Parenting 

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Meditation for children

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Meditation at school
So far, there is only one school in the country where meditation forms part of the curriculum - the Maharishi School in Skelmersdale in Lancashire. Started in 1986 by a group of dissatisfied parents (all meditators), the school began with one teacher and 14 children. There are now 100 children, ranging from four-year-olds in the reception class to 16-year-olds taking GCSEs.

If the effectiveness of meditation is measured in terms of academic success alone, the school results would seem pretty conclusive: for four out of the last five years, the Maharishi School has been top of the Lancashire league table for GCSE results. It is also in the top 2.5 per cent of the schools in the country, including the top selective independent schools. This performance is even more remarkable as the school is not academically selective and is happy to take children who have not fared well in other schools.

Creatively, they are thriving, too: pupils at the school have now won so many poetry competitions that they're currently under a one-win-a-term rule from the Poetry Society. Clearly, something is working but is it meditation?

Focusing on balance
Derek Cassells, the headmaster, certainly thinks meditation is the key and, interestingly, he regards stress as the underlying cause of all learning and behavioural problems. 'We have a very traditional curriculum but, because we also have TM or word of wisdom for the younger children, they experience a level of rest that is at least twice as deep as deep sleep, twice every day. Stresses and tensions are released and the nervous system is brought into balance. From that balance come all the benefits - such as greater ability to focus - and this produces academic results. These aren't our goal; they're just a side effect. What's important is that the children are so at ease they automatically enjoy learning and they can utilise more of their potential. We just bring out what's already there.'

The teachers all meditate, too. The maths teacher, Mark Gaskell, says, 'If I closed my eyes - as we do every day during meditation - in most schools, when I opened them again, the class wouldn't be there. After this deep silence, the children are very aware, alert and receptive. This is the great benefit for a teacher. In other schools, it's a struggle just to get the class to be quiet and listen, let alone teach them something. Here, they're refreshed and happy. It's easier for them to be creative because they want to learn.' The theory is that there is an underlying association between brainwave coherence (brainwaves becoming more synchronised between the hemispheres of the brain during meditation) and learning and creative thought.

Understandably delighted with all this success, Derek Cassells is now keen to encourage other schools to take up meditation. 'People are looking for a better system of education. Extra cramming and more pressure are finally being recognised as the wrong approach and there is more willingness to consider something different. We have been talking to a range of schools who are interested in using our methods.'

Children with learning difficulties
Keith Snape teaches at one such school that specialises in pupils with learning difficulties. Still in the early stages of introducing meditation to a few of the children, the school isn't ready to officially 'go public', but teachers, pupils and parents all claim to have already seen positive results.

Such schools are, of course, rare exceptions, while the pressures put on children continue to soar. 'Unhappily, little is done within formal education to help [children] learn to understand themselves, to control their anxieties and their thought processes and to discover tranquility, harmony and balance within themselves,' say authors David Fontana and Ingrid Slack.

'Little is done to help them to manage their own inner lives, to use their mental energy productively instead of dissipating it in worries and random thinking, and to access the creative levels of their own minds. Meditation is one of the most important ways in which we can help young children cope better with their lives, at both the personal and the academic levels.'

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