A School With Meditation And Without Punishment, Get To Know It!

Far from the traditional teaching model that has been imposed in recent years, alternatives are offered that have revolutionized the educational world. The Montessori and Waldorf method is joined by a school in the United States so new that it has caused a great international stir.

We are talking about nothing more and nothing less than a Baltimore school capable of breaking the conservative structure in order to obtain optimal results in education. All this, considering that they work during a stage as crucial as it is plastic, such as childhood.

It is a school called Robert W. Coleman, which works in conjunction with a non-profit organization in search of  alternative methods of behavior correction. In this way, meditation is implemented as a replacement for punishment to act on child behavior.

An unusual school

Although it seems incredible, in this institution that is under the magnifying glass of educational specialists, silence and peace reign. This framework makes Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in Baltimore, Maryland, an unusual school.

The secret lies fundamentally in the stubborn and wise replacement of the hour of detention and punishment by meditation. The key to success is in the “Mindful Moment Room” where children who have erred in their behavior go.

This room was developed by the NGO called Holistic Life Foundation. You can see the fully lit room, decorated and covered with purple plush cushions. There, relaxation exercises, breathing and meditation of the “penalized” infant are carried out.

In this way, this school has obtained in those little ones more naughty or complicated really surprising results.  In fact, the very high levels of success of this educational model are verified with no less data.

Over the course of two years where yoga and meditation became the way to go to calm and center the child, the suspensions and visits to the management decreased until they simply disappeared. So the traditional model is put back on the ropes.

A school based on mindful meditation

The method that is called “mindfulness meditation” has actually been around for thousands of years. However, science recently began to analyze its effects on our minds and bodies, discovering interesting facts.

As an example, research shows that this technique offers soldiers a kind of mental armor against disturbing emotions, as well as strengthening memory. Another study proves that this contributes to an improvement in a person’s attention span and focus.

Returning to the specific case of the Baltimore school, the program contemplated teaches the boys about the environment. So infants help clean up local parks, build gardens, and visit nearby farms.

Well, the richness of mindful meditation consists in offering children not only moments of reflection but also tools to apply in their daily conflicts. It is worth clarifying that the technique is not only applied as a non-coercive corrective, but is also practiced as support for certain children.

Thus, it works with the small various problems of social anxiety, bullying, lack of concentration and psychosomatic pain derived from stress conditions. Then, the entire educational community is delighted with the project that managed to reduce the reports of incidents and fights.

A school with yoga and meditation, inspiration from other schools

This unusual method sowed doubts and some replication attempts in other latitudes. Should this technique be taught in other schools? The truth is that some institutions are already putting it into practice.

How do they do that? Initially, they approach the method through short sessions – between five and ten minutes – where children perform breathing and meditation exercises, in addition to yoga, which help the nervous system and relieve physical ailments.

The idea is in any case to internalize these practices to carry them out in the face of any situation in your daily life. The basic thing is to learn to control your emotions, that is, to attack child behavior problems.

It should be noted that Mindful Schools was created in 2007. It currently offers courses -online or face-to-face- for teachers and school administrators. From his perspective, the boys benefit from this modality as they control and learn better.