The Educator’s Essential Guide to SEL: 8 Mindfulness-Based SEL Strategies for You and Your Students

Shatera is a Special Educator and Breathe for Change graduate who’s love for yoga stemmed from her struggles with Sickle Cell Anemia. Shatera was born with a disease that impacts the red blood cells’ ability to carry and transfer oxygen efficiently. This has meant a frayed relationship with her body and physical activities throughout childhood into adulthood. Years ago, Shatera discovered asana through classes offered at a local gym, stating that “It was the only class I could complete without feeling inadequate or embarrassed. In fact, I left those classes feeling centered and emboldened.”

Grateful for this resource, she’s become devoted to sharing it with others. Especially after Shatera noticed that she was often the only one that looked like her in the gyms and studios she practiced in. This encouraged Shatera to earn her RYT200 from B4C in 2018, with the aim of helping more Black folx to meet on the mat – inviting their minds and bodies to reunite, as she’s been blessed to experience. Since then, Shatera began teaching asana and meditation classes, and implementing wellness practices into her curriculum and structures as Dean of Culture at a 6-12 NYC public school, and within her day to day life and interpersonal relationships.

Now, Shatera has reached RYT500, and serves as a curriculum designer for schools and after school programs all over the nation that challenge the current inadequate and inequitable status quo of the traditional education system. She offers services that rise from the intersection of wellness and education at byShatera.com