Global Good News: Excellence in Action

Speaking 24 June 2008 on Maharishi Global Family Chat, Dr Mario Orsatti, National Director of Communication for the Global Country of World Peace in the United States, reported profound improvements at an inner-city high school in Hartford, Connecticut, USA, following instruction of students and staff in the Transcendental Meditation Technique.

Leaders in the High School initiative were Dr Lynn Kaplan and Dr Peter Trivelas, both long-time Teachers of the Transcendental Meditation Technique. Dr Kaplan has also served on faculty at the Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment, while Dr Trivelas is an Emmy-winning television editor. In a 12-minute documentary, shown by Dr Orsatti during Global Family Chat, the two captured the transformative experiences of Weaver students and staff upon learning the meditation technique.

About 1,300 students are enrolled at the school, one of the toughest high schools in Hartford, with a 99% minority population. Many students who enter the school are three to four grade-levels behind where they should be, and with the prevalence of gang-violence and family instability, such students have little hope of catching up. 'Despite these obstacles,' said a school administrator, 'some students make it here day after day, and it's our job to make sure they receive the best education possible.'

As students began learning the Transcendental Meditation Technique from Dr Kaplan and Dr Trivelas, then meditating once morning and afternoon, giving them this education became far more manageable for the school staff. Said one administrator, 'I sense a peacefulness that Transcendental Meditation brings to the staff and students who learn it. I would have been a fool not to introduce the technique, with our students in such dire need of help.'

Teachers have noted that, while students struggled to maintain focus during class before learning Transcendental Meditation, after instruction in the technique, they were able to remain on-task as long as they followed their meditation schedule. Said a teacher of Social Studies, 'I see Transcendental Meditation as a tool for allowing students to become centered in class overall. Once we've begun meditating, there's a new level of attention, which causes us to bond as a group, in terms of sharing the same knowledge and participating.'

As well as enhancing group dynamic, Transcendental Meditation has aided teachers in dealing with challenging individual cases at the school. One teacher commented on a particular student, arriving last year to the school from a dysfunctional background. 'He was a volatile and angry young man, with little control over his emotions.' However, once initiated in the Transcendental Meditation Technique, continued the teacher, 'he'd come into my office during times of stress or anger and say, "Miss, I need to meditate.'' ' From that point on, the student ceased misbehaving.

With the practice of Transcendental Meditation, both students and teachers have noticed the change in their own behaviour, attitudes, and levels of achievement. One student remarked, 'Before Transcendental Meditation, I was tense and angry about coming to school, wishing I could be home playing video games; now I wake up and say, "Yes! I'm ready to go to class!'' '

Other students have noticed their 'disturbing thoughts being washed away' with twice daily Transcendental Meditation practice, or their grades jumping up two whole letters. Teachers have perceived in themselves an increased capacity for compassion and understanding, as well as an improved ability to 'stay calm in the face of difficult classroom situations'.

The project at the school, said Dr Kaplan, got started at the National Educator's Conference for Consciousness-Based Education, which took place two years ago last May. Out of the 300 educators invited to the conference from the greater Hartford area, many were excited about introducing the Transcendental Meditation Technique into their schools. 'With lots of local support, as well as support from the David Lynch Foundation, we were able to put this programme in place at the Weaver School by Fall of 2006,' said Dr Kaplan.

Dr Trivelas and Dr Kaplan went about teaching Transcendental Meditation methodically, beginning on the fourth floor of the school. 'Immediately after we began teaching, people noticed a profound change in the atmosphere,' noted Dr Trivelas. 'They would say, 'Hurry up and get to the third floor!''

Further contrasting the school environment before and after implementing the Transcendental Meditation Technique, Dr Kaplan reported, 'it was like night and day.' As she and Dr Trivelas began teaching the technique to students and staff, the school's atmosphere became 'very soft and coherent, with hardly any fighting.' Relationships between students and teachers, as well as those among students, smoothed out as everyone became calmer and more tolerant of one another.

'The most significant experience I've had,' said Dr Kaplan, 'is watching 80 of these students come together to meditate before their first and last period class each day. They enter the room like normal teenagers, loud and boisterous, but when they close their eyes and sit down, you can just see the bliss and peacefulness on their faces.'

In addition to Dr Trivelas and Dr Kaplan, other Transcendental Meditation Teachers, also trained in Maharishi's Consciousness-Based Education, have spent time teaching at the school. Among these educators are Joshua Pittman; Rena Boone, a beloved long-time teacher at Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment in Fairfield, Iowa; and John Bonchef. Prime Minister of the Global Country of World Peace Dr Bevan Morris praised them saying, 'There are no words to describe the appreciation for Transcendental Meditation Teachers like Rena and Joshua; they do great justice to Maharishi.'

Concluding his report, Dr Orsatti noted that all successes in the field of Consciousness-Based Education, including those at this high school, can trace their inspiration back to the pioneering institutions of Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment and Maharishi University of Management, both in Fairfield, Iowa. 'These two schools provided the foundation for Maharishi's global revolution in education.'

"The potential of every student is infinite. The time of student life should serve to unfold that infinite potential so that every individual becomes a vibrant centre of Total Knowledge."—Maharishi