The purpose of the work.
The Collective connects inquiry into our own experience with questions about learning, agency, and our lives with other people. Its central development question asks what people need to know, notice, understand, and do to work skillfully with attention.
As an emerging research and education organization, the Collective is developing a competency framework to inform a developmental pathway for attentional literacy across K–12. The aim is to make the idea understandable, teachable, and open to examination.
Mercedes Laney.
Founder of The Stillwater Collective, she brings contemplative inquiry into conversation with cognitive science and education through her work as an independent researcher and educator.
She holds an MA in Disaster Management. Her background in contemplative study and practice informs an inquiry developed through her 2026 Evermay Future Fellows residency, where she presented a working meaning of attentional literacy and invited observations through participation and discussion.
The Collective and the Room.
The Collective houses the broader research and educational development agenda. The Stillwater Room is its adult-learning expression, providing a setting for attention, listening, and stillness through contemplative inquiry and practice.
People can engage with the Collective’s public question without seeking a private session. Adults interested in guided practice can explore the Room directly.
Where the work stands.
The research focuses on a draft competency framework and four overlapping strands: awareness, influence and choice, navigation and agency, and metacognition. A middle school proof of concept, preferably in an afterschool setting, would help test and refine the approach. The foundation brief, one prototype, and a later pilot plan support that work.
Read the development agenda