Research Question: Does Yoga and Meditation help students focus faster and learn more effectively?
Summary of info that informed action plan: I am currently in a second grade inclusion classroom that teaches Math, Science, and Social Studies. The students have many physical, mental, and academic disabilities which can aid in how rowdy the class can get. This class also has several students who have difficult home lives and come to school with a lot of stress and worry already on their brain. They may not have eaten since the previous day's lunch or did not sleep since they were waiting for parents to come home from work or outings. It is difficult for these students to focus and learn and I wanted to see how I could help them by implementing activities that will calm their minds and their bodies.
Description of action plan: I began implementing yoga and meditation on a Monday so that the routine would become commonplace by the end of the week. Every day after Specials, the students have snack and listen to a book being read to them. This activity helps calm them down so that they will be ready to start Math when they are finished. The lights are turned off and the room is quiet and still besides the food being eaten and the voice of the book's narrator. This is the feeling that I wanted to invoke for the students so that their minds could be settled and ready to learn. After lunch there is about 35 minutes that are used for the rest of the Math, Science, or Social Studies lesson that was in progress before lunch before the class switches to go to their Language Arts class. This time is often underutilized as it takes a fair amount of time to calm the students down and return to a learning mindset. Together, the teacher that I am working with and I decided that this time could be much more valuable if that time was not lost. We decided that this would be the best time to start doing yoga and meditation. Taking even as little as five minutes a day to do a short, calming activity could regain hours of useful time by the end of the school year.
We began using GoNoodle for these cool down times since they had a wide variety of yoga and meditation for children. They are soothing and slow, allowing students to truly melt off the stress and activity of lunch. The lights are turned off, the students all take their spots on the carpet or around the room. These spots have become theirs. They are the only ones allowed in the spot they have and other students cannot use it. The spots were all determined on the first Monday that we starting using these methods and we made sure that every student had plenty of space around them so that they would not injure another student while they are stretching and moving. The students enjoy these times and look forward to them. When they come back into the classroom after lunch they put up their lunchboxes then go to their spots around the room and wait for the activity to start. They know that these times are for them. They enjoy how calm they feel during and after a session. Occasionally they will ask to do another after the first one which we sometimes will do, depending on how stressed the students seem to be that day. We often will do at least two before a test so that students do not feel as worried which relaxes their mind and allows for an easier recall of the information presented to them.
Results of intervention(s): There has been quite a change in this class since the yoga and meditation was implemented. There are less student behavior issues, better scores on tests, more utilized time, and an overall happier environment. The students are friendlier with each other and there is less competition due to feeling more relaxed. When sharp words or actions come their way, they are more likely to let them bounce off and go about their day like they never happened. This is a drastic change from the beginning of the semester where students would cuss daily, threaten other students, and even throw objects such as desks at students and teachers. Of course, some of this is also due to being patient and talking to these students about their feelings and issues, letting them find more positive ways of dealing with these issues but there has been a steadier decrease since we added these activities.
Since we have started doing yoga and meditation before tests, the students minds have been more settled and less worried. With their calmer minds they are able to recall information that they have already learned and apply it to the problems on their tests. They are less likely to make simple mistakes like adding instead of subtracting or making math errors such as 10-7=2. Also, they have been more likely to look over their work and see if there are any mistakes and correct those mistakes.
There used to be a lot of lost or wasted time due to how long it took the class to regroup after lunch. Now, part of this time is put into yoga or meditation while the rest is used for learning. This reclamation of learning time has also added in the boosted test scores since it allows for more time for teaching and practice of new and old material. The students are able to use more math, science, and social studies games and activities due to this better managed time which lets them show and use their learning in fun and safe forms.
As the class has less behavior issues, better scores, and more learning time there has been an increase in student and classroom happiness. Each of these small factors work together to build a more cooperative classroom for students and teachers alike. I see more smiles and hear more laughter every day and it is so rewarding, knowing that just adding one simple thing to their day has been helping them so much. The students write each other nice notes every so often and when students are out sick, they write that students notes and put them on the class 'wishing well'. One student went to the hospital and the whole class decided to write him get well cards that were given to his brother. The student's brother took the student the large stack of notes and told us how happy the student was to get them.
In order to show the results of this small addition, I shared my findings with another teacher. The teacher I work with teaches the students Math, Science, and Social Studies and they switch to another teacher for their Reading and Writing. Since we share the same students, I showed this teacher how the class has changed for the better since implementing this system. I wanted to help her in all the ways that my class was helped so that she could gain from what I had tried. She liked that my idea was simple but helped so much and started using it when the students first came into her classroom. Like my classroom, each student has a spot in the room that is theirs where they do their activities. This has helped her with that class almost as much as it has helped them in my class. She also uses it before giving the students a test which has raised their scores in that classroom as well. I asked her and my teacher if they would consider using this idea next year, for a whole year, and they told me they would seriously have to consider it. It aided them quite a bit and they would have to see how well it would work with a new class but they believed it would still be useful.
Conclusion: I believe this project to be a success. It is simple enough that it can be added in just a few days without much change to the daily schedule. It reaps so much reward for the slight effort it takes that it would be worth considering to any teacher of any grade. The whole process takes less than ten minutes a day and leads to a year of less behavior incidents, better test scores, more utilized learning time, and more overall happiness and peacefulness in the classroom. I cannot wait to start using it in my own classroom from day one all the way to year's end. The behaviors taught can be used as students grow and age as well since it teaches them self-control and ways to monitor their own feelings. Using these activities to calm down before tests can lead to a future of better grades and a more relaxed outlook on school and life.
Areas for further study/recommendations: If I was to study this further, I would want to use more classrooms and more students of different ages and academic levels to prove the effectiveness. I believe that there should be no large differences in student results but I want to prove this so that this method can be used in as many classrooms as possible. Some teachers might think it is strange and too out there but they would probably be the ones that would gain the most from this simple procedure. What can be achieved from it is worth trying out a few times. It does not have to be utilized every day but the best results would be received if it is done so.