
Students at Visitacion Valley School in San Francisco meditate, as part of a program in which students meditate for fifteen minutes twice a day.
Silence isn’t something people usually associate with middle school, but twice a day the halls of Visitacion Valley School in San Francisco fall quiet as the sixth, seventh and eighth grade students meditate for fifteen minutes.
“The kids see guns on a daily basis,” the school’s athletic director, Barry O’Driscoll said, adding, “there would be fights here three-to-five times a week.”
With a typical schools days filled with mayhem, O’Driscoll was skeptical when the San Francisco Public School District introduced a meditation program, called “quiet time,” to four of its schools, including Visitacion Valley.
“I thought this is hippy stuff that didn’t work in the ’70s, so how’s it gonna work now,” O’Driscoll said. But he changed his tune, when over a four-year period, suspensions decreased by 79 percent and attendance and academic performance noticeably increased.
Blocks away at Burton High School, which was once dubbed “Fight School,” the results have been similar. Principal Bill Kappenhagen was skeptical at first, as well, and had to wrangle with the problem of when in the school day to grab a half hour for quiet reflection.
“I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m going to steal time from English instruction or math instruction in order to do that,” said Kappenhagen.
Instead, he decided to extend the school day by 30 minutes for meditation time, which resulted in better academic performance and a 75 percent decrease in suspensions. And students say they’re more conscious of their actions, calmer and less angry.
Kappenhagen says he know’s he can’t change the environment the students live in when they’re not at school, but he’s glad he’s discovered a way to “help our students find ways to deal with violence and the trauma and the stress of everyday life.”
OH YEAH, since we are not corporate or government owned help us out here.
YOU CAN ALSO SUPPORT US ON
We gratefully accept Crypto Coins
Dash – XiZebHViTKxjngJ8U8Gekbz34XDcMjKe29
Bitcoin – 1F6oeUnhXfr5UMC95apbJg7CLjm3BUrT8V
ETH – 0x9124589c4eAD555F04a7214214c86EA80E129abB
FOLLOW WEARECHANGE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
WEARECHANGE MERCHANDISE
https://wearechange.org/store
https://teespring.com/stores/wearechange/