Monday, Monday….

I have been the Monday gal for years in a grade six class.  We are very lucky in our District that we can job share.  Thirty prepubescent children on a Monday morning after video games, staying up late and generally having a great time out in the world, can be hard to reel in.  Today after an excellent weekend grounded in Rick Hanson’s Hardwired for Happiness seminar in Vancouver, I decided it would be YOGA and a guided relaxation. I wanted to have neurons firing together and wiring together in deep relaxation.  Move the children into the prefrontal cortex of their brain so they could make good decisions and make learning new ideas easier to access.

Here we go….

Setting the tone can be very challenging.  I had to get everyone to buy in.  In the end, after we had spoken of creating a deeply respectful space, and how wonderful this would be for everyone, we settled on an experiment in brain science.  Could  this be an experiment to see what it would be like to move from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex and trust me, the teacher, enough to take them there?

How to lead the lesson.

• I was also supported in the room as both the counsellor and a support teacher were in the class.  These women both  have a strong grounding in mindfulness and self regulation.We started the chime and two minutes of relaxed breathing.  I guided the children through this part as I find they can focus more easily.

• One little trick I use is to ask them to imagine a pet or a little monkey sitting on their lap.  If they can deeply relax, the pet will too.  Have them keep their mind’s eye on the pet.  See the fur and the eyes and watch it relax.  Try to sync their breathing to the pet. After this, we did physical grounding with yoga-type exercises.  Many of the children reported they had done nothing all weekend and this was their first exercise in three days.  We opened, stretched and breathed into new spaces.

• Finally after about 20 minutes of this I had them all lay down on their mats.  We have a wonderful parent at the school who donated a class set of yoga mats, and this year we have a room we can go to and practice. I had to move a few kids around for this one, as I set the bar at complete silence and asked them to move to an internal space.  They must feel safe to do this and part of that is to have a quiet, uninterrupted space. Lo and behold, I guided them on a progressive relaxation.  Several students went into deep state and fell asleep.

• We ended in a circle and talked about the experience.

Payoffs

•  Children reported that at first they thought everyone was looking at them so they could not relax.  When they let go of that, they went deep.
• Children said it was the first time they had ever felt so peaceful – in their lives!!!! Wow.
• One child said she finally knew what it felt like to be safe in her body.
• Almost every student said they felt deeply relaxed and part of a group.
• They wanted to do it again.
• I noticed that the children were much easier to settle throughout the day.
•  The energy in the room was much softer and much more respectful.

How does this fit in with the curriculum?

How does it not?  In this hour we covered physical education, brain science and a huge huge section of our social emotional outcomes.  We allowed the children to learn to self regulate their own bodies and learn to calm in the chaos of their day.  We allowed the quieter children to have a safe space to rest and relax.  We created community.

I am not saying it was easy, but I felt and so did the children, counsellor and support staff that it was incredibly rich.

Michele Lilyanna