How are yoga and mindfulness practices used to support students in Indian schools?
As an educator, I have always been keenly interested in the idea of teaching the “whole child” - that is, addressing a child’s physical, emotional, and mental well-being in addition to providing them with academic skills and content in the classroom. Endless research studies, and 12 years of my own teaching experience, have made it clear that a child cannot really absorb or engage with learning material until certain prerequisite needs are addressed, like being well rested, and getting proper exercise and nutrition. In the United States, we do not often teach children how to assess and regulate their energy levels and emotional state, and how to prepare themselves to truly be ready to learn. Over the years, I have watched countless students struggle with sitting still, focusing, and paying attention, skills that are emphasized in traditional classroom settings. As a result of this inability to self-regulate, these students' academic performance often suffers, and their self-confidence as learners wanes. Over and over again, we tell students to “pay attention,” without ever explicitly teaching them how to do this.
I am not the first person to wonder how yoga and mindfulness practices can help our students to feel more confident and successful; in recent years in the United States, “mindfulness in the classroom” has been getting a lot of positive attention, for its ability to help students become more autonomous, empathetic, and energized. Several years ago, I participated in a children’s yoga certification program through Little Flower Yoga in New York. Over the course of 8 months, I engaged in trainings and completed a practicum that gave me the opportunity to learn from an accomplished children’s yoga teacher. Therefore, my TGC international field experience presented an incredible opportunity to learn in the nation where yoga, a “science of life,” was first developed, thousands of years ago.
I went to India eager to see how these practices were integrated into students’ daily learning lives, and I have returned to the United States with a deep reverence for how Indian schools - at least the ones that I had the privilege of visiting - are raising well-rounded, hard-working and HAPPY students, despite myriad challenges and, often, a lack of material resources. Without explicit emphasis on teaching the “whole child,” I observed educational activities that addressed student needs far beyond academics. I have left India with both inspiration and questions… here are just a few of the big insights I gleaned from my international field experience.
1. People have to learn how to focus and pay attention, and Indian schools offer students instruction in this essential skill.
At Kendriya Vidyalaya Chattarpur, the school where I spent the most time while in India, I saw a foundational belief that concentrating and focusing are not skills we are inherently born with, but rather skills that need to be learned and practiced regularly, in order to achieve a degree of mastery. Each day at school began with morning assembly, during which all students and staff gathered before the start of classes. At least 3 times a week, hundreds of students are led through 10-15 minutes of simple breathing, movement and focusing activities. The fact that the entire school body participated in these exercises spoke volumes about the value the school places on these skills. Before opening a book or solving a single math equation, students were invited to energize their bodies and center their attention at the start of their day.
I cannot say for certain, but I believe I saw a direct correlation between these morning mindfulness practices and the level of attentiveness and engagement I saw in students as I visited classrooms throughout the day. For the most part, I found Indian students to be able to sit still and absorb content at a much higher level than I observe in my own classroom. This is not to say that the ideal student is a quiet, passive learner; indeed, I see a lot of opportunities for more active, hands-on learning activities in Indian schools. However, to successfully navigate through the world, children need to be able to hold questions and impulses, and think through choices and consequences without always responding rashly to situations. Daily mindful practices, over the course of years (a child who attends KV Chattarpur for all pre-university schooling will have had at least 12 years of practicing meditation at school), will have a cumulative, positive effect on a student’s brain and ability to self-regulate.
2. If you want students and teachers to use mindfulness practices at school, you need dedicated time and personnel.
If it matters, you need to devote time to it - that’s the takeaway for me on this one. Students at KV Chattarpur receive one period of yoga instruction per week, in addition to their morning assembly practice. There is a yoga teacher on staff who possesses a teaching certificate from the central government, just like any other classroom teacher would. Yoga is actually a compulsory subject in government run schools and there is a curriculum that goes along with it.* In addition to these facts, however, I think the value placed on yoga and mindfulness can be summed up by a single anecdote from my time at KV Chattarpur. We entered a younger-grade classroom - perhaps first or second standard - to find the students at their tables, seated quietly in meditation with eyes closed and thumb and forefinger pressed together. It was a language class, but the teacher explained that the lesson has finished a bit early, so she had them “practice their concentration.” “It’s hard for them,” she explained with a smile, and I thought to myself - EXACTLY! It is hard for children to concentrate, just as it is hard for many adults, and that’s why it’s a skill that needs to be learned and practiced. As they say, actions speak louder than words, and the apparance of yoga and mindfulness practices at KV Chattarpur says a lot about how this school system - and maybe even, how the culture at large - considers these skills to be an essential part of education.
Back in the United States, at the start of another school year, I’m thinking a lot about the different values that the Indian and United States school systems seem to promote about what “matters” in education, and indeed, what an education even consists of. Are we raising our kids to be students, or to be people…? What skills are needed to live a happy and successful life? Yoga and mindfulness teach essential “people” skills like being able to calm oneself down, remain tranquil in a stressful situation, and self-soothe… things that are arguably just as important as being able to calculate, read and write.
I do feel re-committed to expanding and encouraging the use of yoga and mindfulness practices in American schools. In the coming months I plan to learn, practice and increase my fluency in these topics. We, as American educators, can learn a great deal from the Indian model of yoga and mindfulness at school. Specifically, I’m keen to learn more about the methods and curriculum that are used to train school-certified yoga teachers in India, and this may be the inspiration for a future proposal or inquiry project for me. I am starting this school year with gratitude for my learning opportunity in India, and confidence that the benefits and outcomes of my experience have only just begun.