June 21st is the International Day of Yoga, a celebration of the ancient practice which is known to have widespread physical, mental and spiritual benefits.
The question is, should this ancient practice have a role in modern-day schools?
EducationDaily spoke with three experts in children’s yoga education to investigate how this activity – with origins in northern India more than 5000 years ago – evolved from the east to western counter-culture to become a popular exercise and mindfulness option that promises positive change to today’s digital generation.
Yoga’s acceptance into the mainstream became clear in 2014, when the United Nations deemed it worthy of an international day. In many schools across Australia, elements of it are celebrated every day in ordinary classrooms and school gyms.
Mindfulness and moderation
The essence of yoga is balance – not just balance between the mind and body, but also balance between humans and the world around us. Yoga emphasises the values of mindfulness, moderation, discipline and perseverance, the values underpinning education, community and sustainable living.
According to an OECD survey, young people in Australia experience very high stress in schools – and academic performance and mental health can suffer. To help counter the negative impact of stress amongst school students, the practice of yoga and mindfulness has become popular. These practices decrease physiological markers of stress in diverse populations.
The argument for yoga in schools
Recent research published in the Journal of Occupational Therapy, Schools and Early Intervention looked at the benefits experienced by children participating in after-school yoga and concluded that “yoga may have a place in the school curriculum for the purpose of teaching students simple coping skills when experiencing feelings of stress and anxiety and assist with controlling their behaviour.”
While it would be easy to see this as just another things teachers are forced to juggle in an overstuffed curriculum, some of the skills taught by yoga directly address the Personal and Social Capabilities (self-awareness, self-management) required by the F-10 Curriculum General Capabilities, as well as fitting in under Health and Physical Education (PDHPE).
“Schools are supposed to be an environment that supports the kids in their growth and study,” says Gopala Amir Yaffa, co-founder of Rainbow Yoga. “But it is long proven that stress is a factor that inhibits this development. The competitive and goal-oriented nature of most schools creates social phobias, exam anxiety and even insomnia [while] the non-competitive spirit of yoga and the focus on self-wellbeing, as well as the wellbeing of your environment, can help cure some of those negative effects.”
Yoga can help regulate emotions
“School life is stressful for both teachers and students,” adds Suzanne Ellis from Kids Yoga Education. “Teachers have extremely demanding jobs and kids are navigating through various physical, mental and emotional changes as they grow. Yoga enables children to quieten down their mind chatter and become comfortable inhabiting their physical body.”
As Stacey Louise from Inspired Kids Yoga explains, yoga can provide a “brain break” for students and “balances both hemispheres of the brain with cross-body patterning and balancing poses, which leads to better focus when they return to learning.” In addition to this, she adds, mindfulness activities can engage the frontal lobes to help children regulate their emotions.
But it doesn’t take years of training or study to get the benefits, says Gopala Amir Yaffa. “Small changes in the way kids sit and breathe can make a big difference in their ability to stay focussed and to learn. A couple of stretches and a few deep breaths every hour can help greatly in keeping a child’s positive attention throughout a class.”
The benefits for teachers
The general benefits of yoga include:
– physical benefits (strengthening joints and tissues, improving co-ordination and flexibility, improving respiratory capacity and lowering blood pressure)
– mental benefits (improving concentration and focus, tools for coping, learning how to ‘switch off’ and relax)
– social benefits (developing confidence, sense of belonging, opportunities for teamwork and communication), and
– emotional and spiritual benefits (encourages patience, instils resilience, and helps self-regulation).
As Ms. Ellis explains, “teachers get all the benefits of doing the yoga alongside the kids and knowing they are contributing to the positive growth and development of children”.
From Ms. Louise’s perspective, it’s a win-win situation that aids both teachers and students. “Teachers find that students are more focused and calmer after yoga when they return to the classroom,” she says.
Keeping it in the class
Not all schools will have the funding and facilities for students to do yoga in dedicated spaces, which is why being open to the idea of chair yoga, or class-based yoga may be the way forward for some schools.
“One of the best things about doing yoga in the classroom is being able to use the things that are already there,” Mr. Amir Yaffa says. “One can blow on a piece of paper from the student’s notebook for breathing exercises. One can even use a pencil for breathing by rolling it on a desk with your breath.”
Ms. Louise agrees and says chair yoga is “ideal for teachers to integrate into their classrooms before, during or after teaching content. It is also inclusive for students in wheelchairs.”
Some schools choose the option of out-sourcing yoga classes to qualified yogi but there are also many options for teachers wishing to be trained in basic yoga techniques that can have a big impact on their students.
Instead of seeing yoga as just one more thing to fit into an already crowded curriculum, it is more about taking time out from the curriculum to pause and breathe, to move the body and freshen the brain for more learning,” she says.
