Stretching in the Classroom: How Some School Districts Are Seeing the Benefits of Yoga During the School Day
By: Lisa Flynn
For the past three years, the National Kids Yoga Conference has quickly become the epicenter of, and ‘miracle gro’ for, the movement to bring yoga and mindfulness practices to communities and education settings across the country.
Last year, I served on a panel with renowned yoga researcher, Sat Bir Khalsa, PhD. The discussion focused on feasibility and options for collecting data without funding or a doctoral degree. It’s a topic I’ve been passionate about since my experience as a non-researcher contributor to a study examining the acute and longitudinal effects of a school-based yoga intervention in young children. Those of us who are program providers understand the importance of growing the body of scientific evidence in order to grow policy and financial support, but most of us are not researchers. Fortunately, there are many ways to collect and share data.
This year, presenter Andrea Hyde, an associate professor and researcher at Western Illinois University, will give an overview of qualitative case study research and will distribute a DIY case study template for assessing school-based yoga programs. I’ve been inspired by conversations with Andrea over the years and as a result, my team has begun to document the implementation journeys of the schools we have supported. Our first case study highlights the school-wide implementation of the Yoga 4 Classrooms program at Edmunds Elementary School in Des Moines, Iowa, revealing several notable outcomes as a result of yoga and mindfulness integration over the last two years.
Edmunds Elementary is an inner city school in Des Moines where the student population is 95 percent minorities, with over 60 percent English Language Learners. When school principal, Jaynette Rittman (also a presenter at the 2015 conference), started at Edmunds three years ago, she found that the students were extremely dysregulated despite the positive behavior intervention systems and social and emotional skill building programs they had in place. Jaynette and her staff integrated their existing tools to create a school-wide system called EC3 (Edmunds Culture, Climate and Content). While this created a new framework for school-wide expectations, including the implementation of “Stop-Think-Make a Good Choice”, there was still something missing. Students were beginning to stop to think, but they were still lacking the skill set needed for self-management and responsible decision making.
After investigating the related benefits of integrating yoga and mindfulness at school, Jaynette and her staff decided to train with Yoga 4 Classrooms®. With full staff buy-in and internal leadership, Yoga 4 Classrooms has been integrated twice daily into the schedule and implemented school-wide with notable results. After just two years, Edmunds Elementary went from having the lowest test scores in the district to an 18.7 percent increase in 2016, the most significant improvement district-wide. Office referrals decreased from 1000 incidents per year, 3 years ago, to 250–300 incidents in 2016. Demonstrations of student engagement and student leadership have become increasingly common, as well as instances of students applying new skills outside of school during challenging situations. Staff members have shared that their own well being, emotional resilience and effectiveness have been improved, and some have even been inspired to start or deepen their own personal yoga practices, as well. Not surprisingly, a general feeling of community, connectedness and overall engagement has had a significantly positive impact on overall school climate. Inspired by Edmunds’ story, six other schools in the district have now completed Yoga 4 Classrooms implementation training.
My hope is that this and future case studies not only help support the growing evidence-base supporting yoga for children, adolescents and in schools, but as well inspires other yoga program providers and schools to similarly document and share their experiences.
About Lisa Flynn
Lisa Flynn, E-RYT, RCYT, is the founder of ChildLight Yoga® and Yoga 4 Classrooms®, organizations providing evidence-informed yoga and mindfulness education to children and youth, as well as training, products and resources for parents, educators, yoga teachers, allied professionals and others who support the physical, social and emotional well-being of children, youth and families. She is the author of the Yoga 4 Classrooms Card Deck (2011); Yoga for Children: 200+ Yoga Poses, Breathing Exercises, and Meditation for Healthier, Happier, More Resilient Children (2013); contributor to Best Practices for Yoga in Schools (2015); contributor / sponsor of the FREE Research Respository: Yoga, Mindfulness and Meditation for Children, Adolescents and in Schools (2016); and contributor to the first research study to use subjective and objective data to examine the acute and longitudinal effects of a school based yoga intervention in young children published in the Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine (2015). Lisa’s studio and training center in Dover, NH was recently honored as the region’s “Small Business of the Year,” for contributions to the community.
Lisa presented at the previous three National Kids Yoga Conferences. At the 2016 conference later this month, she will be joining other movement leaders including Cheryl Crawford, Henry Cross, Debby Kaminsky and Jennifer Cohen Harper on a keynote panel to address program sustainability. She’ll also co-present with Leah Kalish in a session titled, “Product Development 101”, and finally, she will join Jodi Komitor and Pleasance Silicki in what is sure to be a lively and informative roundmat discussion on the business of kids’ yoga.
Related NKYC Blog Posts:
Presenter Spotlight: Lisa Flynn
The Science Behind Yoga for Children,Teenagers and in Schools: A Free Research Respository, by Lisa Flynn
