Originally published September 14 2005
School yoga program promotes mental concentration, emotional health and physical health
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
At three public schools in Philadelphia, teachers may now take time out of class schedules to do yoga with their students, thanks to the recent launch of a 16-week pilot program called Yoga in Schools, designed to promote physical and emotional health in children.
The school is one of three participating in a program to introduce children to yoga as a boost to learning.
In three local schools, they have the option of segueing into a few minutes of eye-opening yoga before handing out the exams.
The involved schools are the Urban League of Pittsburgh Charter School in East Liberty, the Pittsburgh Urban Christian School in Wilkinsburg and the Helen S. Faison Arts Academy in Homewood.
In addition to the mini-, teacher-taught sessions, the students will have weekly 30 minute to 40 minute-classes (depending on the grade) taught by trained yogis.
Yoga in Schools founder and executive director Joanne Spence said she believes the more than 600 students she, her staff and the teachers are reaching will benefit from "increased physical and emotional fitness.
"In terms of physical fitness, they'll be stronger, more limber and more able to participate in activities kids like to participate in, like soccer," she added.
If children are able to do that, come to that place, the teacher will be able to teach them."
Yoga in Schools was inspired by Spence's previous career as a social worker specializing with at-risk youth and by her own experience with the benefits of the ancient Eastern discipline.
"Throughout the development of my [yoga] practice, I thought often of the many children I had previously worked with as a social worker, and what a difference these simple movements and breathing practices would have made for the children in those years of social work practice," Spence wrote in her grant application to Grable.
"I think children from high poverty neighborhoods deal with a lot of factors that create stress and tension," Brownlee said.
The game speeds the cleanup and provides a little more time for actual teaching.
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