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email:
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Portland (ME) Press Herald/Maine Today can go to Betsy Ring, Letters Editor:
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pressherald.mainetoday.com]
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"Stress-Free New Mantra for Schools?": http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/nemitz/060514nemitz.shtml
". . . .Organized by the fledgling Maine Committee for Stress Free Schools, the conference focused on introducing transcendental meditation into the daily grind of any school willing to give it a try.
That's right, TM. As in the Beatles and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the early 1970s. As in closed eyes and silent mantras. As in, proponents say, a healthy alternative to a culture that force-feeds millions of kids medications like Ritalin each day in a frantic attempt to calm them down.
'They say Americans are drowning in an ocean of stress," said "TM" author Bob Roth, one of the organizers. 'Well if that's true, our children are drowning in that ocean.'
Truth be told, the three-hour seminar [in Portland, ME] (free lunch included) was a sales pitch. Behind the Maine Committee for Stress Free Schools is the Consciousness-Based Education Program, a nonprofit business brought to Maine by Katie and Roger Grose of Biddeford.
Their goal: To persuade school systems in Maine that by teaching kids to meditate for 10 minutes twice a day, test scores will go up, behavioral problems will go down and the need for attention-getting medications will all but disappear.
School-sanctioned TM . . . in Maine?
. . . .Not to mention curious. Last week's audience, which included dozens of teachers, school administrators and guidance counselors, listened in rapt attention as speaker after speaker extolled the virtues of school-based meditation.
One was
Dr. Ashley Deans, director of the Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment in Iowa. He explained how TM has helped his students score repeatedly in the top 1 percent on national standardized tests - and how they've won more than 100 championships in sports and academics over the past decade.
'People often say to me, You're sitting on one of the best-kept secrets in the world,' Deans said. . . ."
Columnist Bill Nemitz can be contacted at 791-6323 or at:
bnemitz@pressherald.com