As part of Denver-based Axis Yoga teacher training program, students are asked to implement the what they are learning into their daily lives. Ashley, a recent graduate of the program, works at a public school in Denver helping third graders improve their reading. She is confronted with the fact that many of the students she works with […]
Each afternoon for the last hour and a half of the school day, I work on reading with third graders. By this time of the day, the students and their teacher are worn out and a frenetic buzz drives students to throw paper, write each other nasty notes, and engage other forms of crazy-making. The […]
In his March 18, 2010 message to the DPS community, Superintendent Tom Boasberg says: “We are failing the civil rights challenge of our generation: to ensure that all of our students, regardless of ethnicity or income status, graduate from our high schools prepared for college or career. Now is time to accelerate our reforms, to […]
It is absolutely necessary to pay attention to the present circumstances of students. Boasberg’s proposal calls attention to the inherent difficulty embedded in his words and within the school system. Boasberg and the Denver Public Schools 2010 Denver Plan: Strategic Vision and Action Plan address the concerns of the individual student, but my experience demands […]
Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs and even kindergarten are not required by DPS. This is especially true of populations at the fringe of the dominant culture – ethnicity, income, and neighborhoods are factors that impact the “whole child” before they enter the school building for the first time, and each day thereafter. Many students attend […]
Several Denver-based yoga studios and groups offer classes specifically for children and/or adolescents: Between the Bones, a movement and dance group operating at the Sixth Avenue Church of Christ, offers Storytime Yoga, Girl Power Yoga, and Peaceful Warrior Yoga; Yoga For the People matches volunteer instructors with nonprofits who help at-risk youth; Yoga for Young […]
As I’ve worked one-on-one reading and writing with first through third graders, I’ve noticed that after a point the student begins to squirm. Some students squirm right away, others’ threshold isn’t reached for upwards of 10 minutes, but each student invariably squirms. I admire their struggle to persevere once they’ve reached this point. I, too, […]
As I continued to research methods for teaching children after I had begun my experiment, I received a book I’d requested from the library: Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head, by Carla Hannaford. Hannaford’s book became a valuable tool: it changed the shape of my experiment. In the final stages of […]
My question, in it’s various forms, essentially is: how does five minutes of yoga before reading and station rotations impact the behavior and productivity of third graders? I hypothesized that third graders would respond positively to yoga by participating with enthusiasm and by succeeding in following directions during independent reading and station rotation (i.e. they […]
I consulted whatever text I could find on yoga for children: during the project’s short time frame, I read books as I received them, and two in particular impacted my procedure. I was also able attend a Yoga For Young Warriors class at the Eliot Street Collective. I began on a Thursday: I tried to […]