Put school yoga debate into perspective
Re Mom fights York school board over yoga in class, Nov. 28 Equating yoga with the Hindu religion is as ludicrous as saying that taekwondo comes from the Korean religion. It is merely a system of physical exercise and mental relaxation, which also promotes physical well-being — like tai chi, which has nothing to do with Buddhism, either.
There is no religious ceremony of any description in Hinduism that ever mentions yoga, simply because it has nothing to do with the teachings of the religion.
Any student who feels uncomfortable doing yoga in school would merely need to say so to the teacher. That goes for many other activities.
Will we soon be seeing non-Christian students refusing to play football because of the Hail Mary pass? Venkat Krishnan, Ajax What an uplifting story on the front page. An 8-year old child inadvertently tried yoga in a public school. She came home in tears, thinking she might have jeopardized her Catholic faith. Her mother formally complained to the school board and consulted experts on child psychol- ogy and religion to bolster her case. The school board will soon discuss it.
I don’t know what this says about the Catholic faith or yoga, but I do know it shows we live in a marvellous country, where such trivia is considered a human rights issue. Count our blessings. Ulla Colgrass, Toronto With all of the outrages in today’s world, this one should be filed under the rubric of “much ado about nothing.” My Jewish husband bowed his head for the Lord’s Prayer every day of his school years, was given a Gideon Bible and taught to sing carols and hymns.
Offensive? Of course. But at the end of it all, he still wasn’t remotely interested in being a Christian. Without a separate school system to accommodate their beliefs, his parents simply paid for him to go to Jewish school four nights a week and Sundays. In the long run, that system didn’t have much effect either and he became one of the world’s many secular Jews.
So I’d advise (parent) Gina Clarke to take a deep breath (non-yoga, of course) and get some perspective. Anita Dermer, Toronto