Schools adding yoga to phys-ed classes

A former physical education teacher is helping to bring a successful project of teaching yoga to high school students to schools across New Brunswick.

Jenny Kierstead works with Breathing Space Yoga in Halifax and helped design the Yoga grade 11 and 12 curriculum for the Nova Scotia Department of Education.

The program's success is now prompting schools across Canada to pick it up.

She said Nova Scotia was the first place in North America to offer yoga as a high school physical education credit.

Classes are already available across Nova Scotia as well as at Kennebecasis Valley High School in the Saint John area.

Kierstead said shes already taught more than 200 teachers to implement this course and they are seeing impressive results in the classroom.

"Kids are being kinder and more compassionate and we're noticing that the whole culture of schools is changing," she said.

"So teachers are finding it easier to really deliver the message of kindness, compassion and respect."

The former physical education teacher said the results are having positive effects beyond the classroom.

"There was a testimonial written from a girl who's had a very challenging upbringing with alcoholism and whatnot. And she's noticing through yoga that she's actually able to sleep through the night," she said.

She's now helping to bring the practice to New Brunswick high school students.

People from all over New Brunswick are enrolling in the $250 workshops in Moncton, which will run on weekends through August.

The yoga classes will be offered in the schools in September.

Kierstead said she believes the classes are an important addition to a physical education curriculum.

She said there are benefits to students who normally do not participate in gym classes and other activities.

"Students are more fit, especially the students that typically sit on the sidelines in phys. ed. Girls are responding very positively to it because of its non-competitive nature," she said.

"It's a very complete form of physical activity. So it's targeting the big physical challenges that kids have today: obesity, diabetes and inactivity."