Not a knitter but not at all appalled by this.
One of the biggest benefits I see is that it can teach children the ability to calm themselves (like meditating). The teacher's lessons on spelling, math, science, etc. are probably more effective on calm young minds than stressed out ones. I'm appalled when I see kids playing monster truck video games and watching cartoons at school.
I'd be happy to have DD in that teacher's class learning something new that she could use the rest of her life. Good luck with your experiment.
