Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

consciousness-based education and governmentAnother study on public middle school English Language Learners(ELL) showed significant improvements in English proficiency instudents practicing Transcendental Meditation compared to controls(Grant et al., 2009). A total of 75 public middle school students (48meditators and 27 non-meditators) who reported a non-Englishlanguage as the language spoken at home and who were belowproficiency in English at baseline were included in the study.Change in student scores on the California Standardized Testand Reporting (STAR) English scale were compared over a one-yearperiod. All students continued with their standard classroom instructionfor English Language Learners. Findings indicated a significantimprovement in English performance level scores in students practicingthe Transcendental Meditation technique compared to controls.Approximately 21% of the meditating students attained proficiency inEnglish over one-year compared to 4% of the non-meditating students.In addition, research on standardized academic achievement in privateschool students, using the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and EducationalDevelopment, showed significant improvement in compositeacademic performance, math, reading, language, and work-study skills(Nidich et al., 1986, 1989).Graduation RatesColbert and Nidich (submitted for publication) conducted researchon a total of 235 12 th grade students (142 meditating students and 93non-meditating controls) enrolled in an urban East Coast high school.All students included in the analysis were enrolled at the start of thefall semester and were tracked to determine the percentage of studentsgraduating by the end of the school year. The meditating students practicedTranscendental Meditation for an average of 1.5 years. Studentswere coded as: 1) graduating in the Spring or Summer; 2) not graduatingbut still in high school; 3) transferring to another school; 4) enlistingin the army; 5) being a dropout; or 6) entering prison. Studentswere stratified into high and low GPA groups based on overall medianGPA score.Overall the percentage of graduating students practicing the TranscendnetalMeditation technique was 87.1% and the percentage ofgraduating non-meditating students was 66.7%. For the meditating310