I’m grateful for Edutopia’s new short story “How meditation transformed a school.” Beautifully told, it shows the transformation of Visitaction Valley Middle School (where many students suffer post-traumatic stress after witnessing gun violence) following the introduction of a meditation program into classrooms. Call silent meditation during the school day a coping mechanism, behavior modification, or simply progressive: whichever way you look at it, the reduction in stress and truancy is staggering.
This thought from SF superintendent Carlos Garcia also seems to have ramifications not just for education but for workplaces and personal development as well: “If we continue to do what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always got…Is that good enough? I don’t think it’s good enough for the 21st century.” Watch, won’t you?