DAVID LYNCH FOUNDATION
MEDITATION
MAN
teacher, at first glance, thought
was red paint. It was blood —
blood from Jessica’s uncle who
had been shot that morning in a
random drive-by while waiting
with her at the bus stop.
Instead of running home, Jessica ran to school so that she could
meditate, she told her teachers.
The DLF Quiet Time program had
been in her school for about a year
at the time and for her, it made
school a safe place whereas her
home often couldn’t be. “For me,”
said Roth, “that says it all.”
As part of the Quiet Time Pro-
HUFFINGTON
10.27.13
gram, the foundation supplies
teachers for each child to have
one-on-one meditation instruction and follow-up. “In a school
with 1,000 students,” he said, “we
bring in 20 teachers.”
The results have been gratifying, said Roth, who believes that
results must be quantifiable to
matter. “Change needs to show
up in grades, reduced number of
suspensions and dropout rates,”
he said. And the Quiet Time program has done all that. The San
Francisco Unified School District
reports an 86-percent reduction
in suspensions over two years in
schools where the program has
been introduced; a 65 percent
Students
meditate
at a San
Francisco
public school.