Report on TM in San Francisco Schools

Gail, a reader from San Francisco reported her experiences with the David Lynch Foundation's program for Transcendental Meditation in San Francisco Public Schools in our comments. I invite any reader, especially parents, students, or teachers, with direct experience with this program to send us their thoughts. Either post them in the comments below or send them directly to jmknapp53@gmail.com.

And I urge readers to make her post viral: Please share her comments with anyone you believe has an interest in separation of Church and State issues. If each of us take a single small action, such as forwarding this post to others, as a community we can have a powerful effect!

During this school year (2008-2009), the Transcendental Meditation program (with the front-name "Quiet Time") has also been implemented in another inner-city public school in San Francisco -- Everett Middle School. There are two required daily T.M. sessions of 15 minutes each in every classroom throughout the school toward the beginning & the end of the school day, and the students are graded for their robotic participation using a point system. The emphasis is on 'stress relief' and bringing up standardized test scores. The school's schedule does not provide a homeroom/advisory session. The school building has been hijacked by a crew of 20 bullying, clueless T.M. fanatics working for the David Lynch Foundation who are not school district staff (they are funded by a large grant). They have commandeered a large classroom for use as their T.M. office, and also a wing of the building which contains small rooms. These T.M. pod-people at times disrespectfully (or sometimes perhaps obliviously) interfere with school instruction & logistics. They also deceptively lie & obfuscate to the staff, students & parents about the induction (Puja) process, the source & selection of the mantras, and the organization's checkered history & fascist framework. Of course, they never mention their World Plan scenarios, Fairfield, Iowa & Global shenanigans, crowned-Rajas & pretend-Government, etc. Recently, the T.M. conglomerate has been targeting students from low-income neighborhoods and schools without an active PTA or strong parent involvement to provide oversight. The T.M. proselytizers have shown themselves to be anti-democracy, anti-educational inquiry, and anti- the U.S. Constitution (the separation of Church & State).
--Gail