CHICAGO TRIBUNE
JULY 26, 2019
Students at a Chicago high school were led into a room with shades drawn and door windows papered over, lit only with candles and scented by incense. They were handed flowers and told to pay attention to instructors, according to one student’s account.
Jade Thomas, an incoming sophomore at Bogan Computer Technical High School, said instructors “chanted in a foreign language" and “threw rice, seasonings and oranges in a pan in front of a picture of a man.” She described the ritual, which she said involved a “secret mantra,” to a rapt audience at a Chicago Board of Education meeting Wednesday.
At one point, Jade said, "they tell us to place the flowers in the pan with everything else, and they ended the song. I felt uncomfortable because I didn’t know what they were saying or who the man was in the picture.”
The program, which brings transcendental meditation into schools, was developed by filmmaker David Lynch’s foundation. Known for movies including “Blue Velvet” and the “Twin Peaks” TV series, Lynch also is a longtime proponent of the meditation practice.
At Bogan on Chicago’s Southwest Side, the program, known as Quiet Time, is run through a partnership with University of Chicago’s Urban Labs, which is evaluating its effectiveness, according to a Chicago Public Schools official.
The university’s crime and education labs are working with CPS and the David Lynch Foundation “to test whether providing youth with training and time to practice Transcendental Meditation can help youth reduce their toxic stress, succeed in school, and stay safe,” according to the Urban Labs website.
Lynch’s program bills itself as a way to help youths, especially in low-income urban areas, cope with traumatic stress that can result from living in poverty, among violence and with fear, and can hinder health and learning.
Urban Labs is testing a version of Quiet Time that involves two daily 15-minute meditation sessions "to generate evidence about whether TM can improve outcomes for Chicago’s most vulnerable youth.”
Jonathan Guryan, faculty co-director of the University of Chicago’s education lab, said the program began three years ago at Gage Park High School and has since expanded to Bogan, Daniel Hale Williams Preparatory School of Medicine, Bowen High School, Percy L. Julian High School and TEAM Englewood Community Academy High School. Urban Labs and CPS worked together to identify schools in neighborhoods with high rates of poverty and violence, and where school leadership was interested in having the program. Within each school, classrooms were randomly selected, Guryan said.
The David Lynch Foundation provides full-time instructors, and sometimes students or teachers also may lead sessions, he said.
But Jade, the Bogan student, told the school board that the program “has caused me and many other students discomfort."
“The program is training us to practice different religious beliefs that I go against, and my family does too,” she said. “My mother, my brother and I are here to get this removed from our school.”
Urban Labs is testing a version of Quiet Time that involves two daily 15-minute meditation sessions "to generate evidence about whether TM can improve outcomes for Chicago’s most vulnerable youth.”
Jonathan Guryan, faculty co-director of the University of Chicago’s education lab, said the program began three years ago at Gage Park High School and has since expanded to Bogan, Daniel Hale Williams Preparatory School of Medicine, Bowen High School, Percy L. Julian High School and TEAM Englewood Community Academy High School. Urban Labs and CPS worked together to identify schools in neighborhoods with high rates of poverty and violence, and where school leadership was interested in having the program. Within each school, classrooms were randomly selected, Guryan said.
The David Lynch Foundation provides full-time instructors, and sometimes students or teachers also may lead sessions, he said.
But Jade, the Bogan student, told the school board that the program “has caused me and many other students discomfort."
“The program is training us to practice different religious beliefs that I go against, and my family does too,” she said. “My mother, my brother and I are here to get this removed from our school.”
Officials familiar with the program said it’s not religious and noted that a letter to parents included a consent form they had to sign for their children to opt out.
Jade described what she called an initiation ritual in which instructors took her and her friend into the Quiet Time classroom and turned all the lights out. After the ritual, students were told to keep their mantras a secret, she said.
Jade described the twice-daily sessions as mandatory but said she did eventually stop going.
“If you talk during this quiet time, they will threaten to drop your grades,” Jade said. “This program should be removed from any public school because it is religious and forces students to do things they don’t understand or agree with.”
CPS and Urban Labs officials said the program is not mandatory, and students who don’t participate have other options for 15-minute quiet periods. Students were offered the chance to opt out, and about 14 percent did so, Guryan said.
But Jade’s mother, Deborah Thomas, said the letters sent home explaining the practice were misleading.
The district’s chief education officer, LaTanya McDade, told the board she had personally checked out the Quiet Time program at Bogan and asked questions about it.
“None of this was shared with me,” McDade said. “... I would like to personally follow up on it and investigate the matter and address it accordingly.”
Another speaker, Dasia Skinner, said she learned about Quiet Time while working as a substitute teacher at Bogan during the past school year. Though she had no firsthand knowledge of the program, she said she spoke to more than 60 students about it and that they shared similar accounts.
“When I talked to students about it, I discovered some shocking news," Skinner said.
She said students described a “weird” ritual in which they were taken to a dark room where a Quiet Time facilitator led them through a ritual she perceived as Hindu-based.
“When you close your eyes and meditate on the guide, this is considered prayer or religious worship,” Skinner said, asserting it amounts to a violation of the separation of church and state.
“All of this was done without parents’ knowledge or the students’ understanding,” Skinner said.
But the Lynch Foundation website says the practice is meditation, not a religious practice.
“It does not involve any religion, philosophy, or change in lifestyle,” the website states. Hundreds of schools, both public and private, have adopted the meditations, according to the foundation.
Guryan said researchers have started a preliminary analysis but are uncertain whether they’ll continue evaluating the program in the upcoming school year.
So far, students trained in transcendental meditation have violent crime arrest rates about 65% to 70% lower than their peers and have reduced blood pressure, he said.
Christine Laadimi, an international baccalaureate history teacher who has worked at Bogan for 13 years, said the meditation program has also led to fewer arguments in school.
When she has sat in on sessions, she found them peaceful, starting with the ringing of a bell and 30 seconds to say a mantra and get into a meditative state of mind, she said.
“I’ve never had any religious undertones at all,” Laadimi said.
Laadimi said students can choose to meditate or simply to put their head down. The whole school is quiet during the 15-minute periods, whether or not they’re all meditating, she said.
“From the main office to the security guards, every single classroom is quiet during that whole time,” she said.
At other times during the day, students can choose to do their own meditation in designated Quiet Time rooms and talk to a meditation adviser.
Laadimi said her classes are always excited to meditate, and no students have come to her saying they felt uncomfortable.
“Our students are going, going, going so much during the day, they’re on their phones, using their Chromebooks,” she said. “Twice a day, 15 minutes, where they can just be quiet and give their brain a rest is really a good processing time for the students.”
hleone@chicagotribune.com
Hannah Leone
Hannah Leone reports on Chicago Public Schools for the Tribune. She spent a year covering crime scenes overnight and previously covered breaking news and courts in the west suburbs. She worked at newspapers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho before joining the Tribune in 2016. She lives in Rogers Park, where she enjoys running along the lake.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-high-school-quiet-time-meditation-david-lynch-bogan-20190725-72so6zr2gvganb2c54k4eq24zm-story.html
Jade described what she called an initiation ritual in which instructors took her and her friend into the Quiet Time classroom and turned all the lights out. After the ritual, students were told to keep their mantras a secret, she said.
Jade described the twice-daily sessions as mandatory but said she did eventually stop going.
“If you talk during this quiet time, they will threaten to drop your grades,” Jade said. “This program should be removed from any public school because it is religious and forces students to do things they don’t understand or agree with.”
CPS and Urban Labs officials said the program is not mandatory, and students who don’t participate have other options for 15-minute quiet periods. Students were offered the chance to opt out, and about 14 percent did so, Guryan said.
But Jade’s mother, Deborah Thomas, said the letters sent home explaining the practice were misleading.
The district’s chief education officer, LaTanya McDade, told the board she had personally checked out the Quiet Time program at Bogan and asked questions about it.
“None of this was shared with me,” McDade said. “... I would like to personally follow up on it and investigate the matter and address it accordingly.”
Another speaker, Dasia Skinner, said she learned about Quiet Time while working as a substitute teacher at Bogan during the past school year. Though she had no firsthand knowledge of the program, she said she spoke to more than 60 students about it and that they shared similar accounts.
“When I talked to students about it, I discovered some shocking news," Skinner said.
She said students described a “weird” ritual in which they were taken to a dark room where a Quiet Time facilitator led them through a ritual she perceived as Hindu-based.
“When you close your eyes and meditate on the guide, this is considered prayer or religious worship,” Skinner said, asserting it amounts to a violation of the separation of church and state.
“All of this was done without parents’ knowledge or the students’ understanding,” Skinner said.
But the Lynch Foundation website says the practice is meditation, not a religious practice.
“It does not involve any religion, philosophy, or change in lifestyle,” the website states. Hundreds of schools, both public and private, have adopted the meditations, according to the foundation.
Guryan said researchers have started a preliminary analysis but are uncertain whether they’ll continue evaluating the program in the upcoming school year.
So far, students trained in transcendental meditation have violent crime arrest rates about 65% to 70% lower than their peers and have reduced blood pressure, he said.
Christine Laadimi, an international baccalaureate history teacher who has worked at Bogan for 13 years, said the meditation program has also led to fewer arguments in school.
When she has sat in on sessions, she found them peaceful, starting with the ringing of a bell and 30 seconds to say a mantra and get into a meditative state of mind, she said.
“I’ve never had any religious undertones at all,” Laadimi said.
Laadimi said students can choose to meditate or simply to put their head down. The whole school is quiet during the 15-minute periods, whether or not they’re all meditating, she said.
“From the main office to the security guards, every single classroom is quiet during that whole time,” she said.
At other times during the day, students can choose to do their own meditation in designated Quiet Time rooms and talk to a meditation adviser.
Laadimi said her classes are always excited to meditate, and no students have come to her saying they felt uncomfortable.
“Our students are going, going, going so much during the day, they’re on their phones, using their Chromebooks,” she said. “Twice a day, 15 minutes, where they can just be quiet and give their brain a rest is really a good processing time for the students.”
hleone@chicagotribune.com
Hannah Leone
Hannah Leone reports on Chicago Public Schools for the Tribune. She spent a year covering crime scenes overnight and previously covered breaking news and courts in the west suburbs. She worked at newspapers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho before joining the Tribune in 2016. She lives in Rogers Park, where she enjoys running along the lake.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-high-school-quiet-time-meditation-david-lynch-bogan-20190725-72so6zr2gvganb2c54k4eq24zm-story.html
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