Andrea M. Hyde - Stories of School Yoga

Stories of School Yoga

Stories of School Yoga

Narratives from the Field

Edited by

Andrea M. Hyde and Janet D. Johnson

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

2019 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY

www.sunypress.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hyde, Andrea M., 1969 editor. | Johnson, Janet D., 1968 editor.

Title: Stories of school yoga : narratives from the field / edited by Andrea M.Hyde and Janet D. Johnson.

Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018043672 | ISBN 9781438475691 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438475707 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438475714 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Affective education. | Hatha yoga for childrenStudy and teaching. | Hatha yoga for teenagersStudy and teaching. | School childrenMental health.

Classification: LCC LB1072 .S86 2019 | DDC 370.15/34dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018043672

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Contents

Introduction
I Just Breathe: Stories of School Yoga

Janet D. Johnson and Andrea M. Hyde

Chapter 1
Qualitative Research and School Yoga

Andrea M. Hyde and Janet D. Johnson

Chapter 2
The World Is Made Up of Stories

Janet D. Johnson and Andrea M. Hyde

Chapter 3
One School, Calm and Alert

Helene McGlauflin

Chapter 4
S.T.O.P. and Relax: A Yoga Curriculum for Students with Autism

Debra A. Krodman-Collins

Chapter 5
Achieving and Breathing: the Yoga Journey of a Public School Teacher

Lindsay Meeker

Chapter 6
Empowering Schools from the Inside: Training Leaders for Sustainable Yoga

Lisa Flynn

Chapter 7
SEL, Yoga, and Mindfulness: Developing Teacher Competencies

Carla Tantillo Philibert with Peggy C. Collings

Chapter 8
Creating a Nonviolent World: The CALMING KIDS Story

Dee Marie

Chapter 9
Sharing the Practices with Urban Elementary Students

Michelle Brook

Chapter 10
Yoga for Health and Physical Education (and More)

Joanne Spence

Chapter 11
Practicing Yoga, Practicing Justice

Peg Oliveira

Conclusion
A Place for Making Meaning

Andrea M. Hyde and Janet D. Johnson

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge the inspiration, guidance, and encouragement of those whose support was necessary for this project to come into existence. The motivation for this book came from the stories and experiences of yoga service providers and yoga teachers who bring yoga to schools every day.

We are indebted to Edi Pasalis and Iona Smith and the other organizers of the Yoga in Schools Symposium and Research Summit at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, where we first met in 2015. We especially thank Sat Bir Khalsa, Catherine Cook-Cottone, and Tamar Mendelsohn for their continuing support for research on yoga in schools. We also acknowledge and thank Michelle Kelsey Mitchell and the other organizers of the National Kids Yoga Conference for providing a continuing community for us all.

The authors in this volume embraced the opportunity to share their stories with us and with the school yoga community. Their narratives are modest snippets from the important work they do, and we are grateful for their contributions to the field and to this volume. Their tireless and joyful advocacy for students and teachers through yoga is inspiring.

We received personal and professional support from our colleagues and institutionsWestern Illinois University and Rhode Island College. Janet received a faculty research grant from RIC that allowed her to travel to work with Andrea in the Quad Cities. We are also grateful to QualRIC, a qualitative research group that provided extensive feedback on early drafts of the book proposal and beginning chapters.

We thank the reviewers who provided comprehensive and valuable feedback. Their words pushed us to do be more precise and aware of what was missing. We also thank SUNY editor Rebecca Colesworthy, who provided expert suggestions on revision and encouraged us to make this book into readable scholarship for multiple audiences.

We thank our families, particularly our husbands, who endured many evenings and weekends by themselves as we worked on this book together and alone. As readers, writers, and partners, their love and support was incredibly important. Thanks also to our fur-babies, Andy, Bailey, Mama Cass, Ozzy, and Silent Bob, who kept us company and, more importantly, reminded us to punctuate our sedentary work with snuggles, snacks, naps, and play.

And finally, we thank each other for friendship, collegiality, and hard-nosed scholarship. We pushed each other to extend our learning and examine our assumptions about yoga, research, theory, and social justice. We are better writers and researchers as a result of this partnership.

Introduction

I Just Breathe: Stories of School Yoga

J ANET D. J OHNSON AND A NDREA M. H YDE

Yoga is a process of replacing old patterns with new and more appropriate patterns.

Sri T. Krishnamacharya

When Im really mad and like ready to explode, I just breathe. And every time I breathe out I just let all the anger out.

William, yoga student

High school youth trail into the basement classroom at 9 a.m., yawning as they tease each other or look at their phones. William sweeps one half of the classroom where chairs and tables have been pushed aside. The classroom teachers direct students to the free breakfast of packaged muffins and orange juice, and then to the computers lined up against the wall, where students log in to their individual plans. When Janine, the yoga teacher, arrives, bike helmet still on, the hum in the room gets louder. Students jostle each other as they move to unfurl their yoga mats into an uneven circle. Miss, can I ring the chime? Miguel asks. Janine hands him the chime, and class begins. When students are lying on their backs for the final resting pose 50 minutes later, the room is quiet and still until the morning announcements blast suddenly from the ceiling speakers, interrupting the peace. David, eyes still closed, gives an obscene salute to the disembodied voice.

This kind of scene (with or without the salute) occurs in hundreds of K-12 schools across the United States. The yoga-in-schools movement, along with the mindfulness in education movement, has gained momentum over the past several years as adult practitioners realize the benefits of yoga in their personal lives and want children and youth to have the same opportunity to experience them.

Because yoga attends to both mind and body, it supports student overall well-being, which has led to its use in schools across the country. Teachers use yoga-based mindfulness techniques to provide mental breaks and physical activity during instruction and as part of their classroom management approach to help students become more aware of their emotions and actions and, in turn, to self-regulate their behavior. ESL teachers show their students how yoga poses are universal across diverse languages. Counselors teach mindfulness practices to support self-calming and stress reduction for students with behavioral issues. Schools adopt yoga and mindfulness to enhance social emotional learning (SEL), health and physical education, and anti-bullying programs. Educators also use yoga-based mindfulness practices to support principles of inclusive classrooms as well as academic content standards for second language acquisition, development standards for Early Childhood, and universal ethics. Mindfulness and yoga also appear in higher education, as yogi-academics, including teacher educators like ourselves, use the practices in their classrooms to support learning and well-being.