Toning Down Kids With Tunes

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.This week’s item is from The Liverpool Echo, May 18, 2007, with a headline:Chill Out Lessons For Kids, the following are excerpts:A school is piping bird noises into class and encouraging pupils to take out-of-body journeys to cut their stress levels.The initiative that EvelynCommunityPrimary School has been branded ridiculous psychobabble by a leading parents group, but head teacher Carol Arnold insists the bliss zones were having a positive impact on results and pupil well-being.Parents have joined health officials in backing the school and Evelyn AvenuePrescott saying their children’s ability to relax is having a calming influence on them as well.The school’srelaxation program includes asking pupils aged 4 to 11 to spend at least an hour a week in bliss zones.Zones in every class with aromatic smells, stress balls, pick up sticks, piped Chinese calming music and bird noises and sounds of nature, and meditation areas with miniature Buddhas.Recognizing stress warning signs such as butterflies in the tummy, Mrs. Arnold said they are taught to take visualizations to move themselves from where they are to somewhere more relaxing, such as walking through a forest, or on a beach.“I think life is generally more stressful, not just in schools, but society generally now has a faster pace.You only have to look at the pupils to see they are more relaxed here, and we were branded outstanding by Ofstet, who said this was a magical place to learn.”Chairman of a parent’s group that campaigned for real education Nick Seaton is not impressed.“This is ridiculous psychobabble, they will be taking jaw sticks in next.Rather than doing relaxation exercises pupils will be far better served learning their foundation subjects.”But Lindsey Stockley, whose daughters, Holly Ann 5, and Alyce 6, attend, said it’s great and they carry it on at home such as massaging each other’s backs.Holly Ann passed on her calming technique to me, telling me to count to 10 while waiting in a super market cue.

Tom:

Dave, this is where we get into trouble with many people because they say, Well, what’s wrong with just relaxing, what’s wrong with just taking a time out and sitting back and trying to get away from the tensions of life, or maybe their routines, or whatever they may be doing.And just as we mentioned in the earlier segment, there is some truth to that.Let’s take a little time out, if you’ve been in a classroom with, maybe 40 fourth graders, that can be a pretty wild affair, and to get them to settle down, slow down, especially we don’t want to put them on Ritalin—well, we don’t.That’s what usually takes place.So wouldn’t this be far better than that, Dave, just to kind of get in and ease things up and just relax, come on!

Dave:

Well, if you begin to believe that this not only relaxes you but it’s a first step.We could go to Richard Foster, leading Christian writer, he even has his own Bible, the Renovaré Spiritual Formation Bible, backed by about 50 evangelical scholars, supposedly, but Richard Foster says, Now relax, do just exactly what the school is saying.Now visualize Jesus, and focus on Him and hear His voice, see Him, get a clear picture of Him.Jesus will come to you and speak to you.And then Richard Foster also says, Well, see yourself lying in a meadow, feel calm and relaxed and then see your soul and spirit leaving your body, zoom into space going right into the throne room of God, and so forth.So Tom, it’s a very easy step to go from just, oh, just imagine myself at the beach—that would be nice—to something much deeper into the occult.Furthermore, the Bible says, I trust in the Lord.It doesn’t say, I never found in the Bible—let’s take David.David, he really got into a lot of trouble, he had horrible problems.Joseph, thrown into prison, and falsely accused, and so forth, what about Paul? I mean, he’s shipwrecked and he actually had some sleepless nights, and he’s been beaten with rods, scoured and he’s lying on his back in the muck and the filth of a prison, and singing praises to God.But of course you couldn’t tell these kids to sing praises to God, but the Bible says, Let’s shout with joy, praise the Lord, take your problems to the Lord.So Tom, I guess this might be the best you could do with secular kids who don’t know the Lord and in a school where you can’t tell them about the Lord, you can’t give them the truth.

Tom:

But Dave, they can tell them about Buddhas.In other words, this person is introducing Eastern mysticism in a classroom.And our view is, look, some of this is problematic, physiologically as well and especially spiritually.So, you just made a case for what a Christian ought to do.But in a classroom, I mean, I’m okay with naptime, but when it reaches a spirituality, a level of spirituality, you’ve got big time problems.A jaw stick for example, if anybody doesn’t know what that is, it’s like a little thing that you light and it goes off aroma, it’s like incense, incense stick, and so on.But Dave, this is purely an introduction to Eastern mysticism.Do you remember, some time back we interviewed a lady who was an instructor in TM, and she talked about her own meditations.This became a hideout for her, she just tried to cut off the world and the world was just her family, everything was being destroyed around her, and she would find this little oasis of peace that became almost an addiction for her.

Dave:

Right, so now we’ve got Buddha, he’s right there in school but Jesus can’t be.That’s America. It didn’t used to be that way.It’s worse than Russia was, and in Russia they are turning to the Bible, to the Ten Commandments—which we won’t allow—because they know they’ve had atheism for too long.