Excellence in Action resulting from students optimizing brain functioning





     

teachers
When all the teachers, administrators, and students are practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Programme in the school twice daily, the whole atmosphere becomes settled, orderly, focused, happy, and conducive to learning. Teaching becomes an increasingly rewarding and enriching experience.

 

 

Invitation to educators
by Global Good News staff writer
5 September 2009

It is a joy to invite you as schoolteachers and administrators—those great people committed to bringing children the knowledge and tools for a successful life—to participate in a system of education that will fulfil your professional and personal goals.

As the guides for the new generation, you undoubtedly want the children, as yourselves, to have more of everything good—more knowledge, more intelligence, more power, more inner peace, more happiness and love. In order to achieve more of any of these or other desirable values, we must become more, more of who we truly are. We have to use more of our unlimited creative potential. This is the purpose of Consciousness-Based Education—to unfold the vast potential for intelligence, creativity, and happiness within everyone.

The main idea of this presentation is that Consciousness-Based Education is a scientifically proven educational approach to directly develop the creative potential of the students as they are gaining knowledge of all the different disciplines. It should be added that when you introduce Consciousness-Based Education in your school, you will also gain the benefits. 

We’ll consider this central theme in three main points. First, we’ll describe how the consciousness of the student himself, the knower, is expanded through a simple technique. Second, we’ll consider the value of the special teaching techniques, routine, and environment of a Consciousness-Based school. Third, we’ll briefly review how easy it is to implement Consciousness-Based Education in an existing school and the expanded, positive effects it will have.

Expanding the container of knowledge, the knower

Beginning with the first idea, the consciousness of the student, we are immediately taking a new approach to education. Instead of focusing on just the known—the specific points of knowledge, the unending information explosion— Consciousness-Based Education emphasizes the importance of developing the knower.

To see what we mean by this, let’s consider how we experience the world. Neuroscientist, Dr Fred Travis, who has been director of research at the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at Maharishi University of Management, in Fairfield, Iowa, USA reminds us that we see the world and interact with it through the functioning of our brain. And he tells us emphatically, experience changes the brain. Looking at conventional education, we know its emphasis is on isolated facts with the result that different parts of the brain are engaged in an isolated fashion. For example, mathematics enlivens certain analytical regions in the left hemisphere while artistic disciplines stimulate certain synthetic regions in the right hemisphere. 

In contrast to this, Consciousness-Based Education adds a new element to the classroom—the direct experience of the source of all knowledge, the field of pure consciousness. This experience of pure consciousness is naturally and effortlessly gained through the Transcendental Meditation Programme, founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, for unfolding every student’s creative genius. 

This experience of pure consciousness is unique in the whole range of human experience because, instead of engaging just one part of the brain, it engages the total brain and develops the brain holistically. The experience of pure consciousness, the simplest state of human awareness, results in global EEG coherence, that is the integrated functioning of the entire brain (not just the functioning of specific parts) bringing maximum expansion of human comprehension. This maximally expanded human comprehension, accompanied by global EEG coherence, has been correlated scientifically with the development of intelligence, creativity, alertness, reaction time, emotional maturity, and psychological stability.

The scientific research on the Transcendental Meditation Programme is extensive—more than 600 scientific research studies have been conducted at over 250 universities and research institutes in 33 countries. In addition to the benefits already mentioned, the studies show increased focus and academic success; reduced stress and anxiety; increased confidence, happiness, moral reasoning, and self-esteem to name just some of the results.

You’ll be happy to also know that it doesn’t take long to see results. Within just a few weeks schools which adopt Consciousness-Based Education enjoy more orderliness and focus in the classroom, greater cooperation from students, and a more harmonious school.

One principal of a Consciousness-Based school says, ‘They [the students] are eager to learn and open to all the knowledge. They enjoy, and are happy, and have a natural respect for each other and their teachers.’

Maximizing the process of learning

Our second point, the teaching techniques, school routine, and environment, highlights the aspects of Consciousness-Based Education that concern themselves with the process of learning. For example, in a Consciousness-Based school, the knowledge of every lesson is related to the knowledge of the student’s consciousness, which is rapidly developing through his or her Transcendental Meditation practice. This makes the study of each subject very relevant for the students bringing them great fulfilment. 

Also, the principles of teaching used in Consciousness-Based Education refine the expressed levels of the student’s consciousness—behaviour, speech, perception, intellect, emotions, and ego. This allows the full potential of each of these levels, which is the field of pure consciousness experienced during the Transcendental Meditation Technique to be quickly stabilized raising the life of the student to higher states of consciousness.

Similarly, all aspects of the Consciousness-Based Education routine and environment help stabilize the student’s full creative potential. This includes a balanced programmme of group practice of the Transcendental Meditation Technique, academics, sports, and creative activities. The healthy, stable routine, which the students enjoy, is important for maximizing the benefits of their Transcendental Meditation practice. Also, the buildings of a Consciousness-Based school are designed according to architectural principles in harmony with natural law. The atmosphere radiates peace, vitality, and openness—an ideal atmosphere for learning and growth.

Making Consciousness-Based Education a reality

For our third point, we can go over the simple steps for implementing Consciousness-Based Education in an existing school. Once the principal has expressed an interest and met with professional teachers of the Transcendental Meditation Programme, the principal and interested school faculty learn the Transcendental Meditation Technique. Then, with parental permission, students learn and practise the technique 15 minutes twice a day at school. Additional instruction, both on the level of experience and understanding continues for students and faculty. 

A beautiful addition may be learnt after several months—the Transcendental Meditation Sidhi Programme, including Yogic Flying. When practised in large groups, the Transcendental Meditation and Transcendental Meditation Sidhi Programmes not only benefit the individuals, but also produce an influence of positivity in the environment, as documented by more than 50 studies showing improved quality of life, and significant reduction in crime rate, violence, and other negative trends. By incorporating this educational approach, schools and universities therefore become centres of harmony and coherence for the whole society.

In summary, we’ve discussed how Consciousness-Based Education takes into consideration not just the facts, but the knower, the student, by  developing his or her own consciousness through the Transcendental Meditation Technique. We’ve reviewed many of the scientifically validated benefits, including enlivenment of the total brain, which occurs only with the experience of pure consciousness, an experience easily gained through the practice of Transcendental Meditation. We have considered the teaching techniques, routine and environment of a Consciousness-Based school. And finally, we have talked about how Consciousness-Based Education can be implemented in an existing school.

So, if you want to offer the great benefits of increased intelligence, creativity, power, peace, happiness, love, and success to your students and yourselves, this can be done very easily by implementing the Transcendental Meditation Technique in your school or by establishing a Consciousness-Based school which can take fullest advantage of all aspects of this educational system.

© Copyright 2009 Global Good News®

 

   
"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

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