Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Schools turning on to yoga, but some call it foreign religion
NorthJersey.com ^ | 01.29.07 | RACHEL KONRAD

Posted on 01/30/2007 10:42:21 PM PST by Coleus

alt
AP
arrowTara Gruber and staff demonstrating a schoolteachers' instruction session. Teachers claim yoga helps students with attention-deficit disorder and may help lower childhood obesity.

SAN FRANCISCO -- In Tara Guber's ideal world, American children would meditate in the lotus position and chant in Sanskrit before taking stressful standardized tests.  But when she asked a public elementary school in Aspen, Colo., to teach yoga in 2002, Christian fundamentalists and even some secular parents lobbied the school board. They argued that yoga's Hindu roots conflicted with Christian teachings and that using it in school might violate the separation of church and state. Portrayed as a New Age nut out to brainwash young minds, Guber crafted a curriculum that eliminated chanting and translated Sanskrit into simple English. Yogic panting became "bunny breathing," and "meditation" became "time in."

"I stripped every piece of anything that anyone could vaguely construe as spiritual or religious out of the program," Guber said.  Now, more than 100 schools in 26 states have adopted Guber's "Yoga Ed." program and more than 300 physical education instructors have been trained in it. Countless other public and private schools from California to Massachusetts -- including the Aspen school where Guber clashed with parents -- are teaching yoga.

Teachers say it helps calm students with attention-deficit disorder and may reduce childhood obesity. The federal government gives grants to gym teachers who complete a teacher training course in yoga. "I see a lot fewer discipline problems," said Ruth Reynolds, an elementary school principal in San Rafael, Calif. Her observation of the school's six-year-old yoga program is that it helps easily distracted children to focus.  "If you have children with ADD and focusing issues, often it's easy to go from that into a behavior problem. Anything you can do to help children focus will improve their behavior." In 2003, researchers at California State University, Los Angeles, studied test scores at the Accelerated School, a charter school where Guber serves on the board and where students practice yoga almost daily. They found a correlation between yoga and better behavior and grades, and they said young yogis were more fit than the district average from the state's physical fitness test.

Guber, married to former Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Peter Guber, embraced yoga after moving to California in the 1970s. Their 13-acre Bel-Air estate includes a cliff-top garden leading to a Yoga House retreat. In 2004, Americans spent almost $3 billion on yoga classes and retreats, books, DVDs, mats, clothing and related items. About 3 million American adults practiced yoga at least twice a week in 2006, more than doubling from 1.3 million in 2001, according to Mediamark Research. Despite mainstream acceptance, yoga in public schools remains touchy. Critics say even stripped-down "yoga lite" goads young people into exploring other religions and mysticism. Dave Hunt, who has traveled to India to study yoga's roots and interview gurus, called the practice "a vital part of the largest missionary program in the world" for Hinduism. The Bend, Ore., author of "Yoga and the Body of Christ: What Position Should Christians Hold?" said that, like other religions, the practice has no place in public schools.

"It's pretty simple: Yoga is a religious practice in Hinduism. It's the way to reach enlightenment. To bring it to the West and bill it as a scientific practice for fitness is dishonest," said Hunt, 80. "I've talked to too many people who got hooked on the spiritual deception of yoga. They come to believe in this and become enamored with Hinduism or eastern mysticism," he said. Concerns about yoga's spiritual implications have also fueled a cottage industry of books and videos that offer the purported benefits of yoga -- flexibility, strength and weight loss -- without mentioning the y-word. Laurette Willis, 49, wrote an exercise regimen called "PowerMoves Kids Program for Public Schools." The stretching routine includes pauses for children to contemplate character-building quotes from Martin Luther King Jr., Emily Dickinson, Harriet Tubman and William Shakespeare. She also created an exercise regimen, "PraiseMoves: The Christian Alternative to Yoga."

"I'm not here to say that yoga is necessarily bad, but it is counter to what I think the public education system is for: It should have programs without any form of religious overtones whatsoever," Willis said. The dispute confuses some yogis, particularly Westerners who say yoga as it's practiced in the United States is primarily about fitness and stress relief. Baron Baptiste, who owns three studios in the Boston area and practices with his 7-year-old son, loves Guber's program. He said his son takes yoga far less seriously than he does. "We adults need to be reminded to lighten up, breathe in the joy and have some fun," he said.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: chamberpot; guru; hinduism; india; kettleblack; mantra; meditation; newage; pagan; paganism; po; publicschools; yoga
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-92 next last
To: B-Chan

You don't approve of yoga.


21 posted on 01/30/2007 11:31:31 PM PST by kinoxi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Coleus

And many wonder why education costs keep skyrocketing.


22 posted on 01/30/2007 11:32:22 PM PST by taxesareforever (Never forget Matt Maupin)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Coleus

They could be doing worse in public schools. I love yoga. It's good for the body and it's great relaxation. David Hunt needs to lighten up. Years of Catholic church bashing makes one crotchety though. He needs the lotus pose I think.


23 posted on 01/30/2007 11:32:40 PM PST by cyborg (No I don't miss the single life at all.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TigersEye

Yes. I think so too.


24 posted on 01/30/2007 11:34:17 PM PST by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: B-Chan

I like bikram yoga. No woo woo preaching. I already wear birkenstocks and eat granola anyway :D


25 posted on 01/30/2007 11:34:27 PM PST by cyborg (No I don't miss the single life at all.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: TigersEye
"Those are some beautiful verses. I have read them on your profile page before. Amazing how similar they are to Christian/Biblical thoughts and at the same time very much like Buddhist doctrine."

Yes. Studies of origins of Christianity and Hindu point to the area of Iran. ...fascinating study.
26 posted on 01/30/2007 11:40:21 PM PST by familyop
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: familyop

I thought it pointed to Kashmir and the Himalayas.


27 posted on 01/30/2007 11:42:01 PM PST by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Coleus

I can see it now: "Now I learn my Ooohms..."


28 posted on 01/30/2007 11:45:02 PM PST by WestVirginiaRebel (A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel-Robert Frost)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: familyop

They can be read as an esoteric or an exoteric teaching with little or no fault either way. How they come across is entirely a matter of how you approach them. That's beautiful!


29 posted on 01/30/2007 11:46:19 PM PST by TigersEye (Carrying a gun is a social obligation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: CarrotAndStick

I think there's some speculation that Jesus might have visited India. It would explain a few things.


30 posted on 01/30/2007 11:46:33 PM PST by WestVirginiaRebel (A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel-Robert Frost)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: cyborg
You hippy! ;-)

OK, I do yoga too. And Zen meditation, which is a somewhat different but similar mental discipline. My teachers were all Christians. One of them was the toughest Korean martial artist I've ever met.

31 posted on 01/30/2007 11:46:55 PM PST by Billthedrill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: WestVirginiaRebel

That's the Kashmir/Himalaya angle, I guess.


32 posted on 01/30/2007 11:48:08 PM PST by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Coleus
In Tara Guber's ideal world, American children would meditate in the lotus position and chant in Sanskrit before taking stressful standardized tests.

  "bunny slippers and time in"

Teachers say it helps calm students with attention-deficit disorder and may reduce childhood obesity.

So, to improve standardized testing, my kids are supposed to indulge in "bunny slippers" and "time in?" Pulleaze. Funny how the teachers say it may help with ADD and being fat, but nothing about improving test scores. Yet, in Tara's *ideal world*, everybody would have to meditate before tests, because doing so helps the fat kids and the ADD kids. A fine example of mission creep for sure.

33 posted on 01/30/2007 11:51:14 PM PST by Bush2004
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CarrotAndStick

Admittedly, most of my study focused on origins of Christianity. Buddhism was said in old Chinese monks' writings to have originally come from a man who walked from India to China by himself. I've only seen a little evidence pointing to a possibility that original Hindus might have come from the far north. And please forgive my ignorance of Hindu history (can't even remember most of my university study of Ramayana and little more).

Currently, most of my study is guided by Judaism. I'm not Jewish but am a follower of the same.


34 posted on 01/30/2007 11:52:06 PM PST by familyop
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Coleus

Yoga is designed to open up specific subtle pathways in the body. It should not be performed as a one size fits all form of fitness. While it can be adapted to an individual's particular religious orientation, it should not be done without the guidance of a trained master.

These hippies are playing with fire, literally. Some of these kids could get very screwed up physically. Yoga is a form of medicine on the subtle, energetic level.


35 posted on 01/30/2007 11:52:42 PM PST by Canticle_of_Deborah (tired of voting for the lesser of two evils)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Coleus

"Portrayed as a New Age nut out to brainwash young minds'
Yeah, pretty much.


36 posted on 01/30/2007 11:52:57 PM PST by BigCinBigD
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: familyop

I am just interested in philosophy. And I believe every word ever written, or spoken of, were all the works of man.


37 posted on 01/30/2007 11:54:21 PM PST by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: familyop

I don't think boxing would yield positive results in elementary school.


38 posted on 01/30/2007 11:54:40 PM PST by kinoxi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: kinoxi

#19


39 posted on 01/30/2007 11:57:05 PM PST by kinoxi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: kinoxi
"I don't think boxing would yield positive results in elementary school."

I was joking. ...once thought that boxing was the healthiest sport for boys (while doing it myself). Tai chi is probably healthier, all-in-all.
40 posted on 01/30/2007 11:57:50 PM PST by familyop
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-92 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson