Two years ago, when Jackie Brenner was 16, she was struggling to recover from a difficult knee surgery and to deal with her mother’s fight with breast cancer. Her life was full of stress.
She started researching meditation, yoga and nutrition, and she incorporated what she found into her daily routine. Soon, she started spreading her enlightenment to other students. Through Piece of Peace, Ms. Brenner’s nonprofit, she teaches others how to live healthy lives.
The effort is most established in Palm Beach County in Florida, but Ms. Brenner, now 18, also has volunteers — high school students — who teach the curriculum in Philadelphia and Exeter, N.H., and she offers all of her materials free at pieceofpeace.world.
Research has documented how students’ frustrations, fears and out-of-school trauma can get in the way of learning. A growing number of schools now teach children how to meditate and quiet their anxieties, hoping that their increased focus will help them perform better in school. Ms. Brenner’s work fits right into this trend.
To read more from the Hechinger Report, please click here.
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