Students may choose yoga over detention
LANCASTER — Lancaster High School students are finding that stretching themselves into sun salutation and downward dog poses beats sitting around in detention.
Students given detention for misbehavior may take a yoga class instead under a program that started this school year.
So far, about 20 students have taken advantage of the opportunity to practice yoga since the program started in October, including some who have attended multiple classes — not because they kept getting detention, but because they found they enjoy yoga.
The hour-long, afterschool yoga classes are open to all students. Besides the students who have taken the class in lieu of an hour-long detention, some have chosen it on their own, and guidance counselors also have referred some students with stress or anxiety to the class for its therapeutic breathing and calming exercises.
The REaCT program (Restorative Exercises and Coping Techniques) is intended to teach disruptive or anxious students techniques for calming down and coping. Students who have not been taught to manage stress sometimes act out.
Yoga’s breathing, stretching and mindfulness techniques provide students with healthier ways to manage the daily hassles of life, said yoga instructor Lauren Greenspan.
Greenspan, who cofounded the Columbus nonprofit Youth Yoga Project with partner Julia Handelman, funded the yoga program at Lancaster High School with an $11,000 grant from the Crane Family Foundation in Columbus.
“We would love to continue the partnership, so we will look for (more) funding to make that happen,” she said.
The organization also has provided yoga programming at schools in the Columbus, South-Western and Westerville school districts. The Lancaster class is the first alternative-to-detention program.
“I think it’s definitely a much brighter alternative than detention,” said 14-year-old Bryce Snyder, who opted for yoga after he was cited for disrupting class. “I like to make a lot of jokes in class, and I got in trouble for that,” he said.
Bryce liked it well enough that he has returned for more yoga. “You get to learn hands-on skills like breathing and coping. That helps me with stress and anxiety,” he said. “It’s extremely relaxing.”
Tray Scandalito, who also is 14 and chose yoga over detention (he was in trouble for excessive tardiness), has become a regular at the class.
“It’s a good program for kids who are easily distracted or getting in trouble,” he said. “I get hyper. I tried it, I liked it. It is very relaxing. I like the whole concept of doing yoga.”
Abi Jacobs, 15, chose to take the class because it sounded cool. She has lost count of how many classes she has attended, and how many sun salutations, downward dog, tree and warrior poses she has done.
“It pushes my limits — my muscles, my endurance,” she said. “It can also help me calm down, and it helps my headaches.”
District Superintendent Steve Wigton and Lee Ann Haight, administrator of district services, both practice yoga individually in their spare time and took the class with the students recently. They enjoyed it.
“She teaches great tools for our students to use,” Wigton said. “How to calm themselves, how to focus is important for their lives currently and in the future. We are fortunate to have this program here, and we are looking to expand it to get more students involved.”
The class is held once a week, but there are plans to provide it twice a week.
English teacher Laura Specht and math teacher Lindsay Swartz, who is Greenspan’s sister, proposed the yoga-in-lieu-ofdetention program as an alternative to traditional discipline. Besides learning the calming breathing and stretching techniques that yoga offers, students who take the class instead of detention are required to reflect on what they did wrong and what they will do to make things right.
Teachers and counselors encountered some student skepticism and misconceptions about yoga when the program launched.
“Some students think it is something that wealthy people with too much time on their hands do,” Specht said. “They don’t understand the benefits of learning to breath and thinking before you act.”
Among the students who have taken the class, all reported it increased their self-awareness and gave them ideas for how to resolve conflict in a healthy way, according to the written reports that Greenspan is collecting. Most cited breathing and relaxation techniques as the tools they will use when they are feeling angry or upset, and most said the program gave them ideas for how to avoid getting in trouble in the future.
The students who balanced, stretched and breathed their way through poses at a recent class said they are finding ways to incorporate yoga into their lives outside school, too. Abi said doing the sun salutation is a good way to wake up in the morning, and taking the deep breaths she has learned in yoga class calm her down when she is feeling anxious.