| Children's Classes and Feedback 9 to 15 years (Jan 2009) I have been coaching a group of 15-20
boys and girls in 9 -15 years age group, in 'Counting Breaths' and related
methods since 2006. This has been a part of the Hindu Heritage class at It started as an experimental program
and has now become an integral part of the Heritage class. I could do this only
because of the open mindedness and enthusiastic support of the co-ordinator of
the program Mrs. Pratibha Gauri and Prof Ramnath. In the initial classes, they learnt and
practiced 'Counting Breaths' in different modes, for about 5 minutes. Once in
two weeks, I used to ask them to verbally share with the group what mode they
practiced, when and how it helped them. Initially, there was a lot of
discomfort, giggling and disruption by some of the children while practicing this
new method. I used to tell the class without naming any child and very rarely
naming a particular child, that if they could not remain calm inside the class
room, they should go out, calm themselves and come back to the room. A few
times I had to be a little firm. Some of them went out and quickly returned, to
remain in a quieter state. Over a few months, this behavior totally
disappeared. This year I have been spending extra 15 minutes with a few
restless children, in a separate room, making sure they correctly understood
the modes and made them practice in my presence, for about 10 minutes. Thus,
all of them gradually got into practicing in their choice mode, at a time of
their choice, outside the class. In Jan 09, after about 3 months of this
years' classes, I asked them to write down their individual feedback in a
simple format. You can see the summary of their feedback and their hand written
feedback sheets here. You will see from their feedback, that
each child made own decision as to - why to practice , when and what mode to use.
These were quite diverse with some popular features as shown in the summary. Please note
that I only coached them in practicing in different modes and made them
experience the effect of that practice in about 5 minutes. I did not tell them why and when to practice and how they will benefit.
They clearly understood the modes, sensed how even those brief practices
sessions of not more than 5 minutes were helping them calm down and maintain
self-control. They figured out on their own, how to make good use of these
practices. The learning from these extended trials is that children as young as 9 years
know their need to calm themselves, do not know how to actually do it and when they acquire an easy and readily
available tool like this, they spontaneously take out that tool out of their
tool bag and enjoy using it. How wonderful! These experiments on a good number of
children over 3 years prove beyond doubt that this or similar methods should be
a part of every school curriculum from a very early age, at least 9 (As they
grow up, their ideas start freezing as we observe in most adults). The benefits
for them will be better focus and self control at home and school. Their faces
will look calmer, brighter and smiling happily. No kidding! You can see this kind
of change in the faces A, B, C and D in the page ‘Unique Method’. I would greatly appreciate such experiments
by teachers and parents and sharing their results. I will furnish full details
of our program. Interested persons are welcome to visit these sessions at |