Teaching yoga to children can be its own reward for the teacher, but the benefits for an individual child participating in a yoga class can be staggering.
Positives of Teaching Children Yoga
Many schools now offer yoga as an extracurricular activity or part of their daily lesson plans. These schools have reported observing some wonderful results.
- Children's Yoga increased self esteem in students.
- Children's Yoga improved student behavior, less discipline referrals.
- Children's Yoga improved physical health in students.
- Children's Yoga improved academic performance in students.
Why Bring Yoga to School
Practicing yoga in a school setting teaches students physical awareness, mental awareness, emotional awareness, community awareness and how to use relaxation techniques to reduce stress. Yoga in the school is a convenient and practical outlet that also improves balance, strength, flexibility, kinesthetic sense, focus and attention. Educators are not alone in their observations of yoga's benefits on school children.
Benefits of Teaching Yoga to Children
The medical community and researchers are now focusing their own attention on proving this qualitative data with quantitative data. According to a research paper by NK Manjunath, et al. in the July 2004 Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology entitled "Spatial and verbal memory test scores following yoga and fine arts camps for school children", children who participated in a yoga camp had a 43% increase in spatial memory scores over their fine arts camp counterparts. Manjunath summarizes that, "results suggest that yoga practice, including physical postures, yoga breathing, meditation, and guided relaxation improved delayed recall of spatial information.
Start a Yoga Program
Yoga teachers and school educators need to start with the understanding that although yoga can provide many benefits to children, children's yoga is most times a far cry from the rigid, self-disciplined study that adults undertake. It is full of self-discovery, imagination and fun. Children often lack the motor co-ordination and stamina to hold postures for definitive points of time.
Children's Yoga to Augment Education
A basic Children's Yoga class should be built around a central theme which can also be connected to an educational thematic unit. If a teacher wanted to integrate a mini yoga lesson into a mathematics lesson this could be accomplished by teaching the children Triangle Pose (Utthita Trikonasana). Triangle pose could facilitate discussing the different triangles classified by their angles that are formed by the body in this pose. The front leg and its respective arm make a right triangle with the 90 degree angle being made by the underarm area. The legs in this pose make an acute angle triangle between themselves and where they make contact with the floor.
The lesson could then include measurements of the sides of these triangles to determine what type of classification of triangle could be made when referring to side lengths (ie: equilateral, isosceles, or scalene).
Reaching the Students is Not a Far Stretch
The process of including simple yoga mini lessons into daily academic lessons makes teaching integrative and allows for employment of methods that reach different intelligence types and learning styles. Kinesthetic learners get the joy of doing something while learning, visual learners can see the triangles come to life; auditory learners can listen to the teacher's instructions while interpersonal learners can pair up with partners and help guide them through setting up the pose. The possibilities are limitless as long as teachers are open to the idea of trying something new.
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