Some time ago a friend who is a primary school teacher shared with me his concerns about how to teach the HAUORA concept. The Hauora is comprised of 4 different elements:
Taha tinana – physical well-being,
Taha hinengaro – mental and emotional well-being,
Taha whanau – social well-being and
Taha wairua – spiritual well-being.
It is a holistic topic that can be difficult to impart to students. How do we teach each element of Hauora knowing that children’s brains work differently? Their limbic /emotional brain and sensory system, rather than their logical neocortex brain should be
engaged. To be effective you cannot talk to students about Hauora. TV screens and computers will not teach your students
social well being – you need to engage them with a process. They need to practice, feel and be engaged with Hauora. Using the whole body with all its senses through interacting with their peers – seeing them when they are happy and feeling happiness with them, seeing them when they cry and being ready to help – this is what teaching Hauora is all about. Hauora is about empathy and empathy builds social , human connect ions. It creates spiritual deeper values. Sharing meaning with students peers is what influences the development of a healthy, balanced brain and personality. The Hauora brings to our education system the opportunity to avoid what Albert Einstein was afraid of:
A peer massage programme run in New Zealand called Children Massaging Children (CMC) is being used to teach Hauora, and here is their story. It is the school holidays in Auckland and “Children Massaging Children” programme is in action as part of a Holiday Programme at Woodlands Park, Kereru. The children are excited, as today they will have massage lessons and practice “real” massage on each other. The lesson is being run by Yoka, trained CMC Instructor and Sports Massage Therapist . She will teach massage techniques that are similar to those Massage Therapists use in their clinics.
The two main benefits of this are learning empathy and enhancing brain metabolism by the secretion of endorphins or good mood hormones like serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin, all of which are natural antidepressants and released by the body after only 15 minutes of massage. The children sit in silence as Yoka gives a short explanation of the first techniques they will be using (back massage), which is followed by a song. You can see the smiling faces of children. They love it.
‘Scratch, scratch, like a little Siamese cat’,
says Yoka, ‘play the spine like a gigantic
piano; knead like making some dough to
make (some) bread’.
The song lasts for four minutes and at the end, the children change roles so that each gives, as well as receives a massage. “For the next technique,” Yoka says, “We will use a beautifully smelling massage wax for a hand massage’. In the CMC programmes, smell plays a vital role. Sense of smell is important as it positively influences young brain development. Fragrances stimulate the sense and can stay on the skin for a long time, thus prolonging the impact of the lesson by producing neuropeptides or ‘feel good’ mood hormones over a longer period.
The hand massage is named Hand Aerobics and Yoka tells the story of three generations of a family being like the fingers of one hand; Father is the thumb, Mother is pointer, Tall Man is Grandfather, Ring Man is Grandmother and the child is Pinkie or the little finger. All fingers in the hand family need a massage. The children pair up and the 45-minute lesson goes very quickly.
At the close of the lesson the centre manager expresses her deep surprise and says, “If I had not seen it with my own eyes I would never have believed it. Here are my ‘boisterous’ boys performing so quietly without any interruptions or hassles for the whole programme. What an uplifting picture.” The next day she reports to Yoka that the children spontaneously repeated the lesson by
themselves without instructor, music or wax. They remembered all of the techniques. Why? Because they enjoyed it so much. The majority of teachers do not need to be convinced about the value of the programme and the confirmation that educational establishments recommend proper touch gives them more confidence to give to their students the experience of positive touch.
In 2006, Jill Morgan from the Eastern Institute of Technology in Hawke’s Bay carried out research on the Children Massaging Children (CMC) peer massage programme. She found that as well as decreasing the level of violence in the classroom and enhancing academic performance, the CMC programme improved relationships between students and the father/male figure at home. Her
follow up research in 2011 confirmed these benefits.CMC is about building empathic societies, friendly peaceful classrooms and joyous and happy students and teachers. This is the concept of Hauora – this is CMC – this is bullying prevention.