People

Tara Schneider, M.Ed., NBCT, RYT-200, RCYT

Tara is a National Board Certified Teacher, Exceptional Needs Specialist– Early Childhood through Young Adulthood. She has over fifteen years of teaching experience working with students with disabilities and learning differences. Tara currently works as a Head Teacher at Mary McDowell Friends School; a K-12, college preparatory, Quaker school for students with learning disabilities. She founded Bodymind Learning in 2017, confident in the effectiveness of mindfulness practices to support student learning, social-emotional development, and overall wellness. She has presented internationally on the topic of supporting students with learning disabilities through mindfulness and metacognition.

Tara is a passionate teacher who guides her students from a place of loving kindness, compassion, and respect for neurodiversity. Her teaching approach combines effective pedagogy with a lifelong investigation into mindfulness and the subtle energy body.

Tara has studied yoga for children with special needs with Craig Hanauer of Every Kid’s Yoga and completed her children’s yoga teacher training with Yoga for the Balanced Child in June 2019. Tara’s personal yoga practice is informed by diverse styles, including traditional hatha, Kripalu, and yin yoga. She completed her 200-hour yoga teacher training with Kinneret Dubowitz, founder of Kinneret Yoga, and completed over 50 hours of yin yoga teacher training with Corina Benner and Ulrica Norberg. Additionally, Tara has studied Torah Yoga (an Iyengar-based practice combined with study of classical Jewish texts) with its founder, Diane Bloomfield, and yoga for eating disorders with Kula for Karma.

Tara has explored several methods of meditation, including Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (a secular, clinically-based practice), Sahaj Samadhi (a mantra-based, concentrative form of meditation), Jewish meditation informed by the teachings of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan and Rabbi DovBer Pinson, and the practice of contemplative silence in the Quaker tradition. Tara has a daily, personal meditation and yoga practice. Additionally, Tara trained in mindfulness practices for children with Carin Winter of Mission Be.

In Tara's work with young people she incorporates a variety of complementary practices intended to balance the subtle energy body. These include traditional acupressure, the Emotional Freedom Technique (also known as EFT or “tapping”), breath work, and aromatherapy. Tara is also a Reiki Practitioner who has studied traditional Reiki (Usui lineage), under Michal Spiegelman. Her personal Reiki technique combines Reiki methods with an intuitive reading of subtle energy bodies.  

Academically, Tara specializes in reading comprehension (both explicit and implicit), vocabulary acquisition, and fluency. In writing, she specializes in sentence writing, paragraph writing, and multi-paragraph writing (for example, essays, reports, and creative writing). She has a special interest in visual literacy skills. Tara explicitly teaches meta-cognitive strategies that support literacy. She is trained in the Orton-Gillingham approach, Judy Hochman's Teaching Basic Writing Skills, Scientific Spelling, and the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (also referred to as the Lucy Calkins "workshop" method). She incorporates strategies from Project ExC-ELL, a vocabulary acquisition method for English language learners, by Margarita Calderón. In addition, Tara utilizes methods from Brain Gym® educational kinesiology and methods to support executive functioning, informed by the work of `Sara Ward of Cognitive Connections.

Tara is best known for her light-hearted but structured approach to learning. She believes that the purpose of our lives is to meet challenges from a place of inner strength, authenticity, and open-heartedness. This aspiration shines through in her teaching where mistakes are encouraged and perseverance celebrated! Every learner is inspired to recognize and embody their “Best Self.” Parents can expect that their child’s body, mind, and spirit will be engaged through individualized activities in a safe and supportive environment.