As we all know, teaching meditation to children has been seen as a very valuable gift in helping children develop spiritually, the children enjoy it and it is a gift for life. The introduction into schools and elsewhere has been carried out in different ways in different parts of the world. Sometimes the work has had the support of a Diocese, and sometimes from an Education Department. However, often there has been no official support and it has grown through the work of committed volunteers within the National Communities.
In reviewing the effectiveness of our work, it made sense to find out what was going on world -wide and then to adapt our practices in the light of that knowledge. To aid this process a small international group of people working in the field has developed guidelines for effective practice. These guidelines, ‘Meditation a Gift for Life’, have recently been published and are available from meditatio@wccm.org.
In the UK volunteers have offered guidance to teachers on how to teach Christian meditation in school for some years, mostly through training days. We have all followed a similar approach, originating in Australia, which teachers liked and they subsequently found it easy to implement in their classes. Indeed, teachers have been genuinely surprised and delighted by how the children have responded, how they have loved to meditate and how it has benefited the class and the individual children.
Now a group within the UK are intending to update our way of offering In-service training to schools. In addition, as we all need ongoing support to help us continue our practice, whether alone or in a group setting, so do teachers. Consequently, and as the Guidelines suggest, it would be very valuable to have local meditators willing to learn how to support the teachers in primary schools in their neighbourhood. The UK group will be putting together ways to facilitate this. This is a work in progress, a new beginning. We will keep you updated and please do get in contact with us via uk@wccm.org if this is of interest to you.
Pat Hay