Is meditation an answer to school problems?
Published Tuesday June 2nd, 2009
A meditation educator is travelling the province to encourage teachers, parents and principals to buy into a program that uses transcendental meditation to reduce behaviour issues and academic problems in schools.
Ashley Deans, a physicist and educator with the Canadian Association for Stress-Free Schools, said 30 minutes of meditation a day can make a big difference in a student's academic success.
"The transcendental meditation technique is the single most effective technique available for eliminating stress, promoting health and increasing creativity and intelligence," Deans said. "It's not that unconventional since meditation has become more mainstream. Think of it in the context of providing a quiet-time program in schools."
The transcendental meditation technique was introduced to the world more than 40 years ago by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a Hindu man who dedicated his life to spirituality and meditation.
Deans said the technique doesn't require special concentration or contemplation, or change in lifestyle or beliefs.
Students meditate for 15 minutes in the mornings and 15 minutes in the afternoon.
"This is an effortless technique that allows the mind to settle enough to experience that feeling of pure, silent awareness," Deans said. "It may look like the students are sitting there with their eyes closed wasting time, but what's actually happening is they are relieving acute social stress that can manifest itself in violence, crime, drug and alcohol abuse, accidents and sickness."
Deans has given transcendental meditation presentations to principals and teachers in Fredericton, Saint John, Perth Andover, Moncton, and other parts of the province.
He said everyone has been open to the idea, and a First Nation school in Big Cove has signed up for the transcendental meditation training.
Dist. 18 Supt. Alex Dingwall said he's not aware of any schools in Fredericton that have bought into the idea, but he said the district wouldn't stop schools that wanted to try it.
"There are all kinds of strategies out there for helping kids deal with stress, reducing behavioural issues in schools or improving academic success," Dingwall said.
"We leave it up to our principals to decide which strategies they want to latch on to."
Dingwall said the only time the district would step in is if a group was promoting a new program or initiative in schools that wasn't appropriate for children or backed by research.
"That isn't the case in this instance," Dingwall said.
"This group has been very public and has done some research on this strategy. Our only concern might be the loss of 30 minutes of instructional time in favour of meditation."
Teachers who implement transcendental meditation are still responsible for teaching the entire curriculum even if they have 30 minutes less to work with each day.
Dingwall said he would approve the meditation program if schools could find a way to include meditation without taking away from the regular classroom time.
"It would be considered part of the physical education curriculum, for example," Dingwall said. "There's normally a cool-down period in gym anyway, so I suppose it could be included that way."
Deans said the benefits of transcendental meditation outweigh the loss of instructional time.
He said the Maharishi School he works with in Fairfield, Iowa, has students that are more alert, receptive to knowledge and respectful towards classmates. He said test scores at the school have also increased.
"Every year, the school that I'm executive director of in Iowa, scores in the top one per cent of all schools in the United States on standardized tests, and it's not for any other reason other than meditation," Deans said.
"It's an amazing thing and, essentially, all it means is that every teacher would have to give up five minutes of class time each day."
Disabled
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
Comments (6)
All comments are subject to the site Terms of Use. For a full commenting tutorial click here.
Our editorial team relies on filtering technology and our visitor community to identify inappropriate comments. In the event that a site user has submitted offensive content that has evaded our filter, please select the option to Flag As Inappropriate presented within the comment. Thank you for helping to keep this site clean.
On June 5, 2007 a new plan for public education in New Brunswick was unveiled by Premier Shawn Graham and Education Minister Kelly Lamrock, entitled "When kids come first".
"When kids come first demands that every adult puts the interest of kids first".Honourable Shawn Graham, Premier
"We will have to put the success of our children above our own fear of change, above the financial demands of special interests, above our desire to avoid tough political debates, and above the comfort of tax cuts and entitlement programs. When we say children come first, we have to mean they come first when it’s tough, not just when it’s easy." The Honourable Kelly Lamrock, Minister of Education.
It IS a tough political decision to introduce something called "Transcendental Meditation", a non-sectarian technique, into the classroom. But with over 600 published studies and over 30 years of classroom success,(http://www.tm.org/benefits-classroom) do we really have a choice, "when kids come first"?