This year’s theme was, ‘Educating Students for Life: body, mind, spirit, community and emotion,’ and it was from April 20 to 28.
Mary Kuhn visited Milton Centennial School last Tuesday from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Milton is for students from grades primary to 2. Last Wednesday, she visited students at Mill Village Consolidated School from 12:30 to 2 p.m. Mill Village holds grades primary to 6.
“I went in to teach the kids some basic meditation techniques – very basic,” says Kuhn.
She says this involved working with students on making a connection with Mother Earth and nature and themselves.
The children, even the very young ones, grasped the concept, says Kuhn.
In both schools, Kuhn says she used the example of an apple seed, and students were showing her how tiny apple seeds are. She discussed how much potential there is in one tiny apple seed and linked the idea to people.
“That’s just like inside of all of us, there’s so much potential and possibility,” she told students.
Kuhn says she also discussed the idea of an energy that runs through Mother Earth, and the same energy runs through plants and animals.
“We’re not separated from nature. We’re very much part of it,” she says. “And that living energy, which is required to make that flower grow, exists in us.”
“This energy, when it’s awakened, we can actually feel it on the palm of our hands, and it comes out of the top of our heads.”
Kuhn helped to show students by having them put their hands on the top of their heads. Students then said, “Please, Mother Earth energy, come to the top of my head.”
She says everyone was quiet and had her or his eyes closed while doing the exercise.
“They could actually feel this energy,” adds Kuhn.
“So these kids, without me explaining how it was maybe going to happen or how we would feel it … they excitedly would say, ‘Oh, I can feel it. I can feel this cool breeze.’”
What she taught to students last week was a little different from what she teaches to adults, but she says it was “remarkable,” students could feel the energy without being told what they were going to feel.
“Children are so inherently connected to the present,” she says.
Unlike many adults, children tend not to think about the past or anticipate the future, adds Kuhn.
--The feedback from teachers and students was very positive, Kuhn says. One teacher commented everyday should begin with medication.
