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Jewish World Review
Oct. 31, 2007
/ 19 Mar-Cheshvan 5768
Public School Follies: Y Is for Yoga
By
Michelle Malkin
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The surgeon general really needs to slap a health warning on The New York Times. My blood pressure increases a few points every time I read it. This week, the newspaper of record pimped the Next Great American Education Fad: In-school yoga classes.
According to the piece, "Less Homework, More Yoga, From a Principal Who Hates Stress," the head of Needham High School in the Boston suburbs is pushing "stress reduction" through better stretching and breathing. Principal Paul Richards, who last earned nationwide mockery when he ditched publishing the honor roll, is part-Oprah, part-Deepak Chopra, part-Richard Simmons and all edu-babble.
"It's not that I'm trying to turn the culture upside down," he's quoted telling the Times. "It's very important to protect the part of the culture that leads to all the achievement," he said. "It's more about bringing the culture to a healthier place."
And here I thought high school principals should make schooling, not "bringing the culture to a healthier place," their top priority. Silly me. Welcome to your new Nanny State nightmare.
Yoga classes are now a requirement for Needham high school seniors. To further ease the supposed burden on overworked students, Richards has "asked teachers to schedule homework-free weekends and holidays." Just what we need to turn around those one in 10 schools that are now considered "dropout factories," huh? Can't cut it in the classroom? Bend like a bridge, take five deep, slow breaths, and all will be dandy.
Why stop at yoga? Tantric chanting, here we come. And, hey, Kabbalah has done wonders for Madonna. Let's add hypnotism and acupuncture classes while we're at it. Hot stone massages? Bonsai tree-clipping? No Relaxation Technique Left Behind!
Some point to a number of tragic student suicides to justify larding up the school day with Tree Poses and Sun Salutations. But the school officials themselves admit the deaths were not related to stress. No matter. Richards is using them to forge ahead with "a movement to push back against an ethos of super-achievement at affluent suburban high schools amid the extreme competition over college admissions." It appears there are now more than 40 other high schools and middle schools that embrace the "Stressed Out Students" agenda. There's another yoga curriculum popular in California, Yoga Ed., that has trained 10,000 teachers in more than 100 schools nationwide.
And guess what else I discovered after trying to find out whether yoga was coming to a school near me? We are paying for this nonsense. The Yoga Ed. program, created by Hollywood spouse/socialite Tara Guber, was funded with taxpayer grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the federal Carol M. White Physical Education Program.
Bit by bit, the dumbed-down cult of mediocrity, secular extremism and multicultural madness has infected American public education. Instead of concentrating on the basics and then teaching children to manage and conquer their "stress" through internal discipline, we're removing every last source of possible damage to their egos.
Math test scores have plummeted. Solution: Remove the U.S. from international competitions.
Students are failing. Solution: Hide the honor rolls so the under-achievers don't feel bad.
Elementary pupils don't like drills and spelling tests. Solution: Fuzzy math and inventive spelling.
Families can't manage their time. Solution: Less homework, more yoga.
"A lot of these kids," lectures Principal Richards, "are being held hostage to the culture." No kidding. When The New York Times invited one of Richards' students to recommend stress-reduction techniques, he ended with this suggestion:
"Watch a short clip on YouTube (as long as you are not addicted). The amazing and often funny feats on the site are inspiring and often leave you feeling, 'Hey I want to do that!' This is a great attitude to have towards your work."
Watch feats of stupidity on YouTube. Yeah, that'll do wonders for American student achievement.
The only ones who need stress reduction right now are parents fed up with this runaway idiocy. If you think educrats are going to recover their senses any time soon, well, you know, don't hold your breath.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR contributor Michelle Malkin's column by clicking here.
Michelle Malkin Archives
MICHELLE'S LATEST:
In Unhinged: Liberals Gone Wild
Un·hinged
adj : affected with madness or insanity; [syn: brainsick, crazy, demented, distracted, disturbed, mad, sick, unbalanced]
The American Heritage Dictionary
*** Warning: Unhinged liberals are hazardous to the nation's health.
They're slashing your tires. Burning your lawns. Heaving pies at Republican pundits. Hurling racist epithets at minority conservatives. Nursing nutty conspiracy theories. And pining publicly for the murder of President Bush.
And they call us crazy?
In In Unhinged: Liberals Gone Wild, Michelle Malkin plays conservative Margaret Mead to the alien political creatures of the American Left. With uproarious detail and rollicking reportage, Malkin chronicles the bizarre world of leftists gone mad in their natural habitats: the mainstream media, academia, Hollywood, and Washington.
Unhinged unmasks liberals who've completely abandoned rationality and reality. They're taking chainsaws and bayonets to campaign signs. Running down political opponents with their cars. Setting fire to political opponents in effigy. Defacing war memorials. Swiping yellow ribbons off cars. And supporting the fragging of American troops.
In Unhinged, you'll meet:
- The Top 10 Unhinged Leftists, Celebrities, Media Liberals, and Politicians. - The Pennsylvania Democrat who repeatedly screamed "faggot" at his Republican opponents on the Senate floor. - The Florida Democrat who tried to run down former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris with his Cadillac. - The Democrat congressman who claimed the capture of Saddam Hussein was staged by GOP operatives to help the Bush re-election campaign. - The veteran newsman who claimed that Bush advisor Karl Rove and Osama bin Laden are working hand-in-hand to help the Republican Party. - And hundreds more unhinged liberals gone wild!
With wit, wisdom, and a bullet-proof vest, Michelle Malkin ruthlessly and raucously skewers the myths of liberal tolerance, peace, and civility. Unhinged shows how conservatives are driving their opponents mad. The good news for liberals? Self-help starts here.
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