School's In: Yoga's Out?

By Rita Healy

Some parents in Aspen, Colo., are hopping mad that their kids may learn Downward-Facing Dog in school. At a packed school-board meeting last week, Steve Woodrow, a Baptist minister and parent of two students at Aspen Elementary School, challenged the school's plan to teach yoga this fall on the grounds that instruction in the ancient practice of breathing and stretching introduces religion into the classroom and thus is unconstitutional. School officials planned to launch a program called Yoga Ed, already used in public schools in Los Angeles, Seattle and Columbus, Ohio, in hopes that it would help children focus. But Woodrow is worried the curriculum also encourages teachers to discuss such practices as transcendental meditation. He cites a 1979 New Jersey case in which teaching transcendental meditation in public schools was found to violate the First Amendment. While its attorney reviews the yoga program, the Aspen School District is striking terms like mantra and considering making the lessons optional. "Some of the parents' concerns were legitimate," concedes superintendent Tom Farrell. One thing yoga teaches is how to be flexible.

--By Rita Healy