Fascinating article: http://www.vancouversun.com/health/school+districts+adopt+unique+strategies+help+students+stay/8860653/story.html

Imagine students log rolling down the hallway as they move from their classroom to the library, or pedalling furiously on stationary spin bikes as they listen to their teacher.

 

These strategies and more are being used in a new educational initiative that is being implemented in several B.C. school districts, including Surrey, West Vancouver, Coquitlam and West Vancouver. Burnaby and Delta plan to join the initiative this year.

 

About 800 educators from across the province gathered in Surrey in late August to learn about the strategy of self-regulation, which is designed to help students, parents and educators understand the reasons why a child might be having trouble paying attention, ignoring distracters, inhibiting his impulses, modulating his emotions, and overall, maintaining a state of being calmly focused and alert.

 

Surrey School District’s superintendent Mike McKay is project director of the Canadian Self-Regulation Initiative, while Dr. Stuart Shanker, professor of Philosophy and Psychology at York University, has written a book about the practice and is a partner in the initiative. Shanker says the idea has taken off and that the entire country is watching B.C. educators to see the results.