Don’t you wish you knew yoga when you were five?

In 2007, OM Schooled founder Sarah Herrington was offered a full-time yoga teaching job at a NYC public/ charter school! It was a dream opportunity, to teach 5-7 classes a day, 5 days a week, to grades K-5 (or ages 4-12). There was one problem: she only had a 200-hour adult yoga teacher training under her belt. Luckily, the school supported her with professional development money to take a couple kids yoga teacher trainings (did we mention it was a dream opportunity?) But still, she found many of the tools she was learning didn’t work when it came to facing large classes of 25-30 kids, week in and week out, eager and quick to learn. She had no idea how to combine yoga with classroom management, how to ensure kids were achieving learning objectives in the yoga classroom……and what about emphasizing the social-emotional/wellness benefits of breath-work and meditation with her kid students? Also a writer, Sarah also wanted to find ways to bring creative writing into the classroom for kids and teens. PLUS…. lessons had to be aligned with state and national PE standards! There was a lot to figure out.

Fast forward to three years later, and Sarah was not only teaching kids full-time in this school, she was teaching in studios and privates and seeing how yoga benefited kids mind, body, and spirit. She went from overwhelmed teacher to a total kids yoga advocate. That’s when OM Schooled the teacher training was born.

OM Schooled has now trained hundreds of yoga teachers, classroom educators, therapists, parents and cool caring yoga-loving adults how to bring yoga to youth!

OM Schooled grads are out there teaching in studios, schools and “unconventional” spaces like hospitals, libraries and mentorship programs. Grads have started their own youth yoga programs and pass the light of yoga on with their own voices and styles.

In 2015 Sarah went on to also help establish the first Master of Arts in Yoga Studies in North America at Loyola Marymount University (OM Schooled gone higher ed :) While there, she taught in LA public schools and began teaching in the Yoga, Mindfulness and Social Change program. A yearly OM Schooled/ youth yoga for social change program is still offered within the university.

OM Schooled trainings and workshops are led online and in NYC. Look around the site for the latest!