility and diversity, has overseen the program.

“I think it will have an effect, possibly within the community,” Pedrini told the Straight, “but I know it is certainly having an effect within the classroom and within schools.”

Pedrini said teachers report that MindUP increases the sensibility and focus of their students.

She estimated that 10 percent of Vancouver’s 3,054 full-time–equivalent teachers have gone through MindUP and said that every training session the school board hosts is at capacity.

Schonert-Reichl is working for nothing less than the future of her own children. “I have two boys who are nine and 12,” she explained. “I’ve always wanted to try and improve the world. But I think when I had my own children, I was like, ”˜Oh, my God. I better get to work.’ ”

You can follow Travis Lupick on Twitter at twitter.com/tlupick.