In Dohwa high school, after six months of the campaign, 60 percent of students answered that violence in the school had decreased.
Results of the survey after 6 months:
Hwa-Young explained that the great result after six months was due to the following three facts in the process:
1. Meditation helped the students release their stress
According to Hwa-Young, the whole school did meditation before they started their regular classes in the morning. Meditation helped students release their stress from their home and school. Many studies have proved that meditation has a positive effect on releasing stress and regulating emotions. When people release their stress, they can reduce emotional conflicts with other people.
Characteristically impulsive and emotional teenagers can regulate their emotions through meditation by stimulating the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter linked to feelings of well-being and happiness. Meditation has also been proven to improve metacognition, the ability to stand back, observe what is happening and think about what you are doing, rather than being on automatic pilot. This aspect of meditation is particularly effective in reducing school violence.
2. Removing emotional conflict between the teachers and the students
Corporal punishment is still a popular educational methodology in Korean schools. It is a tradition of Korean education inherited from history. After students receive physical punishment from their teachers, they express their own stress by using violence against other students who are physically weak. Also, they react emotionally against the teachers who punished them physically by becoming irreverent toward them. The teachers, in turn, react emotionally to those students who become disrespectful. In this cycle, emotional conflicts between teachers and students deepen and can become habitual. When people feel relaxed, everything around them is fine, but when they are stressed, anything can be a problem, ultimately leading to violence.
At Dohwa, a reward-and-penalty system based on the education of choice and responsibility has been implemented, instead of physical punishment. This is part of the character-development process promoted by BE. Hwa-Young taught students that breaking rules is their choice and that they should be responsible for their choices. Students who broke the rules needed to stay after school and do special BE classes composed of particularly difficult breathing postures. It took a while for them to stay after school without having emotional conflict with each other. Hwa-Young had to have students and parents sign an agreement before implementing the system. Every time he encountered resistance from students, he reminded them of their choice and that their parents had agreed to it. He said the most important thing is to make students responsible for their choices without having emotional conflicts within themselves and with others.
3. Meditation helped the teachers as well
The number of teachers retiring early has lately increased because of the stress from the current school-violence situation. When teachers can reduce their stress levels through meditation, they can reduce conflicts with students. Then they can communicate better with students, gain trust from them and become happy in school. Hwa-Young Lee wants to share with many teachers his experience of becoming happy in school from doing BE meditation regularly. His dream is to make the Korean school environment happier and give students happiness in their schools. He sees hope in the Happy School Campaign.
