Benefits for Education

The Transcendental Meditation technique is being increasingly employed in education as a technology to facilitate optimal cognitive, intellectual, social and emotional development. Research findings include:

• Increased intelligence and creativity [236, 63, 201, 233, 238, 243, 245, 247-249]
• Improved memory, learning ability, and cognitive flexibility [22, 175-176, 236, 248, 250-251]
• Improved academic achievement in school, university, and postgraduate students [239-242, 252]
• Accelerated cognitive and self development [198, 200, 216-224, 246, 253]
• Improved attention, perception, and mind-body co-ordination [236, 63, 142, 158-159, 167, 238, 241, 243, 258-270]
• Increased orderliness and integration in brain functioning (see above) [101-104, 106-108, 119-120, 141-179]
• Improvement on both verbal-analytical and visual-spatial tasks (indicating improved functioning of both left and right cerebral hemispheres) [63, 159, 233, 243-245, 247-250, 264]
• Improved athletic performance [272-274]
• Reduced blood pressure in pre-hypertensive adolescents [29, 30, 14]
• Increased field independence (indicating greater ability to maintain broad comprehension while focusing sharply) [236, 241, 243, 260-262]
• Comprehensive benefits for mental health and well-being (see above) [22, 69-70, 75, 80, 190-193, 196-199, 201-214, 225-235]
• Greater moral maturity and higher moral reasoning [213, 223, 248, 173]
• Increased orientation towards positive values [212]
• Increased social maturity in college students [201]
• Reduced alcohol consumption, drug abuse, and smoking (see above) [51-54, 230, 303-320]
• Reduced behaviour problems in school – decreased absenteeism, rule infractions, and suspension days [234]
• Settled, positive school atmosphere conducive to successful learning [252]
• Increased harmony between students and teachers [252]
• Benefits in special and remedial education:
o Increased independence and self-supportiveness, improved self-regard, and decreased dropout rate from school in economically-deprived adolescents with learning problems [225]
o Increased intelligence and improved self-concept among children from low income families [246]
o Decreased anxiety, examination anxiety, and school dislike in children with learning problems [255]
o Improvements in children with ADHD (please see www.adhd-tm.org)
o Improvement in autism: decreased echolalic behavior [256]
o Benefits for learning disabled subjects: improvements in social behaviour, cognitive functioning, intelligence, physical health; and normalization of neuroendocrine measures [229, 100]
o Decreased stuttering [257]
o Improved social behaviour, increased self-regard, and decreased anxiety among juvenile offenders [337, 332]

Three randomized controlled studies conducted in Taiwan found that TM produced greater improvements in speed of cognitive processing, cognitive flexibility, creativity, general intelligence, practical intelligence, and field independence than either a traditional Chinese meditation technique or napping [236]. The authors note that, as in earlier research on TM and intelligence, the technique produced unexpected improvements in basic cognitive abilities that do not usually develop beyond early adolescence [236, 233, 238].

In a British study, master’s degree engineering students who learned Transcendental Meditation showed improved performance on standard examinations after six months, compared with randomly assigned controls [239].

Canadian secondary school students who practised Transcendental Meditation over a 14-week period showed improvements in intellectual performance (problem-solving ability), creativity, tolerance, self-esteem, autonomy and independence, innovation, energy levels, and ability to deal with abstract and complex situations, as well as decreased anxiety, in contrast to control students [245].

In Cambodian students taking a one-year preparatory course before university, TM led to increased intelligence and self-esteem, improved physical health, and decreased depression and anxiety, compared to control students [235, 237]

In a four-month randomized trial, adolescent African American children who learned Transcendental Meditation showed reductions in absenteeism, school rule infractions, and suspension days compared to a control group who participated in health education [234].
In a ten-year longitudinal study, university students practising the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programme increased significantly on a measure of self development (Loevinger’s ego-development scale), in contrast to non-meditating control students at three other universities [198].

Another study of university students practising TM found that they rated important people in their lives (parents and spouse) significantly more positively than did control students [212].

Consciousness-Based Education in Practice
TM has been practically applied in schools and universities in highly diverse social and economic environments in many parts of the world, including UK, USA, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Taiwan, Australia, South Africa, Uganda, Canada, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, Paraguay, and Guatemala. These projects have produced exceptional standards of academic achievement, student well-being, and school harmony [www.consciousnessbasededucation.org.uk].

The longest established educational institutions employing Maharishi’s Consciousness-Based Education – Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa and Maharishi Schools in Fairfield and in Skelmersdale, Lancashire – have consistently delivered outstanding educational outcomes, and their students have repeatedly won regional, national, and international awards in many fields, including science, mathematics, creative thinking, literature, and sport. These results are particularly notable since both schools have an open admissions policy and do not select pupils by ability or background.

At Maharishi School in Lancashire in 2007, 100% of the pupils who took their GCSE examinations gained passes at grade C or above, compared with the national average of 63%. Approximately 66% of the passes were at the highest grades of A or A*; this is over three times the national figure of 19.5%. These results maintain the high standards of previous years: in 2006, all pupils gained five or more passes at grades A to C, with 58% at A or A* [www.maharishischool.com].

Maharishi School in Fairfield, Iowa has ten times the national average of graduates who are National Merit Scholar Finalists and has seen 95% of graduates accepted at four-year colleges, with senior students consistently scoring in the nation’s top 1% on standardized tests of educational development. Maharishi School students have won over 100 international, national, and state competitions for academic projects, sports, arts, and extracurricular activities. For example, in Destination ImagiNation, an international problem-solving competition, Maharishi School students have not only won the World Championship three times, but have had more top ten finishes than any other school in the world [252, www.maharishischooliowa.org, and www.mum.edu].

The TM program can also make a great contribution to calming the stress and violence that has become all too frequent in schools, especially in economically-deprived areas. Dr George Rutherford, a Washington D.C. educator and school principal for over four decades, served for 20 years as Principal of the Fletcher-Johnson Educational Centre in one of the city’s most violent areas. There he introduced Transcendental Meditation to hundreds of students and teachers as part of a unique programme of ‘quiet time’. ‘We had amazing results,’ Dr Rutherford has said. ‘I used to have to be in the streets all the time to stop the fighting, but after we started the TM programme, I didn’t have to go out there. You walk into the school and you feel it’s tension-free: a stress-free school right in the heart of the inner city, where we had plenty of violence.’ Other American schools situated in troubled areas are experiencing similarly positive results, including reduced student suspensions, improved teacher attendance, improved school environment, and fewer fights. Two recent studies have shown that Transcendental Meditation positively influences emotional development in early adolescent African-American children in a school setting where its practice is supported by the administration [www.tmeducation.org].

By incorporating TM into the daily curriculum, Consciousness-Based Education progressively develops integration in brain functioning—the essential foundation for more effective learning, enhanced personal growth, and greater success in any field of life (see ‘Physiological Changes during TM’ above). A recent randomized controlled trial found that college students who practised TM over a three-month period showed increased scores on an electroencephalographic (EEG) index of brain integration compared to non-meditating control students [163], corroborating the findings of earlier studies [164-165]. The TM group also showed reduced sleepiness and had no increase in physiological stress levels (measured by skin resistance responses) despite impending final examinations, in contrast to the expected increase seen in controls [163].