http://www.thedaily.com.au/story/2009/09/15/ummm-meditation-program-religious/mmm... meditation program 'religious' Transcendental meditation teachers Wendy Rosenfeldt and John Cogger. A MEDITATION program at Beerwah High held to combat bullying and reduce stress among teachers and students has been scrapped on religious grounds. The voluntary transcendental meditation program was conducted for about three weeks last month. It was stopped after a group of non-participating teachers complained, outraging the school's parents and citizens committee, which labelled the move “bitterly disappointing”. The main complaint by teachers was that the meditation technique was religious in nature - but not Christian. The Maleny-based TM group behind the program said the technique was non-religious. News of the program's demise came as the Daily learned of numerous complaints by parents to the school about their children being bullied. Some 35 teachers at the school were being taught TM, reported to be the most widely researched and one of the most popular meditation techniques, with some five million practitioners worldwide. With what is understood to be the enthusiastic backing of the school's principal, Iqbal Singh, the program was to involve Year 9 students. It was hoped the bulk of students would continue mediating until the end of Year 12 and beyond. The TM group conducting the program wanted to produce a research paper on the exercise which it hoped could be used to entice other schools to introduce it. Teachers from all grades were invited to take part in the program, which would not have cost Education Queensland a cent as it would mainly be funded by US-based TM organisation the David Lynch Foundation - named after its legendary filmmaker founder. Beerwah High's TM teacher, Wendy Rosenfeldt, said TM was non-religious and she hoped the program would resume once teachers were better informed. “Some teachers went to the (education) department with misinformation from the internet,” she said. “The department never contacted us about what it was actually about.” Ms Rosenfeldt said along with helping to reduce stress and the incidence of bullying, TM improved the IQ of practitioners and led to better grades. She said it had also proved beneficial to children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and was used in schools around the world. The school's P& C president, Sharon Vonhoff, believed the program had merely been postponed and was confident it would resume once “ill-informed” teachers were educated about TM. “The feedback (from participants) has been absolutely positive,” Ms Vonhoff said. “They're very, very happy - it's been totally beneficial.” Queensland Education was asked to comment on the scrapping of the program, but had not replied by deadline. |
- [FairfieldLife] TM scrapped at school on religious grounds Vaj
