CALM - Cultivating Awareness, Longevity, and Mindfulness in Education

Created and developed by Kerry Treichel

The CALM Toolbox

The toolbox is a dynamic collection of resources and workshops available to educators whose mission is to provide optimal outcomes for students by empowering themselves with a personal health and wellness practice that provides opportunities to find the inner strength and stamina.

This resource provides educators the ability create the ultimate arsenal of resources to empower themselves and their personal practice as well as sharing ideas with their students., colleagues, and parents. The goal is to reach teachers, who are the frontline of our students, by creating CALM Warriors a grassroots cohort of those willing to share and spread mindfulness, compassion, and well being. The ability to empower teachers with mindfulness techniques provides an additional tool to use in their classrooms to help facilitate the ultimate learning experience for students.

About...

Kerry has a NBCT in Early/Middle Childhood Reading & Language Arts. She holds a Masters of Arts in Elementary Education and is an alumni of Cohort 2B Public Education Foundation’s Teacher Leadership Academy as well as completing her GATE endorsement the Summer of 2017. Her passion is teaching, whether 5th graders or adults. In addition to being a school teacher, she teaches meditation, yoga, and leads Yoga Teacher Trainings and retreats, teaches Indoor Cycling and Group Fitness Classes advocating health and wellness. Additionally she is a 500 Hour Educator for Yoga Alliance and a YACEP (Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider® (YACEP®) and serves as Lululemon Legacy Ambassador. As a full time classroom teacher, a yoga and meditation teacher, Kerry has combined her passion for mindfulness with opportunities to foster a compassionate classroom environment.

Kerry been in the health and fitness industry for close to 30 years. The path came as a result of surviving bone cancer at 19. Her energy needed to be diverted from the fact that she had survived and was left to figure out how it all fit together. While what may seem strange, she felt safe in the clutches of doctors, chemo, and tests, but what happens after the last appointment, the last injection of chemo, the last session of radiation, the patient is sent out on their way with a prayer, a hope, and their fingers crossed. That is when a therapist skillfully redirected her energy into teaching. She was brilliant.

Nothing prepares a parent for when their child is struggling. Mental Health awareness and advocacy is always something she believed in, however, it hit very close to home when one of her children was diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety disorder, leaving him paralyzed with life. Kerry already believed in tools to help the mind, but when faced with helping her own family it became almost crippling. She discovered Same Here Global Health Movement after her son shared Robin Lehner's story (Goalie for Vegas Golden Knights) which inspires her and provides hope in the future or "normalizing" treatment for mental health.

Kerry explains that "Yoga has been in my life since I was a little girl. I remember duplicating yoga asanas from one of my mom's yoga books. I began to "formally" practice when I entered a group class and was humbled; yet inspired. Humbled because of the physical strength and stillness of the practice. Inspired by the words my teacher shared."

When she met her husband, a hockey player, cyclist, all around athlete, he introduced her to cycling. She immediately fell in love the sport. There was something organic about each and every journey that allowed her to experience meditation in motion. She has been passionate about partnering endurance athletes with yoga. Teaching the importance of breath, stillness, energy, healing, and mindfulness in their space.

She is a GATE Specialist at Sheila Tarr Academy of International Studies. She states "teaching is an opportunity for me to share meditation and yoga, not just to my students, but their families as well. As I'm reading to my students, they'll hang out in a yin posture getting that energy flowing or you'll see a few take a breath break, just to settle. I wholeheartedly believe that teaching children 'how to breathe' and meditate is simply a tool to place in their toolbox that creates awareness and the ability to cope with the variety of emotions that children face in school, in life."