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Education solutions: A cost-effective, successful, common sense programme ‘As educators,' Dr George ‘Doc’ Rutherford says, ‘our responsibility is to change the quality of life of young people, isn’t that true?’ In the field of education for 45+ years, he has done just that. Introducing the ‘Quiet Time’ programme First at the Fletcher-Johnson Learning Center, in one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in DC, and then starting one school in Baltimore and another in Washington, the principal has brought Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation Programme to his schools. Responding to the first question, ‘What was your first step?’ Dr Rutherford explained: ‘It is important that teachers, who have daily contact with students, buy into what you are doing. I was just delighted when one of the teachers asked me, ‘What are you doing?’ When I shared with her that I was meditating, she decided that she wanted to try it. That triggered me to go to Dr Hagelin [from whom Dr Rutherford first heard about the Transcendental Meditation Programme] and see what we could do in order to train the folks at Fletcher-Johnson. ‘We trained 25 to 30 teachers, in addition to the 10 others that had already learned, and it was just beautiful seeing teachers wanting to get involved with this. Once we got the teachers involved, that summer we planned how we would get the students involved . . . ‘We came back and we talked with some parents, they signed permission slips, and we got some students involved, the 5th and 6th grades.’ Wide spectrum of benefits According to Dr Rutherford, fights that had occurred outside Fletcher-Johnson at the end of the day stopped; students did well on standardized tests and, overall, the school environment became more pleasant once ‘Quiet Time with Transcendental Meditation’ was implemented. The research studies validating the effects of the Transcendental Meditation Technique in schools show greater academic achievement, increased happiness and receptivity, and improved self-concept as well as decreased anxiety, hyperactivity, emotional distress, and suspensions. Josh Goulding, an American University student who had been diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school, told reporters, ‘I was on medication up through my junior year. Then I started TM. In three months my doctor said he didn’t think I had ADHD anymore, so I came off the medication, and felt fully adjusted within two-three months.’ Doc Rutherford feels educators need to pay attention to the scientific findings. ‘We should be jumping on whatever programme that has research behind it that has proven that it can make a difference,' and referred to some of the 600 studies, including through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), that have shown the wideranging effects of the technique.’ ‘The Transcendental Meditation programme has been researched more than any other programme, and yet educators are talking about all the ‘reform models’ for education, where consultants charge twenty, forty, or one hundred thousand dollars to come into the schools,’ Dr Rutherford told Enlightenment. ‘All we have to do is take Transcendental Meditation into the schools as the reform model. It’ll change everything.’ Everything improves and costs are cut across the board ‘What’s being reformed with the TM programme is the quality of a person’s nervous system, and then that affects their thinking and activity,’ the magazine interviewer commented. ‘Yes,’ Dr Rutherford replied. ‘What they are doing with reforms today is rehashing old stuff. There’s nothing new in education. But if you take Transcendental Meditation in—it’s not new, it’s just common sense—you’ll see that once you remove the stresses, academic achievement goes up, everything improves.’ Enlightenment asked the principal for his advice, saying, ‘If you had the chance to advise every teacher and administrator in North America, what would you recommend?’ Doc replied, ‘I would recommend to all educators—for their own benefit—to get trained in Transcendental Meditation. All of them come under stress and then they can’t perform in the ways they’d like to. By practicing Transcendental Meditation, we can maintain the quality of life that we are trying to offer our students, and be the kind of role models we are encouraging our young people to follow.’ And bringing it all down to the level of cost-effectiveness and practicality, Dr Rutherford answered Enlightenment’s query, ‘How can schools afford to use their financial resources for this?’ ‘You won’t have teachers out sick, having to bring substitutes in and paying two people—the regular teacher and the substitute. You’ll have built-in academic achievement, because once you get the stress away, the kids will do well anyway. School systems should use common sense…that’s all, just common sense.’
© Copyright 2010 Global Good News®
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