obama in classroom

Kids Say The Deepest Things

Last week President Obama visited College Heights Early Childhood Education Center where I teach yoga to 1 year olds and up since last year. When I asked my students several questions regarding the time they spent with President Obama, my passion for the importance of teaching yoga to preschoolers was completely validated. Read on and I’m sure you will appreciate the brilliance of these kids as much as I did. obama in classroom

My first question was to my Toddler class. I simply asked “how was seeing the President?” They are 2 years old and these are some of their answers. “ He is as big as a mountain.” “He is strong.”  “He has big ears.” “He smiles”.

I probed a little deeper with the older kids. I inquired, “How is meeting President Obama related to what you have been learning in Yoga? “ These kids are 3 and 4 years old and their answers blew my mind, put a smile on my face and no doubt melted my heart. These are some of their responses. 

 “He is tall and strong like a mountain.”

 “He stops and breathes when he talks.”

 “He stands strong.”

 “His heart is open.”  Then I said “please tell me what makes you think that?” The little boy who is 4 said, “Because Ms. S. (that’s me J), his shoulders are back and that keeps the heart open.”

A few other amazing answers from these children are “His words are clear.”

“He is nice to every body because his heart is open.”

“His heart is open so he shares his light with everybody.”

“He is happy when he sits because he sits up straight and lifts his heart.”

“He has power in his belly.”

We all have moments in our lives when we say to ourselves; wow I have done my job well.  Kids listen. They are hungry for information. They remember. It’s very important for us teachers to teach them well. With answers like that, I know I have done my share. Let your light shine. Namaste’.

More to Explore

  • Moving on….

    Our children have an opinion and I feel it is important for them to be heard. In my classes I welcome discussion and I let my students know that their opinions matter. Yesterday’s classes were magically healing. My Thursday morning class at LEAD Homeschool in Avondale Estates started off the day with heart opening poses…

  • Certified to Teach Kids Yoga in Middle School

    Last night felt surreal.  I was standing in my kitchen with Lee, Amy & Cheryl when they handed me a single piece of cardstock with the words ‘Certified Grounded Teacher.’ I felt my throat clench and my heart skip a beat.  Though I have been teaching Grounded Yoga for over a year, it was this small piece of recognition that let me know that I am now officially recognized as part of one of the greatest movements of my lifetime.

    Once I received my 200hr teacher training in 2012, I had begun leading my daughter’s classes at school once a week and eventually took over the Tween class at my studio.  I pulled resources from all around- other teachers, online sites, books, games…everything I could find to help create a well-rounded class.  It was a year of growth and some things worked and some failed miserably.  What I did know was that I loved teaching children- their honesty in their bodies and mouths and they way it was starting to create a shift in their perspective. My dear friend and teacher, Lee introduced me to Grounded in early 2013 when she came home lit UP from Level 1 training.  I watched her do Go To Your Room and that’s literally ALL it took!  I knew that something special was going on with Grounded…something that hadn’t been done before…something that was about to change how the world looks at kid’s yoga.  We put a plan together to “sell” our yoga program to our school as a full-time yoga curriculum.  And it WORKED!  I decided to take the Level 1 training just after school started so we could teach the same material and use each other to bounce ideas and begin to try to understand the huge undertaking we’d just landed.

  • Inspired by the Velveteen Rabbit…How Teachers Become Real.

    horse

    The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

    “What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

    “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

    “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

    “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

    “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

    “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

    “I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

    But the Skin Horse only smiled

    –  From the Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams  –