ABSTRACT
Contemplative practices such as yoga and mindfulness meditation are proliferating in the West in general and in U.S. schools in particular. Schools utilize these practices to manage student stress, aid in academic focus, and as an alternative to discipline. This chapter contends that schools could implement yoga programs that aligned with a different goal in line with yoga philosophy—that is not to control bodies but to facilitate self-awareness and personal and social transformation. As such, the researcher and yoga teacher in collaboration with a secondary social science teacher implemented a qualitative action research intervention grounded in the educational framework of Paolo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy and J. Krishnamurti’s holistic education. This theoretical stance along with yoga philosophy undergirds the program in a socially just social science course and discloses the ways that yoga (both the physical postures and meditation practices) led to student self-awareness in the service of personal transformation.
