In reality, school-based yoga typically focuses on physical exercise or on relaxation and mindfulness. Some schools integrate it via in-classroom lessons that have kids engage in a few exercises at their desk during short breaks throughout the day. Other schools adopt yoga as an in- or after-school elective, while some incorporate it into regular PE classes.

“Many original forms of yoga are practiced in a religious or spiritual manner,” acknowledges Marlynn Wei, a psychiatrist, therapist, and certified yoga teacher who’s written about yoga’s educational uses. Still, religion-infused yoga often pursues the same ends as its secular counterpart: For example, they both emphasize being in the present. By removing yoga’s more superficial aspects (such as Sanskrit words and symbols), yoga can still have mindfulness and be appreciated for its benefits beyond physical exercise, Wei says.

“The minute you put Sanskrit into a curriculum … some parents are going to freak out,” agrees Jai Sugrim, a yoga instructor who’s taught in schools.

Adoption of these programs has been uneven across the United States—yoga in schools is far more common in some regions than in others. Programs are, according to Butzer’s 2015 survey, based primarily in big cities on the coasts, such as Los Angeles and New York City. Areas known for their New Age–y enclaves—such as Colorado and the Northwest U.S .—account for many of the programs, too. Where they’re all but unheard of, Butzer’s data suggests, is in America’s heartland.

U.S. schools are teaching kids that morality isn’t important.

Big cities and liberal strongholds generally tend to be vanguards when it comes to implementing “ progressive education ” policies, such as the movement to replace zero-tolerance discipline with conflict resolution or the movement to eliminate homework . What’s more, much of the research on school-based yoga focuses on its benefits for “ urban youth ,” a high percentage of whom contend with trauma such as poverty, community violence, and exposure to drug abuse that takes a toll on their ability to manage stress. It’s easy to take this stuff for granted in areas such as parts of the West Coast and the mid-Atlantic, where, according to a 2016 survey , one in five people practices yoga. But in a state like Alabama, where school-based yoga has long been banned and where according to that same survey just 10 percent of the population has taken a class, it’s conceivable that many might see yoga as bizarre and inappropriate in a school setting. Notably, the same survey found that many people who hadn’t tried yoga before perceived it to be exclusive to young women or those who are already flexible, athletic, or spiritual.

Ironically, proponents argue that the value of yoga in schools is its inclusiveness —its promise to help boys who don’t know how to contain their outbursts, students with physical disabilities, children who struggle with obesity, and teens who lack direction. Perhaps the biggest obstacle faced by school-based yoga comes down to the fact that everyone has his or her own way of thinking about it. Religious versus secular, meditation versus exercise, exclusive versus inclusive—it’s little wonder that two people might see the same kid doing a warrior pose through completely different lenses.

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