Edna is a second-grade teacher in the Seattle Public School system. Last year she noticed that her students were having a problem concentrating. After their 75-minute block of math in the mornings, many of the students felt mentally taxed and not ready to move on to the next subject.
Edna knew she needed to do something to help. She heard about The Daily Mile through The Sports Institute at The University of Washington. The University of Washington Sports Institute partners with The Daily Mile to get kids across the U.S. more physically, mentally, and emotionally fit. Edna loved that the program focused on group achievements rather than individual success.
She decided to try the program. She introduced her class to The Daily Mile and very quickly saw improvements not only in class morale but also in how her students responded when learning difficult material.
“After going outside to run The Daily Mile, the students would come back inside and be ready to pick up with the next subject. Any frustrations felt by students struggling with the math lesson were washed away and didn’t carry over to the next subject. It was amazing to see how much their classroom focus and concentration improved!” Edna said.
After seeing the success Edna was having with The Daily Mile, her school’s other second-grade teachers signed up for the program too. They decided to run all their classes at the same time.
Edna noticed that in addition to the academic improvements, the kids across the entire grade started to build relationships with each other. Connections were formed as kids from one class ran with kids from other classes. And during the runs, students started sharing thoughts with teachers other than their own.
“This made our second-grade team of teachers and students feel like we had a bigger village. Often students would seek out one of the other teachers to tell them about a fun activity they did outside of school. Parents commented that they felt like they knew all of the second-grade teachers because of The Daily Mile stories their students would share.”