Hundreds of elementary students sit criss-cross applesauce on the floor of their school’s gymnasium. The room, normally bustling, is strangely quiet. The only sounds? Deep inhales, exhales—and a single note from Mr. Guy’s chime.
“I asked the whole audience, ‘How many kids here have trouble falling asleep?’ If there are 300 kids in the room, about 300 kids raise their hands,” he says.
For 40 years, Guy Louis Sferlazza has been performing one-man shows for Michigan students in Pre-K through fifth grade, blending live music, puppets, and lessons about music from around the world.
Over the past 10 years, he’s developed an original program using songs and skits to teach kids (and their grown-ups) about a powerful tool for stress reduction, classroom management, and—yes—falling asleep: mindfulness.
Why Mindfulness?
The idea for the program came to him at the beginning of what Sferlazza refers to as the “mindfulness movement” in education, when schools began experimenting with techniques to help students become more present in their bodies and less reactive to stress.
He wanted to help younger kids remember tools like focused breathing and thinking of things you’re grateful for. Music was the perfect vehicle.
APRIL WOODRUFF, PRESCHOOL AND CHILDCARE DIRECTOR, CORUNNA PUBLIC SCHOOLS“We know, based on lots of research, that kids aren’t ready to learn if their bodies aren’t calm and regulated. Social emotional learning is so important because it gets kids ready for school.”
“My work always reflected that type of sensibility. We care about each other, we want to interact with each other in a positive way, because everyone deserves respect,” Sferlazza says. “I thought, ‘How can I do a show about mindfulness so that a child can understand this?’”
During the past school year, with funding from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council, Sferlazza brought his mindfulness-focused “A Culture of Kindness” program to 3,000 students at 15 schools across Michigan.
April Woodruff, the director of early childhood services for a rural school district in Corunna, Michigan, says the residency helped bolster her district’s existing social emotional learning (or SEL) initiatives. She says teachers are still using the chimes Sferlazza left with them to signal the start of classroom transition time.
“We know, based on lots of research, that kids aren’t ready to learn if their bodies aren’t calm and regulated,” Woodruff explains. “Social emotional learning is so important because it gets kids ready for school.”
The Learning is Sticking
Sferlazza wants mindfulness to extend beyond the classroom. At the end of each residency, he sends kids home with resources to help them remember how to “breathe with gratitude” before bed and while getting ready for school.
In his 40 years of performing at schools, “kids have never been more stressed than they are right now.” Mindfulness is one way to process difficult life experiences.
At the same time, school funding for the arts in Michigan and across the country is facing challenges. Last year, Sferlazza was part of a campaign at the state capitol that successfully lobbied to preserve state arts funding.
Woodruff says that without that funding, there’s no way her district would have been able to bring Sferlazza in.
“When he comes back to our building, [students] remember him,” Woodruff adds. “They want to talk to him about the videos and his puppets that he uses. They want to talk about the chime, the instruments, and the things that they’ve learned. And that’s where you can really see that the learning is sticking.”