Author:
Publication: CNN News
Date: January 29, 2007
URL: http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/01/29/yoga.in.schools.ap/index.html
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, Colorado, 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 new curriculum that eliminated chanting and translated
Sanskrit into kid-friendly 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, principal of Coleman Elementary School in San Rafael,
California. 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," Reynolds
said. "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 sits on the board and where students practice yoga almost every
day. Researchers found a correlation between yoga and better behavior and
grades, and they said young yogis were more fit than the district average
from the California 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 clifftop 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,
Oregon, 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.
Willis, who lives near Tahlequah, Oklahoma, also created an exercise regimen
called "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 that 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.
