Towards the end of last term a small team of musicians from North Berwick High School were invited to play at East Lothian Council’s Head Teachers’ Conference. A little earlier in the day than they are used to performing, and 3/8 of the team down due to exams and university interviews, they nevertheless gave a great and very well received performance. Here are some excerpts:
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Nx85Nxtkfzs?rel=0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
I note that film director, David Lynch, hopes to introduce Transcendental Meditation (TM) to UK schools – details here in Guardian and Telegraph. His belief (described more fully in his own words here) is that it would help attention and behavioural problems. This seems believable. Whether boisterous adolescents would warm to the idea is another question.
TM* is not the style with which I’m most familiar, nor the one I came to know through a course laid on by East Lothian Council’s Healthy Working Lives** team, last term. Those with little experience of meditation tend to focus primarily on the mental/psychological benefits. However, the physiological benefits should not be overlooked and such a perception may move the activity from the possibly presupposed subject area of RME into PE.
With well-being joining literacy and numeracy atop CfE’s global aims, inclusion of some kind of meditation should be, at least, considered.
* one further problem could be one of the apparent unfairness of subscribing and paying into a worldwide foundation/corporation – perhaps a less affiliated style would be preferable.
** while searching for links, I stumbled upon the fact that East Lothian’s Housing Department won a silver award for Healthy Working Lives. Perhaps they could let us in on their secret?