Hi There,

I feel like you can't go two days without reading or seeing a story on the news about a school incorporating yoga and or meditation into it's daily instruction. Here are just a few (1) (2) (3)

I chalk up the recent prevalence of these stories to high level of stress kids and adults are reporting (see this recent study about stress). However, adding yoga and mediation as a classroom or school wide-program appears to be reaching a tipping point into the mainstream.

Evidence (data) to prove yoga and or meditation's impact is mostly anecdotal and qualitative but a new comprehensive program and academic study developed by the University of Virginia is underway in a public school system in Kentucky. The Compassionate School Project is social and emotional learning, deep self-understanding, stress resiliency skills, mental fitness training, physical regulation and exercise, and nutrition education within a contemplative and compassionate framework based on recent scientific advancements in the understanding of brain function and the body, child and family health, child development, and academic and social functioning.

My guess is that most teachers lack the training (I mean not every teacher is a yoga teacher, right?) and time to implement a practice yoga or mediation that would yield a positive or lasting result. Also, there have been a handful of lawsuits from parents who object to the religious aspects of yoga. In all the lawsuits I reviewed, the schools won but the cost of the court challenge is something most schools would like to avoid.

Unless a school building or district took up the cause as a school-wide or district-wide initiative it is unlikely to become systematic. So, I will add it to the pile of great ideas without the needed resources to get off ground (that pile is someting we at CITE are interested in highlighting in the future). I am keeping tabs on the Compassionate School Project to see how it is going and if there are any elements we can add to CITE's Toolkit for Transformation. I am most interested the training and professional development the teachers receive and at what grade level is it most effective. I will keep you posted.

Sarah Egan-Reeves, M.Ed.