The benefits of movement in the classroom aren’t limited to younger students. Pairing new words and concepts with gestures or dance moves locks in understanding—and active brain breaks prime students to learn even more.

French teacher Nicole Goepper is famous—for dancing with her students in the school courtyard. But even inside the walls of her Northern Virginia classroom at Fauquier High School, kids are on their feet. “I truly believe that there is something in our brains that connect words with movement,” says Goepper, who references psychological studies showing how movement cements recall and boosts mood, helping to improve the wellbeing of students. Goepper saw this first hand when she faced postpandemic declines in student mental health.

Goepper incorporates movement every chance she gets—from pairing new vocabulary with gestures, to acting out French accent marks, to the pièce de resistance: going outside to dance. “Usually we dance in the middle of class. I use it as a reward for something we've done in class [kids get to pick which French pop songs they want to dance to], and I almost use it as a transition.”

The benefits? “It’s a brain break; it gets them moving, gets their hearts pumping, and that blood is going up into their brain. And it's like a primer, getting them ready to go [back inside to] learn more stuff.”

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