Satyananda Yoga Centre has started a research on the effects of yoga on children of classes 10th & 12th in schools in Chennai affiliated to the CBSE.
How it Began!
The mother of a child from DAV school visited me at my office & explained that her child had difficulty in attention and was also hyper active. She suggested that she would speak to the Principal of the school & arrange for a meeting.
In 2006, I had a couple of meetings with Smt.Lalitha Chandrasekharan, Principal of the School. We decided on the program for the school. She suggested I also meet the Head Mistress of the School, Smt.Jayashree Pillai.
I knew Smt.Jayashree Pillai, I was her student in the same school, one among the notorious students she had hard time to deal with. When I walked into her cabin, she was shocked to see me there. However when I explained that I had been requested by the school to conduct yoga classes, she was taken by surprise.
Smt.Jayashree Pillai took a long time to recover from her surprise. She was keen to know how I got into yoga; she was of course completely convinced that Yoga had the power to transform people; after seeing me as I am now.
Now she decided to personally choose children from the 4th & 5th classes, all the boys who were having difficulty in being attentive, who were always causing some trouble or the other - My kind of lot. She asked me to work with them & it was great fun working with them.
In the Yoga class for boys of 4th & 5th, in the first few sessions these boys were bringing sweat out of the yoga teachers from our centre. However as days passed; one day when Smt.Jayashree Pillai was on her inspection rounds in the school, she crossed over the hall where we were conducting a yoga session for the 4th & 5th boys. She could not believe the silence & the harmony that had filled into the space.
The resourcefulness of a yoga teacher was playing its tunes in the class. The boys were participating in all the activities with joy & willingness. It gave them a lot of hope & at the end of the year DAV school decided that they will continue yoga over the next years.
During the next year 2007-2008 we conducted classes for children of 10th & +2 for those who opted. In 4th to 9th all children who opted for it attended classes. The year passed with the understanding that yoga is something that has to be given as part of the schooling activities.
The Principal, teachers and even Shri.Jayadev, Founder Secretary of the group of schools was keen to introduce it into the school every year.
From 2007 onwards the school decided to make yoga as a part of all the children of the 10th & +2 classes. We introduced a log book to all the students and involved their parents, teachers and Principal in validating the correctness of the entries.
We could see some clear direction in the improvement of the performance of the children.
You can see in the statistical analysis of the school - Science group; The percentage of children who were able to score above 95% has moved to 30% instead of 5% & the children getting between 90% to 94% came down to about 25 % & there was no who scored less than 80%.
- Performance of more than 50% of children who were at 90 to 94% had improved
- Performance of all children who were getting above 60% moved to more than 80%
We had to conclude that with the introduction of yoga into the school there was a defenite change in the ability, personality of children. We also realized that they had become more confident than ever before.
Scientific Study
We decided that we will do a scientific research amongst children of 10th & +2 of CBSE schools in Chennai.
The criteria for observation was
- Intelligence
- Memory
- Stress
- Self Confidence
- Menarche
The following link shows some of the photographs of the events, activities and initiatives.
2.) http://picasaweb.google.co.in/sycchennai/DiscoveryOfHumanPotential?authkey=Gv1sRgCMD9qsnN1ebOkQE#
