Rick and I had just completed our second round of teaching in the fifth grade classrooms at Wickersham School. A teacher commented to us "I tell my students to focus and concentrate, but you're teaching them how."

Our culture neither teaches nor reinforces our ability to focus our attention and sustain concentration. Instead, it presents us with the perpetual seduction of the accelerating stimuli of technology, communication, and information.

One psychologist claims we're creating a society of "attentional spastics". Dr. John Ratey and Dr. Edward Hallowell speculate that the pace and complexity of current life may be creating "pseudo A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder)".

We each have a natural capacity for attention and it can be highly trained.

To concentrate, distracting stimuli are selectively and skillfully tuned out. The effect is to expand the scope of awareness while, at the same time, refining precision. The mind becomes more stable and deeper levels of understanding and insight are available.

Concentration may be cultivated through meditative practices. We have the possibility of becoming less vulnerable to distressing emotions and better able to deal with conflict. The mind can become a highly tuned instrument with which to deal with life more effectively.

Psychologist, Roger Walsh: "Meditators report that perception becomes more sensitive, one's inner world more available, and intuition and introspection more refined."