Meditation for babes
Should we be teaching our children a different kind of ABC?
THIS week, I came across an interesting comment from the Dalai Lama: “If every eight-year-old is taught meditation, we will eliminate violence from the world within one generation.”
My initial reaction was probably the same as yours right now: Eradicate violence? Within one generation? That’s not possible.
Having spent time living among monks and nuns, I’ve spoken to monastics who have been dedicated to the spiritual life for decades. Developing virtues is a lifelong practice, and even if we talk about meditation, does it not take thousands of hours to reach a genuinely altruistic, kind and generous state?
As it turns out, it takes only about 12 hours of meditation for people to become more giving, compassionate and caring. And this can begin from the age of four, when children are in preschool. What better place to create positive, lasting social change than schools?
In 2015, Prof Richard Davidson presented research at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The American scholar discussed how a “kindness curriculum” was able to boost cooperation, compassion and success in preschoolers, qualities which would stay with them throughout their lives.
Children aged four to five were put through their new ABCs twice a week for 12 weeks: Attention, Breath and body, and Caring practice. The researchers, from University Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), created a curriculum that encouraged children to be deliberately aware of themselves and others through games and practices that brought mindful attention to the present moment.
To measure the success of the programme, the ultimate litmus test was delivered. Prior to the programme, each child was asked to hand out stickers to four types of children: a child they liked; one they disliked; an unknown child; and a sick child.
Unsurprisingly, each child gave the most stickers to the person they liked most. The rest were given much fewer stickers, with the sick child receiving slightly more than the unknown and the disliked child.
Following the 12-week kindness curriculum, the results were markedly different. When the stickers test was re-run, each child still gave more to the person they liked the most; however, the distribution was far less discriminatory than before, with all of the children receiving a similar amount of stickers.
The preschoolers had become more compassionate, more generous, and aware of difficulties faced by other children.
Furthermore, the children’s academic performance also improved. As noted on the university’s website (tinyurl.com/ star2-kindness), “In addition to improved academics, the 30 students who went through the curriculum showed less selfish behaviour over time and greater mental flexibility than the 38 kids in the control group.” (The control group refers to children who were also monitored but not put through the kindness curriculum.)
In the school system, children are taught to learn about morality, or to memorise a list of virtues and how they can be applied in particular scenarios. But to actually embrace wholesome qualities, to become good citizens, we have to know the value of virtues for ourselves and, like any other kind of learning, this is most effectively learned by doing. Experiential learning helps us to internalise the lesson, rather than being told something is good or bad. When learning becomes part of who we are, it is much more likely to stick with us throughout our lives.
Other mindfulness programmes have yielded similar remarkable results even in the toughest of schools. In West Baltimore, the United States, the inner-city Coleman Elementary School had numerous cases of violence, suspensions and other anti-social behaviour. Following the implementation of a mindfulness programme, incidents of violence dropped by 50%, and suspensions became a thing of the past.
One teacher told The Washington Post newspaper that while mindfulness practice doesn’t fix everything, it does make a substantial difference. A 14-year-old student at the school added, “When I was younger, I was always mad all the time. Now I got past that stage. I’m happy with my life.”
In 2014, the National Health Morbidity Survey reported that one in five children in Malaysia aged five to 15 suffer from anxiety, stress, and depression. With strong scientific evidence suggesting that regular mindfulness practice can develop a calm, resilient mind and nurture good citizenship, is it time that schools here begin to look seriously at implementing strategies such as those carried out by UW-Madison and Coleman Elementary School?
Imagine what we could achieve, what kind of society we could have, if we could teach children to be more mindful, caring and giving in a way that’s truly experiential rather than verbally taught?
Perhaps the Dalai Lama’s words aren’t so far-fetched after all. It certainly would be interesting to see how a kindness curriculum would work here in Malaysia and what affect it would have on our society in the long run.
Sandy Clarke has long held an interest in emotions, mental health, mindfulness and meditation. He believes the more we understand ourselves and each other, the better societies we can create. If you have any questions or comments, e-mail star2@thestar. com.my.