Schools

Elementary Schools, Principals, School Counselors

Do you have a social-emotional learning program in your school?

Enhance your social-emotional learning program to make results sustainable.
Build bridges of understanding between children’s and to the world around them.

Principal reported bullying stopped.

Children were able to clarify and communicate their challenges, calm and center themselves, and as a result, became more compassionate towards their peers.

Was Wellness Through Movement lessons tested?

Strategies were tested for eight years in elementary schools.

Methods were revised between 2006-2018. Kohala Elementary school was our pilot school. The schools has children from multicultural and below poverty backgrounds. Over 500 children (in groups of 6-22 participants) and ages 5-10 years old experienced the WTM lessons.

According to Principal Garcia’s results of the WTM methods include: improvements in social-emotional behavior, academic achievement, and overall nature of the school culture . (See Principal Garcia’s testimony above)

Strategies are based on the Feldenkrais® Method, called Awareness Through Movement ®. The “Home Breath” lesson was implemented in the classrooms, at home, and the principal’s office. Children learned to enhance their sensory body awareness in the Home Breath to them clarify communication, active participation in self-directed learning, and calm emotions.

To get sustainable results the school used the Get Sensational program.

The Uniqueness of the Program

  1. Develops awareness of related to the body and what it wants  behind thinking, feeling, and learning
  2. Develops an internal spatial awareness that improves external spatial awareness and listening
  3. Develops awareness of the synergistic relationship between attention, the body, and the outer situations
  4. Develops awareness of how physical body changes to changes in attitude and perception
( √ ) Give me more background on how WTM was developed?

Chronological Order of Schools in the WTM (and Trainings)

(1987-1990 Feldenkrais Training)

(1990 – 2005 Feldenkrais Practice with Mainly Adults)

2005 Hawaii Preparatory Academy, Lower School, with Physical Education Teacher and Co-Creator of WTM, Susie Jones, with special thanks to Hope Soo
2006 First pilot class Hawaii Preparatory (fourteen weeks) 


(2007 Schools Attuned Training)
(2007, Brain Gym Training)
(2007, Yoga Ed Training) 


2007, April 12 -April 25, and January 15 lessons segment program HPA 
2008 – 2014 Kohala Elementary 
2008 Hawaii Preparatory Academy
2008, August 15, Intro to Kohala teachers 
2008, September 10, Introduction to Parents at Kohala Elementary 


(2009, Trained/Teamed with Schools Attuned)

2009 WTM physical education teacher Kohala Elementary 
2010, Hawaii Association for Physical Education Recreation and Dance Presentation 
2010, Kohala after-school program, one week, 25 students 
2010, May 7, Hawaii Association Physical Education Presentation 
2010 – 2011, Kohala Elementary School Breaks 30 sessions 
2011, Kohala Community School Meeting

2011 Intro at Kohala elementary¬ Festival/Spring 
2011, March 14th – 18th, Kohala spring break 
2011, September-May Parker School, Donna Rohr 
2013-2014, Research team: Feldenkrais In Schools Hui in Schools (FISH)
2013, Waldorf School Kohala November 29 
2014, the Last program at Kohala Elementary
2014- 2015, June 2014 – September 2015, video animation program produced– Get Sensational Attention, school-wide program 

Why is WTM so successful?

( √ ) What is unique about the WTM Program?

WTM methods use the nature of an innate intelligence. Children develop an awareness of the “container” (of their thinking bodies) from their inner to outer worlds. Helping children feel inside their physical presence gives them a new sense of themselves, the sense of “who” they are.

!. Read the material and translate the words literally (head).

2. Read the words, translate the words inwardly and outwardly, and feel the interdependence (body).

3. Experience the lessons. The “experience” learning is done by feeling the lessons.

In most perceptions of this day and age, there is a great divide between the thinking person and the acting body. Reimagine movement as the means of communication with the brain, and the learner shows drastic improvements. There is a bridge from the brain to the body. The “bridge” is made of sensory knowledge, laying the foundation for what is heard and understood. Learning comes from the Sensory Body, the nature of movement through life that develops the brain. 

The Wellness Through Movement (WTM) methods are based on the Feldenkrais work. Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais figured out the most foundational learning process in human life. The lessons teach an awareness of a deep woven sensory body through a sixth sense. This sixth sense feels the sensation of physical existence within the muscular-skeletal systems.  Muscular systems are affected by every activity of the mind and body. These motor organizations create a sense of self or wholeness. What lies within the inner workings of sensation is the knowledge of processes in thinking and feeling. Methods used in WTM introduce the nature of the very essence that lays the basis for perception. 

For five- to eight-year-old children, the methods easily allow them to experience the mind-body connection. For children older than eight, more detail needs to be understood. We tested the methods for eight years in elementary schools, and they were proven effective for social, emotional, academic, and general well-being. 

While it’s a given that we inhabit a physical body, only some are aware of the wealth of knowledge within these structures. Understanding the body’s structure and how it moves is the key to effective learning.

The User Guide of the video program Get Sensational Attention will give the children a life experience that will serve them for a lifetime.

Note: Look at the science of “body ownership: (Botvinick, 2004; Botvinick & Cohen, 1998; Ehrsson, Spence, & Passingham, 2004: Makin, Homes, & Ehrsson, 2008), and an individual becomes an active participant in how to learn and heal regardless of condition. Science

( √ ) What is the Science Behind the WTM Method?

The foundation to the method used in the WTM program is base on the work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais. He background was in physics and children development. The basis of the work looks at how the feeling in the body affects the brain and vice-a-versa. The children learn to sense their bodies to understand themselves.

See the Scientists webpage for a more in-depth look at the science. The talk by Catherine Rosasco-Mitchell at the “Movement Is” (2018) conference at Harvard heard here, may also be of interest. The talk gives research and six strategies used in schools in addition to the “Get Sensational Attention” program.

Key Words for Research Studies: Body Ownership, Motion Perception, Multi-sensory Integration, Motor and Cognitive Development, Organizational Identity, Motor Learning, and Embodied Cognition

Burin, D., Pyasik, M., Salatino A., and Pia, L. (2017). That’s my hand!  Therefore, that’s my willed action: How body ownership acts up conscious awareness of willed actions.” Cognition, Elsvevier, vol. 166, 2017, pp. 165-173.  Accessed 10 October 2017. 

Clark, D., Schumann, F., and Mostofsky, S. H. (2015) Mindful movement and skilled attention. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 29 June, p. 2.  Accessed 14 September 2015. 

Dijkerman, H. G., and de Haan, E. H. F. (2007) Somatosensory processing subserving perception and action: Dissociations, interactions, and integration. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30:2, 224-233.

Ehrsson, H. H., Holmes, N.P., and Passingham, R. E., (2005) Touching a rubber hand: feeling of body ownership is associated with activity in multisensory brain areas. J. Neuroscience, 2005, Nov 9, 25(45).  15064-10573.  Doi.  10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0800-05.2005.   Accessed 12 October 2017.

Ehrsson, H. H. (2012) The concept of body ownership and its relation to multisensory integration, A new handbook for multisensory processing (p.775-792). Cambridge: MIT Press.

Smith, Roger (2019); The Sense of Movement, An Intellectual History: Process Press Ltd., London

Spencer, J. P., Clearfield, M., Corbetta, D., Ulrich, B., Buchanan, P., and Schöner, G. (2006). Moving toward a grand theory of development: in memory of Esther Thelen. Child Dev. 77, 1521. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00955.x. Retrieved February 6, 2018, Database: EPSCO Host at http://cletus.uhh.hawaii.edu:2240/ ehost/command/ detail?vid= 0&sid=d52cbac6-3b6b-4532-90db-9fce01c09d1f%40sessionmgr120&bdata= JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db =a9h&jid=CDV. 

Stein, B. (2012) The new handbook of multisensory processes: The concept of body ownership and its relationship to multisensory integration.Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press..

( √ ) Do You Have School-wide Programs?

This program stopped bullying, improved test scores, and relieved stress school wide.

Choose A Track

Skills Gained from “Get Sensational Attention” (GSA)

Character and Academic Development

Positive School Culture

Communication

Centeredness

This program has been tested for eight years and proven effective in eliminating bullying, decreasing stress, and decreasing depression in elementary schools. This program is empowering the authenticity of who the students are and helping them solve their own problems.

Very Important!

To start the program you have to break the ice by teaching mindfulness using movement as the teacher. A fun way is to teach children through movement is the Personal Bubbles Freeze Dance game.

How does the school program use “movement” to teach children mind/body?

By turning attention inside (their bodies), children find their best friend, a friend that knows them better then anyone. When children turn attention inside to sensation, their emotional reactions fade and external distress is no longer the focus of attention. Children then have an easier time shifting attitudes and understanding the circumstances. (Adults need more practice but can do it too!)

Participants find what we call “Home.” Home is a grounding feeling inside that now comes into the foreground of external stress. The effect? Children’s reactions calm, clarity arises, and communication becomes productive. (Children are often told to take deep breaths and calm down but this program takes them one step further. It helps them feel the sensations of their bodies and find where the sensitivity of emotion is physically coming from. The emotion is also physical.)

There are two more lessons in the book, A New Sensory Self Awareness that also help the communication process: Ho’oponopono Home and No Place Like Home Breath. The lessons take the children through an organic and scientific process in order to experience how the body and mind help each other. Learn this step-by-step process when they’re young and it improves as they age.

( √ ) What are Some Simple Steps a School Can Do?

Read more

( √ ) Is There a Book?

A New SENSORY Self Awareness