Impact
Background:
In Germany today there are about 500.000 children suffering from ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). It is the most common conduct disorder. Once attested, the usual procedure is to prescribe Ritalin, even though Ritalin is a very heavy drug with plenty of side effects, most strikingly addiction and personality altering effects.
Implementing Meditation into the Berlin High School Curriculum
Implementing Meditation into the Berlin High School Curriculum
Background:
In Germany today there are about 500.000 children suffering from ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). It is the most common conduct disorder. Once attested, the usual procedure is to prescribe Ritalin, even though Ritalin is a very heavy drug with plenty of side effects, most strikingly addiction and personality altering effects.
Recently there has been a huge increase in studies proving that meditation can not only be a very effective way to treat psychosomatic and psychiatric disorders like ADHD without the use of drugs, but that meditation can also be very helpful to promote compassion, mindfulness, increase creativity and self-discipline in students.
One recent example is "The ReSource" project by the Max Planck Institute. It shows that meditation can alter stress responses, physical health, resilience, attention, perception, emotional experience, and social behaviour. Evidence for these results is based on subjective reports of past participants and observed behavioural changes, as well as observed changes in brain function and structure.
Our Vision:
Implementing meditation and mindfulness as a fix component into the German Highschool Curriculum.
Status Quo:
In February 2015 we started our pilot project at the Friedrich-Ebert-Oberschule in Berlin. Dr. Bröking, a certified meditation teacher, is teaching an established American Mindfulness Curriculum in German to a class of 32 students four times a week.
Besides the teaching of students between the age of 12 and 18, the program is also designed to teach meditation to existing high school teachers simultaneously, so that looking forward less external meditation teachers are needed for the roll out of our meditation curriculum.
Next Steps:
Upon completion of the 8week pilot program, we will analyse and evaluate the results we gathered from scientific questionnaires to improve the design of our curriculum.
We will also present our results to the public within a press release and a short film about the pilot project in order to approach five more high schools in Berlin.
After that we aim for nationwide outreach.
Cooperation:
On this project we cooperate with the FORUM FOR MEDITATION AND NEUROSCIENCE in the Siemens Villa, Berlin.
The vision of the FMN is to provide a platform for scientific research and teaching of meditation in order to give everyone the opportunity to learn about different meditation techniques and apply them.
The Global Shapers Berlin Hub helped to setup and establish the FORUM FOR MEDITATION AND NEUROSCIENCE in Berlin within the cooperation around this project.
