“Now sit there and meditate on what you’ve done!” It must have happened to everyone as a child to hear such words. Most of the time, in fact, this phrase accompanied the beginning of a detention. Whether it was your parents or your teachers in the classroom, if you were exaggerating, creating problems or causing trouble, the detention was just around the corner.
However, what if the punishment was really meditation?
A New Form of Detention in the United States
U.S. schools usually use a fairly standard method in order to have schoolchildren do their own punishment. They keep them in a special, bare classroom, where they spend a certain amount of time staring at walls or trying to read a few pages of a book.
One institute, however, has tried to change this trend. In fact, it has introduced a method that, in some way, fully takes up the invitation to reflect. At the Robert W. Coleman School in Baltimore, in fact, punishments have been replaced by yoga and meditation. The bare chastisement classrooms have been filled with colors, lamps and pillows. Here, instead of boring, the more agitated young people learn breathing, meditation and can talk about what happened. In this way, the students can also find a place where they can relax.
The Benefits of Meditation
For those accustomed to old-fashioned punishment, this might seem like a strange idea. However eccentric this solution may be, it has had surprising results. The positive effects on the pupils who underwent this treatment were in fact very many. In the last year, for example, there has not even been a disciplinary suspension in the school.
The project has been realized thanks to the collaboration with a local non-profit organization, the Holistic Life Foundation, which has activated several programs aimed at children. Thanks to this new method, young students feel more comfortable and understood. In addition, they have the opportunity to work on themselves, achieving greater self-awareness. In this way, their behaviour at school and in society improves considerably.
The most interesting aspect, however, is that the positive effects also fall outside the classroom. In fact, teachings are also taken home and spread to the families. A small change brought about by this courageous school has therefore brought about a cascading beneficial effect. This story confirms once again how knowledge of oneself and others, dialogue and confrontation can improve the lives of all.
