Thriving in Chaos: How Emily Fleming is Using Yoga to Teach Life Skills to Students
I am so excited to share this second installment of Thriving in Chaos: A Focus on Woman in Small Business with you! When I was developing this idea, my goal was to connect with women who were throwing out the script and finding their own way.
Emily Fleming is doing just that. I honestly loved listening to her talk about her journey from classroom special education teacher to where she is now. It’s just so inspiring!!
Without further ado, I present to you Emily Fleming, the Founder and Chief Consultant of Yoga in Classrooms and Schools, whose curriculum is changing the way schools can provide social and emotional support to their students.
A Different Route to Entrepreneurship
For Emily Fleming, entrepreneurship wasn’t always the goal. Her professional story starts in a Chicago classroom, where she taught for Teach for America after graduating from Colby College in 2012. While teaching, she also earned her Master of Arts in Education from National Louis University.
Emily loved teaching. She loved interacting with the kids, seeing their faces light up when they grasped a concept, and making a difference in their lives. But, like many classroom teachers, she got burnt out – fast. With so much pressure on teachers, especially in high-needs classrooms, she was finding herself unable to separate from the stress of work.
Throughout her life, she had always been a fan of yoga, but it was during her time in those Chicago classrooms that she really developed a deeper appreciation. Relying on her practice to get her through the tough times of teaching, she came up with an idea. What if she could marry her love of yoga with her love of teaching in a way that benefited kids in the classroom?
Planting the Seeds
After working in Chicago for a few years, Emily set out to find a school that would be interested in a different spin on physical education. That’s when she found The Crossroads School in Baltimore, Maryland.
After pitching her idea of yoga and meditation to the principal, she was given the opportunity to develop a curriculum that not only addressed the physical education needs of middle school students but also tied in the foundations and principles of yoga and meditation that she believed in.
The program she developed thrived, and for eight years, she taught countless middle school students not only how to practice yoga but also how to develop important social and emotional skills that they could carry throughout their lives.
While she absolutely loved teaching her classes, this development sparked an idea: What if she devoted her life not just to teaching on a day-to-day basis but to spreading the success she had had with other schools?
In 2017, with a successful curriculum that was well-loved by not only her students but also the school’s administration, she started working with other teachers to get it into more schools.
Making the Leap into Entrepreneurship
As the entire world changed in 2020, education, especially, felt the sting of the once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. It became more apparent than ever that kids need a way to take care of their social and emotional needs while learning the skills necessary to regulate themselves during tough times.
In 2021, Emily Fleming started Emily Fleming Yoga as a way to bring more opportunities to practice into her local community. Even so, she couldn’t ignore that pull to spread her popular classroom-based program. This led to Yoga in Classrooms and Schools opening in February 2022.
For a year and a half, Emily worked to build the business while still teaching in the classroom full-time at The Crossroads School and instructing community classes through Emily Fleming Yoga. With her schedule filling up and her attention being pulled in multiple directions at all times, she knew she had to make a major choice. In June 2023, she retired from her full-time teaching job and put her all into Yoga in Classrooms and Schools.
How Yoga in Classrooms and Schools is Teaching Life Skills and Lessons Across the Country
In the two and a half years since she started, the program has blossomed. With her time fully devoted to the business, Emily has been able to spread her passion for the program to multiple schools, districts, workshops, and trade shows.
Emily works with schools both in person and through Zoom to implement the lessons she’s learned through her time as a classroom teacher and through yoga. She helps schools build custom curricula to fit their students’ specific needs, train staff on how to use her strategies inside and outside the classroom, and provides long-term coaching and support.
Eventually, Emily would love to see Yoga in Classrooms and Schools develop into an even larger program. She hopes to bring more teachers and coaches on board to lead the day-to-day instruction while she works to spread the company’s mission across the United States.
A Q&A with Emily Fleming
Q: Emily, what is your favorite part about owning a small business?
I love that my work has true meaning for me. I am making a positive impact on kids and teaching them skills they will use for the rest of their lives. The topics we cover in mindfulness and yoga will help them in a number of tough situations.
Q: How did you know it was time to step into your new role and away from the classroom?
I loved the kids, and I loved working with them but I was so burnt out from the requirements of special education and classroom teaching. I wanted to find a way to connect my two loves – education and yoga – in a way that I knew would benefit the students.
Q: What sets your business apart from other educational businesses in your area?
As a classroom teacher, a related arts teacher, and a yoga instructor, I’ve been on both sides of the coin. A lot of people want to go into education to support teachers and students with pure intentions to help, but unless you’ve been in a classroom, you don’t really understand. Your ideas sound incredible on paper, but teachers who have worked on the ground can read that list and tell you ten different ways they won’t work.
Q: If another woman came to you about starting a business in your industry, what would you tell them?
Remember your own strength. This work is like pushing a rock up a hill, and some days, you will get tired and wonder if it’s worth it. But it’s always worth it. Those days remind me that I am strong. I am capable. I have gotten this far and will continue to move the rock up the hill.
Also, seek out community, specifically of people doing similar work. Having check-ins with other thought-partners who are self-employed or working in out-of-the-box businesses will help keep you aligned and inspired. That community will give you the strength to keep going.
If you don’t already have them, develop an actionable plan to get the skills you need to succeed. Plans are great, but obtaining the skills necessary to achieve them is what delivers success.
Q: If you could go back in time to 2004, what would you tell yourself about your life now?
Prioritize your own well-being. Set time aside to do things that bring you joy, not just things for other people, or that will move your career forward. You can’t have an incredible impact if you’re burnt out.
Q: Why did you want to be featured on this blog?
So many women have helped me in my business life, and I love helping other women business owners. I’ve also experienced situations where women aren’t so kind and willing to help each other. But I truly believe that there is so much business out there for everyone. The more that people work together, the more we can achieve.
My Take on Emily’s Story
Emily is truly remarkable. It was so much fun listening to her tell the story of how her journey took her from the classroom to her business now. Her going out of her way to find schools that would be willing to throw out the rules of traditional physical education in exchange for an innovative program like Yoga in Classrooms and Schools was a story of pure bravery.
As a mom of three, I’ve seen first-hand how the pandemic affected their school experience. But, as Emily noted, I don’t have the classroom experience to know how to help them navigate an entirely different school experience than the one I remember. I love that Emily is weaving the skills she’s learned through various points of her life to develop a program that will help students inside and outside the classroom.
If you’re interested in learning more about Emily and how to bring Yoga in Classrooms and Schools into your community, check out her website. She is also on Instagram and LinkedIn.
