The naughty corner at this U.S. school in Baltimore has taken on a whole new meaning.
Instead of the traditional punishments dished out by most classrooms around the world, Robert W. Coleman Elementary has been doing something different when students act out: offering meditation.
The room looks nothing like your standard windowless detention room.
Instead, it’s filled with lamps, decorations, and plush purple pillows. Misbehaving kids are encouraged to sit in the room and go through practices like breathing or meditation, helping them calm down and re-centre.
They are also asked to talk through what happened.
The meditation room in Baltimore was created as a partnership with the Holistic Life Foundation, a local nonprofit that runs other programs as well.
For more than 10 years the foundation has been offering the after-school program Holistic Me, where kids from pre-K through the fifth grade practice mindfulness exercises and yoga.
“It’s amazing,” said Kirk Philips, the Holistic Me coordinator at Robert W. Coleman. “You wouldn’t think that little kids would meditate in silence. And they do.”
There was a Christmas party, for example, where the kids knew they were going to get presents but were still expected to do meditation first.
“As a little kid, that’s got to be hard to sit down and meditate when you know you’re about to get a bag of gifts, and they did it! It was beautiful, we were all smiling at each other watching them,” said Kirk.
The kids may even be bringing that mindfulness back home with them. In the August 2016 issue of Oprah Magazine, Holistic Life Foundation co-founder Andres Gonzalez said: “We’ve had parents tell us, ‘I came home the other day stressed out, and my daughter said, “Hey, Mum, you need to sit down. I need to teach you how to breathe”.”
The program also informs children about the environment and even helps kids build veggie farms on campus. Kirk added since taking part in the program; the school has been suspension-free for two years.