A group of parents who practice Transcendental Meditation wants to set up programs to teach students and teachers in Chicago area schools the deep relaxation technique created by 1960s guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
The Committee to Promote TM in Schools is urging local public and private-school educators to consider adding 20 minutes of daily Transcendental Meditation to their curriculums, saying the technique reduces stress, rejuvenates the body and mind, and improves academic performance.
The basic Transcendental Meditation technique, which the maharishi based on ancient Eastern meditation principles, involves sitting quietly for 20 minutes -- 10 in the morning and 10 in the afternoon -- and silently repeating a one-syllable Sanskrit mantra. Practitioners say it provides deep rest, more focused concentration, and a sense of bliss. An estimated 5 million people worldwide practice TM.
It takes only a few days to learn the technique, followed by periodic follow-up sessions to "fine tune," said Tricia Malkinson, director of Evanston's Transcendental Meditation Center.
Rabbi Jonathan Magidovitch of B'Nai Torah synagogue in Highland Park has practiced TM for 29 years. His sons Charlie, 12, and Evan, 11, learned to meditate about three years ago.
"What I've seen is [they are] calmer about approaching new situations, and that includes less anxiety about peer relations, and more willingness to go their own way, gently," said Magidovitch, who is among the parents lobbying for meditation programming in local schools.
"They're more comfortable about who they are. They're able to do more work in less time . . . and their standardized test scores have gone up," he said.
So far, Transcendental Meditation programs have been incorporated into three schools in Iowa, Washington, D.C., and Michigan. About 160 middle school students at the Nataki Talibah Schoolhouse, a charter school in Detroit, practice the meditation technique twice daily.
It usually costs about $2,500 per person to learn the meditation technique, Malkinson said, adding that the Chicago area parents group would help interested schools find underwriters to cover the cost. The $300,000 program at Nataki Talibah Schoolhouse was funded in part by donations from General Motors and DaimlerChrysler.
The University of Michigan's Complementary & Alternative Medicine Research Center is studying the Nataki Talibah students. Preliminary findings suggest that the students were happier, had higher self-esteem, handled stress better, and got along better with fellow students than non-meditators.
While practitioners say Transcendental Meditation is a relaxation technique -- practiced by people of all religions and none -- and not a religion or a philosophy, some education watchdogs say it has no business in schools, especially not in public education systems.
"Whether they call it a religion or not, it's advancing a religious philosophical outlook," said Peter LaBarbera, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute. "If the laws say schools can't favor one religion over another, how can they teach Transcendental Meditation and not teach the gospel of Christianity?"
Principal George Rutherford introduced Transcendental Meditation to 5th and 6th graders at the Fletcher-Johnson Public School in one of the highest-crime areas in Washington, D.C., in 1993. Several hundred students and teachers learned the meditation technique there between 1993 and 1998.
"We called it our stress-management program," Rutherford said. "Behavioral problems went down and attendance went up."