MEDITATION IN EDUCATION
Teachers tout benefits of mindfulness for kids, but critics raise indoctrination concerns
Desiree Mcnutt faced the sixth-graders, flicked off the lights and prepared to meditate.
A few feet away, Elkin Rodriguez — her fellow science teacher at George Washington Middle School in Virginia — logged into the classroom computer. He opened Youtube and navigated to Yo-yo Ma’s rendition of The Swan. He pressed play.
For the next three minutes and six seconds, neither adult said a word: The 11- and 12-year-olds knew what to do. Shedding backpacks one recent morning, the students swivelled their chairs toward the front of the room. They rested their hands on their knees. They closed their eyes.
The cello strains faded, and Rodriguez let the silence linger a moment before speaking: “Imagine a voice coming from your heart,” he said. “Repeat it in your mind: ‘There is greatness within myself.’ ”
Minutes later — lights back on, chairs rearranged — the students were reviewing for a test on “weather elements” including humidity and precipitation.
Meditation has been vital to many religions for centuries and now experts are exploring what its benefits are in classrooms.
What’s happening at George Washington, educators said, is taking place in classrooms around the modern world: Over the past five years, “mindfulness” programs have exploded in popularity. In Grand Blanc, Mich., first-graders are breathing to the sound of Tibetan music before class. In Albuquerque, N.M., Grade 2 students sniff and speak about raisins before eating them. In Yellow Springs, Ohio, students can choose yoga as an alternative to detention.
Educators hope that leading students in self-reflective exercises such as meditation will give them tools to handle stressful situations, said Amanda Moreno, an associate professor at Erikson Institute, a graduate school that trains professionals in child development. If children can expend less energy to stay calm, the theory holds, they’ll have more gusto for learning.
“It’s meant to help them better attend to what’s happening around them,” Moreno said. “It’s kinda like you slow down to go fast.”
Not everyone is convinced of the benefits — and the expansion of mindfulness activities in schools throughout the country is fuelling a backlash from conservative, Christian groups that say exercises such as meditation indoctrinate students in Buddhist or Hindu ideology.
At George Washington Middle School in Alexandria, Va., — which enrols roughly 1,400 students — the meditation sessions were introduced at the start of this school year, the brainchild of Mcnutt and
Rodriguez. The two educators, who teach Grade 6 science to about 175 children, said results were swift.
“You can see the change in the kids: They cool down, they relax, and they’re just a little bit more open to learning,” Rodriguez said.
“They’re just kinder kids,” Mcnutt said.
Post-meditation, Mcnutt said, her students offer to help one another with assignments unprompted, tease their peers less and say “please” and “thank you” more often.
Early research is promising. Last year, Harvard University education professor Martin West conducted a study of Boston sixth-graders, asking 50 to sit for a 45-minute mindfulness session — which included meditation and other “relaxation exercises,” he said — at the end of the school day four times a week. He asked another group of 50 children to spend that time studying computer coding.
After eight weeks, West found that students who underwent the mindfulness training reported “a substantial reduction in perceived stress” as compared with the students immersed in their computers. West said the result was supported by brain scans: Children in the mindfulness group also showed “reduced activation” in the portion of the brain associated with stress response.
Candy Gunther Brown, a professor of religious studies at Indiana University at Bloomington, warned that concerns about the practice could grow. Over the past five years or so, she said, some Christian conservative groups have begun speaking out against practices such as meditation in schools.
These activists argue that mindfulness programs violate the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state, Brown said, because they expose students to Buddhist or Hindu ideologies.
The American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian advocacy group, is keeping a close eye on mindfulness initiatives in schools, said senior litigation counsel Abigail Southerland. The centre became aware of the issue after parents throughout the country contacted the group with concerns, she said.