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In the Netherlands, schoolteachers are learning that massage dramatically improves students’ communication and social skills.

Axelson’s Gymnastika Institute, a massage and touch-therapy school head­quartered in Stockholm, organizes mas­sage classes, called The School for Peaceful Touch, specifically for teachers. Coursework includes learning how to give a massage, how to teach children to massage each other, and how to integrate massage into a school day:

The results, according to teachers and a just-completed study: massaged chil­dren have become calmer and less aggres­sive; they fight less and concentrate more easily; they exhibit greater empathy and less anxiety. In short, their overall social behavior has improved greatly.

“We have trained about 9,000 teach­ers throughout the country in the last five years,” said RoIf Elmstrdm, an adminis­trator for the school. “Every day we hear reports of what a great difference massage makes in the children’s groups.” The bulk of the classes have been held in Sweden, with a few held in Norway and Denmark.

The staff at Axelson’s, which was founded 40 years ago, obviously knew about the benefits of massage for typical clients. But then a school administrator heard about a preschool outside of Stockholm where the children had received massage on a daily basis for more than a year. That discovery opened a new door of possibilities.

“We saw children of different races and languages being taught to touch with respect and peace, and we realized that children experiencing this could never hare each other,” said Lena Austin, Axelson’s director of studies and massage-project leader. “So it hit us. From now on the most important thing is to spread massage to all children.”

Elmstrom told Massage Magazine that Axelson’s staff had also heard of the research being conducted at the University of Miami’s Touch Research

Institute, which bolstered administrators’ belief in the calming effect of massage.

“Touch is the first sense we develop and is extremely important for communi­cation and learning,” he said. “We felt it important to spread this knowledge, par­ticularly’ to young people.”

Austin acknowledged that her culture has a more open attitude toward touch ifs schools than does the United States.

“We have heard about the non-touch society in America, and that is frighten­ing. Luckily, we don’t have that problem here,” she said. “On the contrary, we feel that this type of touch will teach the chil­dren to say ‘no’ to unwanted physical contact. We stress very strongly that the teacher should always ask the child if they want massage. Some days they might say no, and that is OK. The massage should always be on the child’s condition.

Teachers of students ranging in age from 3 to 18 have attended The School for Peaceful Touch, with their schools paving for them to attend the two-day. 14-hour course. The teachers then show their students how to perform simple massage strokes, and the students spend about 20 minutes each school day mas­saging each other in their classrooms.

A recently completed study proves that The School for Peaceful Touch’s curriculum is working. In partnership with the Karolinska Institute, a research institute, and the Psychiatric Clinic for Children in Uppsala, Sweden, Axelson studied the effects of massage on 150 children enrolled in preschool. The study shows that, with massage:

• Levels of aggression, anxiety and stress are lower;

• Children fight less, and function better in groups;

• Children can concentrate more easily;

• Psychosomatic illnesses are fewer;

• Children develop greater empathy;

•  Children learn to say no to unwant­ed physical contact.

One teacher, EvaLena Ekblom, of Stockholm, said that the massage class is the best continuing-education class she has ever taken.

But perhaps the most telling com­ments come from three children who receive massage at school: “The autumn term was good because we started mas­saging each other,” said one 7-year-old girl. “When my father is angry I give him massage and then he is not angry any­more,” said a 9-year-old girl. And, from a 9-year-old boy, “This is life!”

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