Spin bikes in the classroom are reaping big benefits

What are silent spin bikes doing in Nova Scotia classrooms? Remarkable things, according to the man who started the initiative and a principal who's seen their effectiveness in calming children.

Luke MacDonald, the owner of a Halifax sporting goods store who promotes running in schools, is the man behind the movement.

It started when he was invited to a gathering in Ontario where he heard Dr. Stuart Shanker speak about self-regulation and calming children in the classroom.

"When he spoke to this stuff I just said 'Oh my God, he just explained my own failed school life, so I was blown away,"' MacDonald said.

A few months later MacDonald received a call from John Carson, the national director of Run for Life and the event organizer, who had a spin bike and suggested putting it in a school.

MacDonald jumped at the chance and took it to Patricia Woodbury, who was the principal of St Joseph's-Alexander-McKay School at the time, and set the bike up in her office.

When he returned later in the day she told him he had no idea how helpful it was.

"She had a couple kids on it, she calmed them down and sent them back to class where normally she'd call the parents and maybe send them home," he said.

Despite Woodbury's desire to keep the bike, MacDonald took it back that afternoon to get school board approval.

Program has expanded across Canada

Since then, he and others, including individuals, businesses and charitable organizations have raised enough money to place the bikes in almost every school district in Nova Scotia, with a total of almost 1,000 across the country. 

Woodbury's school eventually acquired 14 of them and now they're in the classroom rather than the principal's office.

She said they're absolutely silent and don't interrupt instruction time.

Woodbury said children often come to her office upset, whether they've been sent by the teacher or because of personal issues.

"I just found giving them a few minutes on the bike, they would calm down and be able to talk about whatever the difficulty was and do some problem-solving," she said.

She also found the bikes useful in helping groups of children in conflict with each other, saying the children themselves would suggest taking a turn on the bike to express their feelings, then someone else would take a turn and talk.

"The bike definitely surpassed any expectation I would have had," she said. "It was very, very powerful to see how the exercise and the bike could help the child self-regulate.The children know when they need to spend time on the bike."

Bikes benefit everyone in class

MacDonald said it's all about teaching children that physical activity relieves stress .

He said children who are anxious may not know they're anxious, but they do know getting on the bike makes them feel better.

"They may not have had the best meal before they went to school, they may not have had the best sleep but if they can get the concept of a little bit of exercise, that's the traction they need to understand the rest of it," he said.

MacDonald said the bikes not only benefit the children who use them but they free up the teacher who would otherwise be engaged with the troubled or anxious student.

"These little bikes to me are Trojan horses of goodness," MacDonald told CBC News. "They open doors to explain to a little kid how their engine runs and once a little kid understands how their engine runs they start to make decisions."

As for principal Woodbury, she's moved to another school and is already working on getting bikes there.