As youth health and physical exercise has become a central issue for First Lady Michelle Obama, physical education classes are challenged with creating fun and engaging activities encouraging children to enjoy fitness.
However, when a San Diego-area school introduced yoga into its P.E. curriculum in 2013, the backlash spread nationwide.
One family, with the help of the National Center for Law & Policy, sued the school district in Encinitas, claiming the public school was endorsing religious beliefs,
ABC News reported.
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After hearing the case, Judge John S. Meyer ruled that while yoga was spiritual, it was not religious in the way the school district taught it,
according to NBC San Diego.
Since the controversy, both critics and supporters have spoken out about the teaching of yoga in schools. Here are the most notable quotes from critics of this activity:
1. "Just because a religious practice is beneficial doesn’t mean it should be the standard that’s taught in schools," NCLP attorney Dean Broyles told NBC San Diego.
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2. “It’s pretty simple: Yoga is a religious practice in Hinduism. It’s the way to reach enlightenment. To bring it to the west and bill it as scientific practice for fitness is dishonest,” Dave Hunt, author of “Yoga and the Body of Christ: What Position Should Christians Hold?,”
told the NBC News following a 2007 Colorado controversy.
3. “It’s state in the curriculum that it’s meant to shape the way that they view the world, it’s meant to shape the way that they make life decisions … It’s meant to shape the way that they regulate their emotions and the way that they view themselves,” Mary Eady, one of the parents involved in the Encinitas lawsuit,
told KPBS.
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