Top Tips For Teaching Yoga In Schools - Tip #49: Leverage Your Community

Hi there,

Welcome back to the blog!

Today’s blog post is geared towards those of you looking to begin or expand your kids yoga offerings in schools or with other educational organizations!

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Tip #49: Leverage Your Community

There is power in community, and learning how to leverage your community can be integral to getting you in the door of a new school. 

What I mean, is this. Think about other organizations or groups working within your city and town that you could bring in as guest speakers or partner with for a day. For example, we have a great non-profit right down the street called the Institute for Integrative Health, and one of their programs focuses on nutrition education for youth through healthy cooking. So, a few years ago, I reached out to them, and they came in and did a cooking lesson, demo, and tasting with my 6th grade students. Not only did my students learn about healthy eating and cooking, it also allowed me to integrate discussions on mindful eating. 

So, when you’re talking with school leaders, think about ways you could add value to your program by bringing in other organizations / community members. My principal told me a few years ago that when an outside provider comes in having worked with other organizations within the community, and with ideas for how to leverage the community for the benefit of their students, it makes that outside provider much more desirable, and therefore, increases the likelihood of him saying “yes” to the program being proposed. 

The same holds true with your school community: think about ways you can integrate what you’re doing with your students in yoga or mindfulness with what they’re learning in art, or Spanish, or English. Talk to those teachers. Leverage your school community. You’d be surprised how much willingness there is, and how much more valuable your program will become when it’s seen as an extension of what’s already being done, not just an add-on. 

Tip Takeaway: Leverage your community! As you’re pitching your program to principals, include 1-2 community groups / organizations you’d like to bring in to enhance your programming, and why. Share information about other community groups you’ve already worked with. In addition, reflect on ways you can engage teachers by integrating yoga and mindfulness with their core content - and have them do the same.