School yoga classes foughtAspen
parents fear a link to religion By
Nancy Lofholm Thursday,
August 29, 2002 - ASPEN - Adding a "Y" to the three Rs has stirred up
a controversy over separation of church and state at Aspen Elementary School. The
school had planned to start a pilot program called Yoga Ed in several weeks that
would use the ancient practice of deep breathing and stretching to help rowdy
kids calm down and focus on their reading, writing and arithmetic. But
several parents have objected to their little ones participating in what they
see as something bordering on a mystical religious practice. The school now
plans to hold a meeting for parents next week to explain the program. And if
there is too much objection, the camel, cobra, corpse and triangle poses could
be chucked before they ever get started. "I
wish I could just change the name of this to 'stretching and breathing' and call
it good," said exasperated school principal Barb Pitchford, who doesn't
practice yoga herself. She said she was blindsided by the imbroglio over the
program and mystified that the only controversy over Yoga Ed would surface in a
progressive place like Aspen. Yoga
Ed was developed by Los Angeles yoga teacher Tara Guber and is practiced in the
Los Angles Public School system, as well as in public schools in Seattle, San
Francisco and Columbus, Ohio. The program involves various yoga stretching poses
and deep breathing techniques performed for about 25 minutes once a week. Guber
has said that teaching yoga in schools not only helps concentration and focus,
it also helps self-esteem and gives children a "time in" as opposed to
a timeout. At
Aspen Elementary, a school of 500 students - mostly children of working,
middle-class parents - Yoga Ed was planned to be a pilot program in a dozen
first- through fourth-grade classes. Teachers trained by a yoga instructor would
teach the yoga. Half of the 38 teachers at Aspen Elementary volunteered to learn
how to teach Yoga Ed. Only
three sets of parents came forward at last week's meeting of the Aspen School
Board to complain about the program that they mistakenly thought would include
chanting. But that was enough to prompt the school district's attorneys to
research the issue. Pitchford
said the attorneys determined Yoga Ed would not violate the separation of church
and state. Nevertheless, the complaints were enough to prompt Pitchford to call
a special meeting for Wednesday to explain Yoga Ed and listen to concerns. Mary
Blankenship, the mother of a second-grade student at Aspen Elementary, said she
plans to take her objections to that meeting. "My
understanding of yoga is that you can't separate religion out of it,"
Blankenship said. "If you introduce a child to this at a young, vulnerable
age, you could cause them to want to practice it later. If it's kind of a Hindu
cult-like thing, I don't want my child exposed to that." Nancy
Ferguson, executive director of the national Yoga Alliance, said the link
between yoga and religion is a misconception. "Yoga is a practice or a
discipline that grew out of Hinduism 5,000 years ago. But it's not a
religion," she said. "It's a physical practice." Ferguson
said a variety of yoga programs are cropping up in schools across the country,
and she hasn't heard of any other objections to the practice. The Aspen Center
for New Medicine, with help from the Aspen Youth Center and Aspen Education
Foundation is sponsoring the program in the Aspen school.
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