Getting rid of stress through yoga helps Karen Shye-Woods enjoy life again

ON THE DESK of Karen Shye-Woods are photographs: George Washington Carver, Billie Holiday, Eartha Kitt, John Lennon. Hints for proper English hang on every wall -- glue words: after, although, as if, because; nouns, verbs. And everywhere, books, books, books. Encyclopedia, dictionaries, novels. Books.

The room screams its silent message: read, write, understand, learn. That screaming at one time backed up on her, and she wondered whether what she was doing made any difference.

Shye-Woods teaches at YouthBuild St. Louis, a charter school. Her students study for the GED exam, the high school equivalency test for people who have not finished high school.

“So many students with so many diverse backgrounds: different places, different high schools, different middle schools, their level of education -- every student was different, in a different place," she recalls. "Having to come up with a method that would reach all of them ... very stressful.”

She had a tendency to take the problems of others on herself, and the dozens of students she faced gave her plenty to take on.

“"I've been kind of a high-strung person all of my life," she said. "So every job I've had, there's always some kind of stress that I've had to deal with. I'm kind of a perfectionist.”

She felt responsible for her students.

"If they don't get their GEDs, they're back to square one. That's the next step for them to move on with their lives. If they don't get that here, then I don't feel I've done my job."