While other students in Auburn Junior High School have been bound to their desks Tuesday afternoons this school year, Kristi Newton's health class has been doing yoga.
The yoga provides physical exercise but the purpose of the class goes beyond that. Newton began using yoga as a way to cope with the unexpected death of her brother-in-law, Peter Thomson, around four years ago. She eventually thought that since yoga helped her get through her loss, it might be able to help her students deal with issues in their lives.
She started with students doing chair yoga in the classroom, but Newton and Didio expanded it. Newton said she believes yoga helps students learn how to reduce stress and do simple anxiety-vanquishing exercises.
Newton said her students have risen to the challenge. Students who had previously had to leave her class due to behavior issues and have since focused and responded to the yoga even better than other students, she said. She wanted to give students a way combat stress in their lives, just as it helped her.
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