Meditation is associated with sounds like “ommmm” and “ahhhhh” –basically sounds that are socially unacceptable unless you are sitting pretzel style with your hands on your knees and pretending to clear your mind. However, during my senior year of high school, a small old woman forced me to change my preconceived notion of meditation. Ms. Bierig, my now-retired medical ethics teacher, taught the class about visual imagery, which is a form of meditation. She made us meditate once every week for an entire class period. I may have fallen asleep during a few of these sessions, but my teacher’s goal was ultimately accomplished: we left the class more relaxed than we did when we walked in.
The enrichment documentary, The Changing Minds at Concord High, displayed a similar practice of asking students to meditate in the classroom. The students in the documentary only meditated for five minutes as opposed to the forty minutes my class practiced. I can’t honestly say the documentary inspired me in any sense. The testimonials appeared to be so contrived and formulaic that it lost its effect on me. While the documentary didn’t have much of an impact on me, it did remind me and inspire me to resume my meditation periods in high school.