I Can't Do Yoga: An interview with Dr. Kari Koch

This post is a portion of an interview I did in 2019 with Kari Koch, a colleague from public education. Kari recently earned a Ph.D. in Earth and Space Science at Johns Hopkins University. She currently teaches ISI at Esperanza Middle School and owns two businesses, Windward Music Lessons of Southern Maryland and The Gothic Pirate on Etsy. 

Dr. Lisa:
So, when did you start doing yoga?
Dr. Kari:
I started doing yoga probably in my mid-20s. I just started experimenting with it during my first teaching job. I’ve been doing Yoga since then through online versions or if I can take it at parks and recs.
Dr. Lisa:
Were there any barriers to you continuing to do yoga?
Dr. Kari:
Sometimes, the availability wasn’t as great because I started in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a big city center. But I taught at a school south of Milwaukee, which was more rural, so availability wasn’t as great. However, the online availability was good, so I started taking online courses. 
Dr. Lisa:
What was your first experience bringing yoga into your classroom?
Dr. Kari:
Well, that was with the Yoga 4 Classrooms Cards, and I learned it from you during the Genius Breaks book study. I was teaching chorus at the time. The class sizes were large, and there were various behavior issues. The first time I added Yoga to my lesson, the kids looked at me like, “Wow, this is weird,” but not too weird because I was already doing some of those elements without knowing it was Yoga.
Dr. Lisa:
Why did you continue using yoga in the classroom?
Dr. Kari:
When my students first saw the different color cards and things for the method, they said, “Ooh.” Anything new to a kid is the most exciting thing in the world. Even in middle school, you wouldn’t think so, but they said, “What’s that?” So, I would start with the breathing piece, or if they were wild for some reason, maybe something happened in the hallway, or just something set them off, I would use one of the purple cards to calm them down. At first, I thought, “Okay, well, these are middle school kids, six through eighth grade; they’re going to think this is silly,” But no! I remember there was one that’s about a star that you envision in the sky, they instantly chilled out, and it helped them to calm down.
They got used to the different cards for different things, whether breathing, envisioning things, sitting down and stretching, or standing stretches, and it became just like methodology for them. They understood it and knew that it was time for Yoga. I didn’t always start class with it; I used it when needed. It became second nature and familiar to them.
Dr. Lisa Clow:
That’s awesome! I remember talking to you this past year (2019), and you are now teaching science. You said that one of your students did yoga with me in PE. Do you remember that story?
Kari Koch:
Some students saw continuity and learning across the curriculum. They said, “I learned this stretch from Ms. Clow.” I said, “I learned this stretch from Ms. Clow.” Then someone said, “So, what I learned in PE, I can use in science.”
Dr. Lisa Clow: That’s so cool.
Kari Koch:
Without knowing the teacher’s terminology “across curricula,” they just said it in their own words. And I said, “Well yeah, that’s the key.”
Dr. Lisa Clow:
You also told me that the students advocated for themselves, asking, “When will we do our Yoga break?”
Kari Koch:
Yes, I probably got that five or six times a week. If we were going on to start an extensive lab and after writing a claim, evidence, and reasoning, they were like, “When are we going to do our Yoga? I need the yoga. I need a break on this.” Sometimes, it would be just a quick little break, or sometimes, I knew they needed more, and you can always gauge that. And we would do more stretching because a 90-minute block for our sixth graders is a long time.
Dr. Lisa Clow:
Would you ever stop doing yoga in the classroom?
Kari Koch:
That’s a hard no. Students say, “I wish we could do this in all the classrooms. And just have a quick break, whether breathing or a sit-stretch.”  My classes go better when I include relationship-building skills and yoga. 
Dr. Lisa Clow:
That’s amazing because we have students of all levels and ages in the class, a mixture of everybody.
Kari Koch:
Yes. The class that benefited the most from Yoga was my inclusion class, hands down. All my classes loved Yoga. But, in my inclusion classes, where you have a higher incidence of emotional problems or stress or freaking out about that hard lab, Yoga helped them to calm down. One of my teaching aides said that Yoga was the key.
Dr. Lisa Clow:
Do you feel like you get an added benefit from the Yoga breaks?
Kari Koch:
Yes, there are personal benefits; if you’re doing yoga all day, even in small increments, at the end of the day, you’re not as exhausted or angry about something that happened. The stress doesn’t build up because, during each class, I can also take a break. I don’t feel like I’m teaching, and it’s hard; I feel like I’m teaching, and it’s enjoyable. So, I’d think, “Wow, what’s happening here?” And that was beyond my Yoga practice, but I felt like there was a huge weight lifted off each day.
Dr. Lisa Clow:
My idea for writing this book came from my experience with Yoga at school. When I experienced the benefits of yoga, I recognized the suffering of my colleagues and students more. Because I had worked through my suffering through yoga, I knew that Yoga could be helpful to others. 

Let’s try one of the Yoga 4 Classroom activities Kari mentioned in the interview: Big Bright Star. 
Listen below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mccAaABczj0