I learned of this program recently while listening to a previous radio episode of the ACLJ (American Center for Law and Justice). After first learning of the program the ACLJ started investigating and learned that 49 of the 50 states and Puerto Rico have implemented similar programs under various names such as 'Mindfulness', 'Inner Explorer', 'Mind Up', and 'Dialectic Behavior Therapy', and in New York I believe it is known as the 'Lineage Project'.

From the comments I've heard and read parents were not informed of the program being implemented prior to their children being exposed to it and some of the terminology has been changed so as to not be connected to the Buddhist religion.

Apparently actress Goldie Hawn, a Buddhist, has played a role in advocating to get the program implemented in schools.

[a radio podcast and petion is linked at the website]

Developments on meditation in schools

When they took prayer out of the classroom, it appears what they meant was Christian prayer.

Apparently, Buddhism is not only okay, the government is willing to pay for it with your tax dollars.

On today’s broadcast, we discussed how public schools in several states are incorporating mandatory Buddhist meditation practices into their classroom curriculum.

And the Federal government has already awarded a $3.3 million dollar grant to fund research on implementing it.

This so-called “Mindfulness” program is targeting students, starting as young as Pre-K (3 and 4 year-old children) to teach them Buddhist philosophy – religious ideas that could conflict with your family’s own beliefs.

Students are subjected to real-time audio in the classroom, instructing them with directives such as to clear their minds, watch their memories and emotions float away, and feel their connection to the universe.

And since it’s live audio, there’s no way for parents to preview or approve it. You have no idea what they’re going to say to your child.

And if you don’t want your kids to participate, they are forced to leave the classroom and wait in the hall for up to fifteen minutes at a time, sometimes three times a day.

That’s repulsive. Exiling young children to the hallway for not participating not only risks further confusing and alienating them among their classmates, it wastes crucial learning time that we pay for as taxpayers.

The ACLJ is taking action at the state and federal level. We’ve received 15 inquiries, including from concerned parents, in 10 different states. We are implementing a comprehensive strategy of legal demands, state and federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and if necessary, litigation. We must challenge this unconstitutional threat to the religious liberty rights of public school children.

Public schools are taxpayer supported. We entrust them to fill our kid’s minds with knowledge – not to “clear them.”

You can listen to the entire episode here.

An article written with two opposing view points on implementing the meditation technique in U.S. public schools.

Does Mindfulness Belong in Public Schools?

Does Mindfulness Belong in Public Schools?

Two views

Responses by Candy Gunther Brown and Saki Santorelli, Illustrations by Pep MontserratSPRING 2016

Unless you’ve been in silent retreat for the past several years, you know that the “mindfulness revolution” sweeping the country is now playing out in the public sphere. The schools are no exception, and not everyone is happy about it: Is mindfulness an educational tool, teaching skills that make kids more attentive and emotionally balanced? Or is it a religious practice—Buddhism in secular clothing—violating the Constitution’s separation of church and state? Is it a universally beneficial practice, or are its proponents introducing a cultural bias when they bring the practice to underserved schools? Weighing in are Dr. Candy Gunther Brown, Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, and Dr. Saki Santorelli, Executive Director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

NO—with its roots in religious tradition, teaching mindfulness in public schools violates the separation of church and state.

Wouldn’t every schoolchild and teacher be better off if they had the tools of mindfulness meditation? To those who have experienced the benefits of mindfulness, the answer to this question may seem an obvious “Yes!”

Such confidence in the practice of mindfulness meditation, however, can create an ethical blind spot that ignores its religious content, as well as the context of its implementation. Although it is not uncommon for proponents of mindfulness to assert, in certain contexts, that mindfulness is purely secular, it is also common for them, in other contexts and particularly among fellow Buddhists, to declare that mindfulness embodies the essence of buddhadharma—a case of wanting to have one’s cake and eat it too. Certain leading proponents envision “secular” mindfulness as “stealth Buddhism,” a “skillful means,” or a “Trojan horse” for mainstreaming the dharma.

When it comes to bringing mindfulness meditation into public schools, this can create a problem. Children and their parents expect—and laws require—public schools to offer secular education that is neutral toward particular religions and religion in general. There are reasons for this limitation. Public schools serve children, parents, and teachers from diverse cultural backgrounds, many of whom already have deeply cherished religious traditions and spiritual resources that they find effective.

The fact that the majority of public school mindfulness programs are supported and administered by upper- and upper-middle-class Buddhists of European descent, yet target lower- and working-class minority populations, only adds to this problem. These minority communities, mainly African American and Latino, are statistically more religiously active than the non-Hispanic, white American populations who generally run mindful school programs.

At worst, such programs can inadvertently participate in a cultural imperialism that not only condescends to racial and ethnic others, who are seen as having unenlightened religious and cultural practices, but also puts undue responsibility on children for ameliorating symptoms of systemic social problems such as poverty and racism, which are glossed as cultural pathologies. Insofar as these programs reinforce the hope that we can tackle systemic problems with small, low-cost, philanthropy-funded programs that modify the behavior of the disadvantaged, they can even make things worse.

It’s painfully obvious to most observers that the American public education system needs something that will better address rampant challenges afflicting so-called urban schools, such as low achievement, stress, obesity, drugs, and violence, and mindfulness seems an easy fix. Mindfulness could potentially boost test scores and facilitate focused attention, emotional self-regulation, and classroom management.

But it might also constitute both a religious and a cultural encroachment. The fact that there exist secular benefits to mindfulness does not make the practice secular. Abundant scientific research demonstrates that religion and spirituality promote physical and mental health and learning. Studies of prayer, for example, report benefits similar to those of mindfulness. But we wouldn’t integrate prayer into a public school curriculum. In the end, appeals to science can’t simply speak religion away.

Yet mindfulness proponents attempt to do just that, declaring the “secularity” of mindfulness without defining the terms religion or secularity or explaining how mindfulness has been secularized. Alleging that mindfulness is a “nonsectarian,” “universal” human capacity—to simply “wake up” and “see things as they really are”—justifies upholding one culturally particular worldview as superior to others. This not only smacks of cultural arrogance; it is precisely a religious attitude—a claim to special insight into the cause and solution for the ultimate problems that plague humanity.

None of this is meant to argue against offering optional mindfulness training for public school children or teachers—for instance, as an after-school program, if advertised clearly and consented to by children and their parents with knowledge of all it entails. But integrating mindfulness as a formal part of the public school day is a different matter.

Instructors—both mindfulness trainers and public school teachers—occupy authoritative social positions that command students’ respect and trust. The context of classroom instruction (or schoolwide assemblies) exerts an indirect, coercive pressure to conform to what the teacher says to do and peers can be observed as doing. Even when opt-out provisions exist, it is socially costly for children to appear to question the teacher’s wisdom or to deviate from the behavior of their peers. When mindfulness activities are scattered throughout the school day—a few minutes of meditation several times daily—opting out is practically impossible without withdrawing from school altogether.

For those who seek to alleviate the suffering of others, it is crucial to respect the freedom of students and their parents to choose their own cultural, religious, and spiritual resources. Mindfulness instructors have an affirmative ethical obligation to supply full and accurate information needed for participants to give truly informed consent. This is especially important with vulnerable populations such as young and impressionable school-aged children, particularly those from families living in poverty or near poverty, who have been entrusted by their parents to the public schools for a secular education.

–Candy Gunther Brown


YES—mindfulness is a secular practice that benefits students.

Concerns about teaching mindfulness in public schools and the potential violation of the separation of church and state it may imply are responsible and justified. It seems to me, however, that the practice of mindfulness is not itself the problem. Rather, the problem is the conflation of mindfulness and religion. Yet while mindfulness is an ethos—the core being “Do no harm”—mindfulness is not a religion. And while my colleagues and I openly acknowledge the centrality of mindfulness in classical Buddhist meditation practice, Buddhism holds no exclusive claim to it. Likewise, religious institutions hold no special dispensation regarding morals, ethics, and values. While religious institutions may encourage and reinforce virtuous behavior within a society, values like clarity, kindness, and compassion are without ownership. The capacity for human beings to embody these virtues must, by logical extension, be innate, consonant with the principles governing the natural world and therefore not reliant on any religious institution.

By example, the capacity to be sensitive to the experience, needs, and perspectives of the “other” embodied in the Golden Rule are not solely Christian. “Do unto others” affects us deeply because it is expressly human. Human because each of us knows what it is like to be treated badly; what it is like to be treated with dignity and respect; and what it is like to treat another with the same dignity and respect we would wish for ourselves.

So what is mindfulness? Mindfulness is awareness itself—the knowing capacity that we consider the central feature of our humanness. Nonreligious, mindfulness does not ask someone to adopt a predetermined belief system or dogma. In practice, mindfulness offers us a method for investigating the nature of sentience and sanity. It mirrors the principles of scientific investigation by providing people with a method for learning to relate directly to whatever is happening in their lives. It is impartial. It does not grasp, reject, or prefer; it affords people the opportunity to see things just as they are, unclouded by the usual filters of conditioning and culture. Highly relational, mindfulness is a way of attending to the ever-changing nature of life. It offers us the possibility of recognizing our deeply conditioned tendencies, less in the thrall of habit and so more capable of making wise and appropriate choices. At the same time we learn to take things less personally. For most human beings, the exercise of these capabilities is both compelling and emancipating.

Our children need to learn about these capabilities early in their lives. By all accounts, childhood stress is on the rise in the United States. According to the 2014 Children’s Defense Fund report entitled The State of America’s Children, the United States ranked first among industrialized countries in gross domestic product, health expenditures, and number of billionaires. Yet the U.S. ranked second-to-worst in childhood poverty—1.2 million public school children are homeless. Every 2 seconds, a child is suspended; every 9 seconds, a high school student drops out; every 30 seconds, a student is corporally punished; every 3 hours, a child or teen is killed by a firearm; every 4.5 hours, a child or teen commits suicide; and every 5.5 hours, a child or teen dies of abuse or neglect.

Research suggests that impulse control and the ability to manage emotions have a powerful impact on our children’s ability to choose their behaviors. Self-regulation appears to have a stronger association with academic achievement than IQ or entry-level reading or math scores. Mindfulness seems to improve executive function (focus and self-regulation) and enhance emotional acumen and so may be an effective means for reducing poor performance or failure in school. It likewise encourages perspective taking and prosocial behavior. While far more scientific investigation is required to help us understand the potential role of mindfulness in the lives of our children, preliminary evidence is encouraging.

Mindfulness training fits into our educational tradition. The great American educator John Dewey said, “An ounce of experience is better than a ton of theory.” Children experiencing firsthand the feeling of calmness, psychological stability, and emotional intelligence are reasserting their inherent capacity for self-regulation, discernment, and confidence. Simply put, mindfulness is a technology—an elegant means of investigating what it means to be alive, and to meet the stresses and challenges of life across one’s lifespan.

Our National Institutes of Health (NIH) are interested in mindfulness too. They are confident that mindfulness training is not promulgating a religion or a religious practice. Multiple institutes are funding mindfulness studies to investigate and understand the underlying biological, psychological, and neural mechanisms of mindfulness. In the past five years, more than 2,000 papers investigating mindfulness in the basic and clinical sciences have appeared in scientific literature. In January 2014, researchers from Johns Hopkins University published a large meta-analysis of meditation studies. Their conclusion: mindfulness meditation can help ease psychological stresses like anxiety, depression, and pain. In October 2015, American Psychologist published a special issue on the basic and clinical science of mindfulness.

My home institution, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, is a public institution and the birthplace of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). We have a Therapeutic Neuroscience Lab. We study mindfulness; we publish the results, allowing for a free exchange of ideas critical to the scientific enterprise. While mindfulness is not a panacea, it may be a critically important aspect of our national public health strategy. More than 22,000 patients have completed our MBSR program. More than 6,000 physicians and hundreds of other health-care professionals have referred people to our MBSR Clinic. Christian ministers, rabbis, Catholic priests, and Hindu pandits have participated in MBSR, and so have their parishioners and congregants. As far as I know, none of them has reported that mindfulness disrupted their faith tradition. Quite the opposite: many report that mindfulness has deepened their faith, prayer life, and sense of connectedness.

For seven years we embedded an MBSR Clinic into a large community health center caring for underserved, underrepresented populations in Worcester, Massachusetts, providing access via free childcare and transportation. Participants included African Americans; Latinos from central, south, and Caribbean-rim countries; and native and immigrant Caucasians, all with income levels below the national poverty line. We have taught mindfulness to prison inmates and correctional staff in prisons across Massachusetts. Mindfulness is being taught to diverse populations of school-age children in the cities of Oakland, Baltimore, New York, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles—to name a few. Our Center is actively engaged in diversity and inclusion initiatives aimed at recruiting and developing a diverse MBSR teacher corps.

When I ask myself the question, “Should mindfulness be taught in public schools?,” my first response is, “It depends.” First, mindfulness in schools needs to be studied scientifically. All results, positive and negative, need to be published. Second, if the people teaching mindfulness in schools push Buddhism or any other faith-based worldview, my answer is an emphatic no. Third, mindfulness educators teaching in schools ought to be assessed regularly for both competence and continuing education in their field. If these educators are intent on reducing suffering and increasing well-being in our nation’s children, and because of this commitment engage in rigorous, 
mindfulness-based professional education and training programs focused on teaching mindfulness in nonsectarian settings, I vote yes and applaud their efforts. Let’s face it: the future of our children is our national responsibility.

–Saki Santorelli


Candy Gunther Brown , Ph.D., is Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington. She is the author or editor of five books, including Testing Prayer: Science and Healing and The Healing Gods: Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Christian America.
Saki Santorelli , Ed.D., MA, is Professor of Medicine, Director of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic, and Executive Director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is the author of Heal Thy Self: Lessons on Mindfulness.
Pep Montserrat is an artist based in Barcelona. He also teaches illustration at La Massana Arts & Design school.

REgardless of any supposed benefit or lack thereof of "meditation" or even the religious or non religious aspects of it...

Having seen the writing skills, math skills, critical thinking skills, and reading skills of kids today (including my own time in school) the only debate should be:

WHY THE FUCK ARE WE NOT USING EVERY AVAILABLE SECOND TO TEACH ACTUAL USABLE SKILLS LIKE READING, WRITING, MATHEMATICS, CRITICAL THINKING, SCIENCE, AND HISTORY???

Cancel physical education, recess, and all the other bullshit classes and focus on these.

I'm getting written statements from supposed 12 graders that are 600 characters long and one LONG run on sentence. Don't even get me started on proper spelling, capitalization, slang usage...

I could give a dog a crayon taped to a chew bone and get a more intelligent essay written.

With our modern tv/computer/smart phone/video game hyper short attention span society, I think it's actually a really good idea.

Should they be doing it? Not really.

That is a clear, unequivocal violation of the Establishment clause. If my children were subjected to a program like this, I would be all over the administration.

I have studied the Buddhist religion, and there is no room for even "secular" meditation in a school building. And definitely no room for it to be forced on children without their parents' will or knowledge.

PS- Saki Santorelli is a complete idiot.

.

Christianity also has a history of meditation, although they usually translate it as "contemplation", and it just hasn't been as heavily emphasized as it is in Buddhism.

I really don't see a problem with teaching meditation in school. In fact, it may be a back-door way of reintroducing religion, so long as it is not specifically tied to Buddhism.
Many Western pseudo-intellectuals have developed this narrative that Buddhism is a secular and atheist way to develop your "spirituality" and morality. Real-world Buddhism is saturated with myths, misconceptions, a pantheon of supernatural dieties, and inter-sect conflicts exactly the same, or even worse than Christianity.

quote:

Originally posted by Crom:
Christianity also has a history of meditation, although they usually translate it as "contemplation", and it just hasn't been as heavily emphasized as it is in Buddhism.

I really don't see a problem with teaching meditation in school. In fact, it may be a back-door way of reintroducing religion, so long as it is not specifically tied to Buddhism.
Many Western pseudo-intellectuals have developed this narrative that Buddhism is a secular and atheist way to develop your "spirituality" and morality. Real-world Buddhism is saturated with myths, misconceptions, a pantheon of supernatural dieties, and inter-sect conflicts exactly the same, or even worse than Christianity.

Agreed.

If they are teaching meditation, relaxation, and mindfulness techniques, that isn't particularly religious, even if they derive from Buddhism. Of course, the religious aspects of Buddhism shouldn't be taught. Before getting too bent out of shape, consider just what it is that is being taught here.

If this enables more focus on learning the core subjects, then good.

I'm a hard line Christian. I've never seen an extremist Bhuddist, nor have I ever feared the Bhuddist religion. I don't see this as a threat. But I would like to see a re-acceptance of Christianity and prayer back in schools.

Tony.

quote:

WHY THE FUCK ARE WE NOT USING EVERY AVAILABLE SECOND TO TEACH ACTUAL USABLE SKILLS LIKE READING, WRITING, MATHEMATICS, CRITICAL THINKING, SCIENCE, AND HISTORY???

Because our national education systems have been taken over by ultra-lib idiots who have been indoctrinated with the horse puckey nonsense that has been spread in our schools for about 30 years!

It is not about reality, centuries of experience or rational thinking. It is about FEELINGS.

And, unless I am mistaken, Buddhism is a religion. Anyone else remember all the outrage when any aspect of Christianity is mentioned in schools?

Gosh, I see both sides. Mindfulness seems like a great idea. On the other hand any kind of religion in government run schools violates the separation of church and state.

Hey I know! Get government the heck out of education, let schools push whatever kind of religious stuff they want, and let the parents (perhaps with input from the kids, perhaps not) choose what schools they want to send their kids to. Seems like a no brainer.

I've even been hearing about this "Mindfulness" crap at work from the same people who beat us about the head and shoulders constantly about "white privilege" and "diversity"

So it's a bunch of bullshit.

quote:

Originally posted by KevinCW:
WHY THE FUCK ARE WE NOT USING EVERY AVAILABLE SECOND TO TEACH ACTUAL USABLE SKILLS LIKE READING, WRITING, MATHEMATICS, CRITICAL THINKING, SCIENCE, AND HISTORY???

/sarc on
Because our public schools have succeeded so well at those subjects already, that our children are the envy of the entire world.
/sarc off

quote:

Originally posted by KevinCW:
REgardless of any supposed benefit or lack thereof of "meditation" or even the religious or non religious aspects of it...

Having seen the writing skills, math skills, critical thinking skills, and reading skills of kids today (including my own time in school) the only debate should be:

WHY THE FUCK ARE WE NOT USING EVERY AVAILABLE SECOND TO TEACH ACTUAL USABLE SKILLS LIKE READING, WRITING, MATHEMATICS, CRITICAL THINKING, SCIENCE, AND HISTORY???

Cancel physical education, recess, and all the other bullshit classes and focus on these.

I'm getting written statements from supposed 12 graders that are 600 characters long and one LONG run on sentence. Don't even get me started on proper spelling, capitalization, slang usage...

I could give a dog a crayon taped to a chew bone and get a more intelligent essay written.

Even as a Christian I'm open to the possibility that this meditation technique may offer some benefits to kids, or even adults.

But, when a controversial program like this is implemented as the 'default' option, intentionally changing descriptive terminology to hide it's Buddhist religious roots, with no advanced discussion or notification to parents...especially given that schools are failing to consistently produce students with even a basic ability to read, write, or perform basic math...well then they have failed to achieve their most basic goal and shouldn't be wasting tax payer dollars or classroom time on other non-essential niceties.

As the article suggests, there may be a place for meditation techniques in after-school classes, YMCA or community based organizations, churches or other religion-based places, perhaps even some private schools...but implementing this in public schools with tax dollars, especially considering their systemic failure to produce students with basic academic skills, and considering that there are only so many hours in a given class room day and class room year, the time would be better spent on teaching basic academic topics.

I'll admit that I'm not well informed on the details of Buddhism. I do know that there are Buddhist prayers and prayer flags which would suggest some religious connection.

Also, there is a sound byte of Goldie Hawn explaining how Mindfulness is secular and that the Dalai Lama supports the push to implement it around the world...but ironically she refers to him as "His Holiness". Doesn't sound too secular to me.