Enlightenment Amidst the Corn
A plea for peace at the Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment in Fairfield, IA
W. BURLINGTON, IA - The Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment in Fairfield is unlike any school we've seen on this tour. A Pre-K-through-12 school based on the philosophy of "Consciousness-Based" education, its students are all practitioners of Transcendental Meditation, or "TM," as they refer to it.
In spite of its fundamental differences from most
other schools, it's not as if the students and teachers walk around in flowing
robes with shaved heads. To the contrary, in terms of its appearance, the school
has a lot in common with typical private and parochial schools. The student body
is ethnically diverse, and they wear uniforms. The boys wear white shirts with
green ties, and the girls wear green-and-yellow jumpers. Although the school is
co-ed, the boys and girls are educated separately.
For our workshop in the afternoon, we were assigned to a group of 5th and 6th grade girls. When we entered the music room, I noticed a sign instructing people to remove their shoes upon entering. I quietly alerted my colleagues to the sign, thinking that in our compliance, we were being respectful to the special rules of a special school. I was therefore sheepishly amused when, after we completed the workshop, the music teacher saw our shoeless feet and said, "Oh, you didn't have to take your shoes off. That sign is for the high schoolers in the orchestra." She gestured out the window. "They come from all the way across that big field, and they track tons of mud with them. If they didn't take their shoes off, this carpet would be a mess." Scientific studies indicate that meditation improves adolescents' IQ, but it apparently doesn't guarantee a corresponding spike in cleanliness.
The performance of Three Little Pigs went well. The boys sat on one side of the floor, with the girls on the opposite side. They laughed and whooped it up as well as any public school audience we've had. During the ensuing Q & A session, the child meditators enlightened us with their incisive questions and use of varied syntax.
Maharishi is a fascinating school, and it's nestled in an even more intriguing community. Fairfield is not close to Iowa's major cities. It's more than 100 miles from Des Moines, and I estimate that it's probably at least 50 miles from Iowa City. And yet, in the years since the school's founding in 1974, Fairfield has become a relocation destination for practitioners of TM and their families from around the world. In this community of 10,000 people in the middle of Iowa, about 3,000 of them are Maharishi followers who are not native to the state. It's like in Field of Dreams: "If you build it, they will come."
Many of these people have established their own businesses in Fairfield, such as banks, software companies, and - quite predictably - restaurants. The international mix of citizens gives the town a worldly flavor you don't often find away from a major metropolitan city. As our host put it to me quite succinctly, "Fairfield is a small town with a big town mentality."
The school is justifiably proud of its academic and athletic achievements. The children earn superb scores on standardized tests and compete at a very high level in national and international competitions of all academic disciplines. Maharishi's tennis and golf teams, among others, have brought glory to the school in the form of state championships - no small feat for a small school in a state where high school athletics are a cherished tradition. By any measure, the kids at this school are high achievers, and the school points to the positive influence that TM plays in all of this.
While I don't question the value of TM, I think it's important to view the school's success in light of the fact that its students are not only meditators, but they are also the children of meditators. Their parents, by virtue of having found TM for themselves, exhibited a superior level of intellectual and spiritual curiosity; anybody who comes across and embraces TM is likely a highly educated person or, at the very least, a person of considerable aptitude. It's not too much of a stretch to suppose that the children of such thoughtful people will inherit their parents' intellect and curiosity. In other words, smart parents have smart children.
After visiting Maharishi, I think all of us are at least a little curious about TM and how our lives might be improved by it. Given the tense situations that invariably arise on a tour of this length and scope, the opera company's planners may want to look into a crash course in TM for future troupes. In the meantime, we can just be thankful that we coexisted this long without its help.
For our workshop in the afternoon, we were assigned to a group of 5th and 6th grade girls. When we entered the music room, I noticed a sign instructing people to remove their shoes upon entering. I quietly alerted my colleagues to the sign, thinking that in our compliance, we were being respectful to the special rules of a special school. I was therefore sheepishly amused when, after we completed the workshop, the music teacher saw our shoeless feet and said, "Oh, you didn't have to take your shoes off. That sign is for the high schoolers in the orchestra." She gestured out the window. "They come from all the way across that big field, and they track tons of mud with them. If they didn't take their shoes off, this carpet would be a mess." Scientific studies indicate that meditation improves adolescents' IQ, but it apparently doesn't guarantee a corresponding spike in cleanliness.
The performance of Three Little Pigs went well. The boys sat on one side of the floor, with the girls on the opposite side. They laughed and whooped it up as well as any public school audience we've had. During the ensuing Q & A session, the child meditators enlightened us with their incisive questions and use of varied syntax.
Maharishi is a fascinating school, and it's nestled in an even more intriguing community. Fairfield is not close to Iowa's major cities. It's more than 100 miles from Des Moines, and I estimate that it's probably at least 50 miles from Iowa City. And yet, in the years since the school's founding in 1974, Fairfield has become a relocation destination for practitioners of TM and their families from around the world. In this community of 10,000 people in the middle of Iowa, about 3,000 of them are Maharishi followers who are not native to the state. It's like in Field of Dreams: "If you build it, they will come."
Many of these people have established their own businesses in Fairfield, such as banks, software companies, and - quite predictably - restaurants. The international mix of citizens gives the town a worldly flavor you don't often find away from a major metropolitan city. As our host put it to me quite succinctly, "Fairfield is a small town with a big town mentality."
The school is justifiably proud of its academic and athletic achievements. The children earn superb scores on standardized tests and compete at a very high level in national and international competitions of all academic disciplines. Maharishi's tennis and golf teams, among others, have brought glory to the school in the form of state championships - no small feat for a small school in a state where high school athletics are a cherished tradition. By any measure, the kids at this school are high achievers, and the school points to the positive influence that TM plays in all of this.
While I don't question the value of TM, I think it's important to view the school's success in light of the fact that its students are not only meditators, but they are also the children of meditators. Their parents, by virtue of having found TM for themselves, exhibited a superior level of intellectual and spiritual curiosity; anybody who comes across and embraces TM is likely a highly educated person or, at the very least, a person of considerable aptitude. It's not too much of a stretch to suppose that the children of such thoughtful people will inherit their parents' intellect and curiosity. In other words, smart parents have smart children.
After visiting Maharishi, I think all of us are at least a little curious about TM and how our lives might be improved by it. Given the tense situations that invariably arise on a tour of this length and scope, the opera company's planners may want to look into a crash course in TM for future troupes. In the meantime, we can just be thankful that we coexisted this long without its help.
Posted: Mon - April 11, 2005 at 11:59 PM
Quick Links
Calendar
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
Categories
Archives
XML/RSS Feed
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Apr 11, 2005 11:59 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Apr 11, 2005 11:59 PM