Introducing breath-awareness in mainstream education
Over the past few weeks an idea for a new project has been brewing in my mind and only yesterday did it finally take shape as an abrupt phrase – 50 schools in Japan!
The 200 odd testimonials I collected during my previous trip to Japan were deeply appreciative of the breath-awareness workshops. I was amazed and touched that the participants took time to write very insightful feedback – about what they felt during the workshops and how they would apply the breath-awareness activities in everyday life. So it isn’t much of a surprise that I am very keen to further my work in the Japanese context.
However, that is easier said than done. There are a number of challenges that need to be address and I have been wondering about the best way to move forward. Past experience has shown that I am most motivated when I have a definite goal to work towards, which is why I have been dwelling upon – to use a terrible cliche – the bigger picture. One thing is for sure, I definitely want to work in mainstream education. Despite the constant demands placed on students, they are considered to be ‘healthy’ until they begin to physically manifest the effects of stress, anxiety and tension. This is why I feel it should be a priority for schools to introduce training which empowers students with emotional-control and behavior management skills. As I have mentioned in an earlier blog post, seeding breath-awareness is perhaps the best way to achieve this. And I spent a considerable amount of time and effort whilst pursuing my PhD research to create a pragmatic and secular framework through which this could be done.
Coming back to the issue of furthering my work in Japan. The last time I worked with somewhere between 170-180 children and a small number of school teachers. For the next time, I want the scale of the project to be significantly larger. There are a number of reasons for this and I assure you that a misplaced yearning for grandiosity isn’t one of them.
[more later]
