High School Parent Objects To Superlearning Technique District To Investigate Relaxation Teaching Methods
A parent’s complaints have prompted Minidoka County School District officials to investigate a learning technique at Minico High School that she contends uses “altered states of consciousness.”
Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, authors of the book “Superlearning,” say their mind- and body-relaxation methods provide a rapid way to learn facts, figures and languages.
But parent Shauna Kraus complained to the Minidoka County School Board last week that the techniques being taught in her daughter’s Spanish class amount to “borderline hypnosis.”
“We shouldn’t teach our children by using altered states of consciousness - that’s indoctrination,” Kraus said in a later interview. “We tell our kids not to use drugs, so why should we use a teaching method that uses an altered state of consciousness?”
She contends lights are turned off during the sessions and vocabulary words are recited by instructors. Students are allowed to bring pillows and blankets to the sessions in the belief that “if you fall asleep, you will still learn,” Kraus said.
Minico High Principal John Fennell said he would observe a superlearning session and issue a report to district officials and trustees.
Fennell said the method is used in a French class and two Spanish classes once every couple of weeks in an effort to build students’ vocabularies.
“I don’t think it’s the most common, but it is a fairly common and accepted practice” that has been used in local schools for about 10 years, he said.