GONGS IN SCHOOLS

Because of modern society’s constant exposure to stress, noise, screens and overstimulation, we are all in need of opportunities for our nervous systems to rest and digest. This includes children. Gongs in Schools is initiated by a collective of sound healers to create a generative program to bring an antidote to that condition to bring those opportunities to students in Philadelphia, and equip them with the knowledge and resources for them to do so for each other. 

 

Gongs in Schools is a trauma-informed mindfulness and sound-based wellness program that supports emotional regulation, focus, stress reduction, and social-emotional learning in under-resourced schools. The program incorporates sound bath activations and hands-on training for students and staff in the use of sound healing instruments like gongs, singing bowls and chimes. The program consists of three sessions of guided sound bath workshops led by professional sound healers in which students begin as participants in sound immersion experiences and, over the course of the sessions and workshops, progress to active facilitators, creating healing sounds for peers. The program will leave a lasting legacy by gifting a full set of sound healing instruments to each participating school’s music classroom so that they can create and support their own Sounder's Club.

 

We’ve piloted sessions at Hackett Elementary and Frankford High School and received both helpful feedback and high praise from the teachers and students in both music and life skills classrooms. We will be piloting our first full series of workshops this fall at Taylor Elementary in Kensington. 

 

We believe this program can have a deep and lasting impact on the social and emotional wellbeing of young people in Philadelphia and is while also demonstrating a model that can be easily replicated anywhere.