We Should All Support The Wellness Initiative

by Eric Weissmann

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The outcomes produced by Colorado’s public educational system are disgraceful. Denver Public Schools only graduates about 50% of its students, and the rates for black and Latino students are even worse, 39% and 31%, respectively. Many of you know that education is one of my top policy priorities – I serve on the boards of three non-profit groups in the education arena. One of these is The Wellness Initiative – a Boulder-based group that provides yoga and nutrition instruction to lower, middle, and upper schools in Colorado (at-risk schools get it free, better-funded schools pay for the programs). I’m pretty sure that I am the only conservative involved with TWI.

Today, I visited a yoga class at the New America School in Lowry. This is a charter high school focused mainly on recent immigrants. They offer both day and night classes, and heavy English immersion instruction. The yoga class offered is on the curriculum as an alternative to P.E. The 5:40 P.M. class was attended by five young women and two young men, all between sixteen and nineteen, and all ‘of color’. This is a challenging environment – three of the students had children of their own.

The class began with a journaling session – Alison, the TWI instructor, gave the students a few minutes to journal thoughts on their similarities with their peers, and their distinctive qualities. Once the students understood the instructions, the room was quiet. This was the most focused group of high school kids I’ve ever seen. The students than shared some of their observations, and related them both to the unique yoga environment and their lives. Alison then led the class through 40 minutes of yoga poses, with reminders to stick with the mental side, like “focus on your exhale.” I did the yoga side by side with the students, and I can tell you this is no watered down “yoga for wimps” practice.

I spoke with one young man, Dontrell, who is not quite seventeen but looks twenty-four and is the father of a nine-month-old daughter. Dontrell said two things that stuck with me. First, he told me that through yoga, he has “learned to stay calm in stressful situations” and this used to be much harder for him. Also, he has learned delayed gratification – he is “willing to be poor and work hard now to be wealthy later”. How many sixteen-year-olds think that way?” How many, indeed. I’m confident that both Dontrell and his daughter will be well-served by these learnings.

What are my own thoughts from this experience? First, all of us should support The Wellness Initiative. Click here to make a contribution, or contact me if you want to be more involved. Second, we need to think very broadly about potential solutions in education. How many ‘education experts’ in Denver or Washington would come up with something like this on their own? Something that seems offbeat or wacky on the surface may have a real impact; the awesome creative power of the marketplace of ideas must be harnessed towards education. Third, we need comprehensive school choice – including schools both public and private – in Colorado now. The children of wealthy parents today enjoy a wide array of options for their education – both public and private – and the autonomy to decide which of these options best fits their child’s needs. Why shouldn’t Dontrell’s daughter – and the other two young children of the yoga students – have the same opportunity?

Eric Weissmann, TWI Board member

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