Spirituality and Education

Respect for persons has been widely acknowledged and discussed as a key moral dimension in education and teaching English to speakers of other languages. Christians believe in this value, particularly as it is articulated within scripture and tradition. Recent critics, however, seem to perceive a basic incompatibility between a Christian religious imperative to bear witness to one’s faith and a moral imperative to respect other persons. Beginning from an argument that all teaching is teaching for change, this essay makes a case that the two are not only not contradictory, but in fact should be consanguineous. Key issues explored include what it means to believe in absolute truths, why such belief paradoxically requires humility, and the moral/interpersonal conditions for witnessing and conversion.

In the field of teacher knowledge, “beliefs” is a large term narrowly constructed. The beliefs theorized, researched, and discussed are beliefs about technique, methodology, curriculum, classroom management, professional development, and similarly. Spiritual and religious beliefs are for the most part omitted. This study argues that they should be included, especially because they already fit the area of inquiry the field has defined for itself. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative questionnaire study is to explore how Christian ESOL teachers perceive and describe putting their personal religious beliefs into practice in their professional lives. This study found that as a result of their religious beliefs, respondents believed they should (a) act in a loving or charitable manner toward their students; (b) respect all students as intrinsically valuable human beings; (c) teach in student-centered ways; and (d) witness to their Christian faith. Participants’ responses illuminate the interrelationships and interactions among personal and professional beliefs in the formation of teacher knowledge.

Education in recent years has witnessed an increasing involvement in the conversations regarding anti-oppressive practice and contemplation, particularly as foundations for pedagogy and curricular design. Naturally, both discourses have intersected with each other through the attempts at their integration, potentially leading toward new practices of enhanced educational impact. This chapter serves as a deliberate reflection and elaboration upon the nature and potential implications of their integration. As both discourses reflect valuable approaches and ideas, it is important to carefully examine and approach their integration to ensure that the value of each perspective is preserved as well as enriched in its power to educatively stimulate meaningful learning in the classroom. In order for such an educative situation to emerge, I argue that the integration should be defined by a sustained friction and differentiation between each perspective. By sustaining the friction, each perspective preserves its power to illuminate alternative possibilities in understanding the self and the world for the other. The educative value of such friction rests within its power to carry students onto a journey of continuous learning without settling upon finalized answers. Ultimately, I conclude that this friction is made possible and sustained by being embodied as the very self of the teacher.

While being a fairly old term, it is only in these past few decades that interest in spirituality has gained popularity. By exploring the evidence brought forward by palaeontologists and archaeologists, this paper will investigate the hypothesis that spirituality is rooted in our primordial origins.  It will be claimed that as a fundamental human dimension that distinguishes humans, spirituality needs to interact with the other constituent dimensions that make us human, including our need for community, our characteristics of learning, of being rational and of developing tools that change us. If spirituality emerged so early in the evolutionary process, and if it is tied to the quest of search for meaning, one could put forward an argument that it precedes most of the tools and knowledge developed by humans. There seems to be evidence that its ability to spur human development is mainly done through the development and use of symbols which, if understood in a wider sense, seem to be the primary language of spirituality.

This book is a speculative attempt to describe why serious religious art that represents major religions is largely excluded from the art world. Why do the major venues of international art, and the principal journals and historians, consider only work that is ambiguous, ironic, or critical in relation to the major religions?

The book has resulted in a number of shorter publications, conferences, and catalog essays, most of which are listed on the vita; this is an ongoing issue between the (relatively small) art world, which is mainly secular, and the (very large) domain of serious religionists who also make art.

Chapter 1, "The Words 'Religion' and 'Art,'" sets the stage for the discussions that follow by providing temporary definitions. I also propose a heuristic definition of "spirituality." These aren't prescriptive, but are intended only to guide some of the discussion later in the book.

Originally published as On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art (New York: Routledge, 2004). Now on Kindle.

The paper presents education as a process of human development toward
becoming our authentic Selves and posits the Tarot hermeneutic as one of the
means of holistic, spiritual education. As a system of images and symbols, Tarot
encompasses the three I’s represented by intuition, insight and imagination in
contrast to the three R’s of traditional formal schooling. If teachers want to
foster intuitive abilities in their students, they need to first develop this capacity
in themselves using the available cultural practice of Tarot. Through Tarot
symbolism we can become aware of the deep meanings of human experiences
that may be hiding in the unconscious at the soul level. The informal ‘school of
life’ embodied in images unveils the dimension of inner knowledge or gnosis
that exceeds the factual knowledge of the external world but reaches toward the
Imaginal world due to intuitive mode of perception.

This paper is threefold. It is grounded in the philosophical work of two educational theorists: John Dewey and our contemporary Nel Noddings. It also brings into the conversation the ancient system of Tarot, arguing that its pictorial symbolism embodies intellectual, moral, and spiritual ‘lessons’ derived from collective human experiences across times, places, and cultures. For Dewey, to call somebody spiritual never meant to invoke some mysterious and non-natural entity outside of the real world. As a system of communication and interpretation, Tarot is oriented toward the discovery of meanings in the real experience and performs two functions, existential and educational, focusing on the ethical and spiritual dimension of experience. The pictorial images create an adventure story of the journey through the school of life, each new life experience contributing to self-understanding
and, ultimately, spiritual rebirth. Tarot not only speaks in a different
voice, therefore bringing forth the subtleties of Gilligan and Noddings’ relational ethics, but also enables a process of critical self-reflection analogous to the ancient Socratic ‘Know thyself’ principle that makes life examined and thus meaningful.
As a techne, it can and should become a valuable tool to complement an existing set of educational aids in the area of moral and spiritual education.

Education’s ancient and profoundly important pursuit to ‘know thyself’, is often realised through engaging with the question ‘who am I?’ In order to the identify who in this search, it is argued in this paper that personal identity should be understood to be embedded in the purposes one has for one’s life through how one relates, and is therefore spiritual. This spiritual quality of personal identity is therefore existential in character – not essential. However, often when children respond to this question ‘who am I?’, they rely upon socially constructed categories and labels such as religious, feminine, cool, punk and the like. The application of such labelling assumes that meaningfulness lies in their essence; that is, they identify what is. This can become most problematic when individuals accept and apply such essentialist labelling to themselves, because such a process can only answer ‘what am I?’ and not the educationally more important question of ‘who am I?’ This paper therefore challenges the inadequacy of such an approach and offers a conceptualisation of personal identity which is spiritually embedded in a purpose for one’s life.

John Dewey’s ‘religious attitude’ has great potential for the educative development of children’s spirituality. This is because it enables their spiritual understandings to become more intelligently composed – not just in a cognitive or hyper-rational sense, but as a way of being. This paper provides an outline of Dewey’s approach, which is described as being democratic, inquiry based, and ‘scientific’. Such an approach therefore offers a contrast to other more epistemologically focused curricula which attempt to educate a person’s spirituality. In order to make the case for the potential educative value of such an attitude, a brief review of Dewey’s approach to education shall be offered, in which the notions of inquiry, democracy, and ‘science’ shall be highlighted to make the case that such attributes might be necessary for spiritual education if the United Nations Educational and Scientific Organization’s goal of attaining world peace is to ever become possible.

This paper is a sequel to an earlier article that presented an argument for Tarot
symbolic system functioning as a techne that can serve as a valuable educational
aid. The present paper shifts the focus from techne to praxis as a practical art of
interpreting images and creating imaginative narratives in the context of
counselling and therapy. This praxis can heal human psyche and lift human spirit.
The paper presents a documented empirical case study as an example of an
unfolding narrative for ‘Cathy’ who consented to making her reading public for
educational purposes. The process of reading and interpretation as grounded in the
‘art of memory’ can empower us with an ability to understand the meaning of
some traumatic events that may have occurred in our lives but remain dormant at
the level of the unconscious. We become able to resolve problematic situations and
to grow spiritually from these experiences.

This is a theoretical and interpretative study, in which I analyze and evaluate the pedagogical application of the philosophical ideas advocated by the holistic education movement in four approaches to schooling: Waldorf, Montessori, Reggio Emilia, and NeoHumanistic.

In this photo essay, I enact how a creative pedagogue engages with artistic practice and contemplative inquiry. As a poet, at home in words, photography represents a creative risk. This vulnerability is felt in the sharing of the work through the lens of (re)search. Hence, I ask: Does it have wings? By delving in expressive forms toward the service of understanding my personal and pedagogical self, creative risk is rewarded in profound ways. I have discovered that my art practice is driven by intention, intuition and imagination. Thus, here is my creative pedagogy in action illuminating how an inquiry through images provokes learning and teaching. Both poetry and photography provide keen vision-a way of sensing and seeing Light.

Chapter 5 Learning from Experience. Dewey, Deleuze and "Becoming-ChildINNA SEMETSKY As LONG AGO as 1925 John Dewey, in his Experience and Nature, noted that to call someone spiritual does not mean to invoke a mysterious non-natural entity (1925/1958: 293). A particular
person who, according to Dewey, is endowed with a soul,
has in marked degrees qualities of sensitive, rich and coordinated participation
in all the situations of life. ... When the organization called soul
is free, moving and operative . . . it is spirit .. . Soul is form, spirit informs.
... Perhaps the words soul and spirit are so heavily laden with . . .
mythology . . . that they must be surrendered; it may be impossible to
recover for them in science and philosophy the realities designated in
idiomatic speech. But the realities are there, by whatever names they are
called. (Dewey 1925/1958: 294)
How should we, as educators, understand Dewey’s words in our
current postmodern, “inform-ation” age?

"Since time immemorial, people were searching for a universal language
that would transcend cultural, religious, and language barriers. This chapter presents
the system of Tarot images as both symbolic language, full of implicit meanings, and
as a pedagogical tool to complement the existing aids in moral/spiritual education.
The chapter is grounded in the educational philosophies of John Dewey and Nel
Noddings; and positions Tarot within “other strategies to be employed” (Crawford
and Rossiter) in spiritual education. Tarot pictures embody intellectual, moral, and
spiritual “lessons” derived from collective human experiences across times, places
and cultures. As a system of communication and interpretation, Tarot is oriented
toward the discovery of meanings for the multiplicity of experiences that would have
otherwise lacked meaning and significance. The meaning ofWisdom is embodied in
the image of “The High Priestess”. The process of interpretation contributes to our
development and learning from experience; and enriches our personal and collective
identities."

After having researched the phenomenon of (especially young)
people turning their backs on main stream religions and finding
refuge in “new” forms of spirituality, the authors concluded that,
as always, the education of children cannot be done justice to
unless attention is also devoted to the development of their
spirituality. To defend this contention, they firstly analyse
religion as a phenomenon. They find it to be multi-layered, with
spirituality forming the innermost layer. They then discuss the
emergence of “new” forms of spirituality and find them to be
alien to the Biblical concept of spirituality. After discussing the
intrinsic link between education and both the “new” and the
Biblical forms of spirituality, the authors find their initial
conclusion to have been vindicated.

Authentic listening understands the importance of contexts, relationships, and silence. The purpose of this essay is to explore speaking silences and silent silences and to frame these understandings in terms of classroom pedagogy. Speaking silences are meaningful and generative. They create space for listening to others and should themselves be listened to, as testified to within various traditions of spirituality. Silent silences, however, suggest withdrawing or withholding. These might be chosen or unchosen expressions of dominance or resistance, depending on the situation. Acknowledging both risks and rewards, teachers are called to cultivate silence in their personal and professional lives and spaces.

In A Common Faith, Dewey rejects organized religion and belief in the supernatural, instead arguing for an authentically “religious” attitude which this interpretive essay analyzes in terms of four propositions: (1) Knowledge is unified. (2) Knowledge is democratic. (3) The pursuit of moral ideals requires moral faith. (4) The authority for moral ideals is experience as explored via inquiry. The author responds from the perspective of his own religious faith and outlines conceptual relationships with modern spirituality in education writers. The common ground is that the “religious” must be seen as a significant way of being and becoming in education.

This paper reports and reflects on the findings of the author’s case study of a moral education/community development program in a North Carolina public high school.  This program aimed to help “close the achievement gap” between advantaged and disadvantaged students by promoting understanding and caring community between participants from estranged racial and socio-economic groups.  The study’s findings reveal how the program participants’ experiences of authentic communication with one another stimulated their development of critical moral consciousness.  The nature of authentic communication and its relationship to critical moral consciousness are explored, and pedagogical factors that appear to foster authentic communication are identified.  The paper concludes with a discussion of how, to be truly transformative, education should stimulate and integrate learners’ pursuits of truth, beauty and goodness.

Contemplative pedagogy focuses on creating a sense of presence within educators to effectively educate the whole person through mindfulness in teaching. As I engage in a self-study, I develop initial components for the way I employ contemplative pedagogy. I aim to understand myself as an educator in order to teach effectively. One way to enable particular kinds of understandings is through self-study methodology. The foundational framework that develops through my ongoing self-study may interest those who are unfamiliar with the terrain of contemplative pedagogy. For the purposes of this article, I place an emphasis on the philosophy and ethics classes that I taught at Middlesex County College in New Jersey, although I teach several classes on many campuses.

My philosophical method requires me to engage in a self-study of my teaching practices. My project involves self-study as a philosophical research methodology that aims to inform educators and rethink the theories and praxis of teaching. As I work towards improvement- aimed pedagogy, I make myself vulnerable as I share my experiences with my Peer Scholar. My Peer Scholar, which some researchers call a “critical friend”, deliberates with me to challenge epistemological assumptions along with suspicions.

The self-study dialogue with my Peer Scholar causes me to define initial components of how I engage in an improvement-aimed contemplative pedagogy. My hope is to support those who wish to implement contemplative pedagogy in higher education as I relate my working framework based on the themes that developed from the deliberation. The components in the article that convey how I engage in contemplative pedagogy are not meant to serve as a checklist or stern procedure for classroom activities. I share these components as aspects of my contemplative pedagogy, with suggestive scripts, not as a rigid structure but rather as a work in progress that is always under construction.

Qāsim b. Ṣalāḥaddīn al-Ḫānīs mystischer Text as-Sayr wa-s-sulūk ilā malik al-mulūk zur Seelenlehre und Seelenerziehung gilt als ein Schlüsselwerk zur sufischen Bildung. Er erreichte im osmanischen Herrschafts- und Einflussgebiet schnell überregionale Verbreitung, erlebte seinen literarischen Durchbruch als Lehrbuch im 18. Jahrhundert und nahm als Standardwerk der islamischen Mystik einen festen Platz in der Ordensliteratur der Sufis ein.
Die Autorin zeigt an diesem Text exemplarisch auf, welche Vorstellungen, Lehren und Prinzipien im 17. Jahrhundert in Aleppiner Sufi-Kreisen vertreten wurden, hinterfragt die Gründe für die Popularität sowie den starken Einfluss dieses sufischen Lehrwerks und erschließt seine Verbreitungsgebiete und Leserschaft. Ihre umfassende Analyse veranschaulicht, auf welche Weise und aus welchen Gründen dieses Werk seine Wirkung bis in die Moderne hinein bewahren konnte.

У статті на основі польових досліджень, які провів автор, робиться спроба розглянути вищу духовну освіту в християнських громадах Донецької області в період з 1991 по 2011 рр., її історичний розвиток і особливості навчального процесу. Автор визначив основні тенденції розвитку християнських духовних навчальних закладів Донецького регіону, окреслено коло проблем, що стоять перед сучасними духовними вишами регіону.


In the article the author has made an attempt to study the higher spiritual education in the Christian communities of the Donetsk region from 1991 to 2011, its historical development and features of the learning process. The author identifies the main trends of development of the Christian religious education institutions in the Donetsk region, outlines the problems faced by modern religious universities in the region.

Introducción. Este artículo se sitúa en la rica y profunda discusión interna-cional sobre la educación del espíritu que contrasta con un silencio espeso sobre el tema en el ámbito pedagógico. Método. Articula los pasos clásicos de una teoría de la educación. Ofrece una aproximación filosófico-educativa al "espíritu" para terminar preguntándose por sus aplicaciones prácticas. Discusión. Busca identificar unos rasgos dinámicos que permitan intervenir educativamente en el espíritu, saber si es legítimo epistemológicamente y cómo se relaciona internamente con otras áreas de la educación. Conclusión. Comprendido el espíritu de una cierta manera, parece posible atender a su educación en contextos religiosos y seculares. Palabras clave: desarrollo del espíritu, pensamiento crítico, valores morales, educación pública.

Introduction. This article is set in the rich and deep international discussion on the education of the spirit that contrasts with an absolute silence on the subject in the pedagogical field. Method. It articulates the classic steps of a theory of education. It offers a philosophical-educational approach to the "spirit" to end up wondering about its practical a Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas. Universidad Rey Juan Carlos.

Το παρόν κεφάλαιο εξετάζει την επίδραση της ειδικής αγωγής στην πνευματικότητα παιδιών με αναπηρία και ειδικές ανάγκες. Με αυτό το σκοπό, επιδίδεται στην εννοιολόγηση της πνευματικότητας και της πνευματικής έκφρασης στην παιδική ηλικία, στη σημασία που έχει για τους μαθητές με εκπαιδευτικές αποκλίσεις, και εξερευνά τους τρόπους με τους οποίους εφαρμόζεται η πνευματική παιδαγωγική στην Ελλάδα. Επιπρόσθετα, εξετάζει τον ρόλο που διαδραματίζει το οικογενειακό περιβάλλον στην καλλιέργεια της πνευματικότητας των παιδιών που λαμβάνουν εξειδικευμένη υποστήριξη, και επιδιώκει να εντοπίσει τις ιδιαίτερες πνευματικές ανάγκες που παρουσιάζουν τα παιδιά με αναπηρία και τους τρόπους με τους οποίους η ειδική παρέμβαση από επαγγελματίες μπορεί να βοηθήσει στην εκπλήρωσή τους. Τέλος, αντλώντας θεωρητικούς προβληματισμούς από τη διεθνή βιβλιογραφία, το τρέχον κεφάλαιο προβαίνει σε μία κριτική ανασκόπηση των γνωστικών και βιωματικών όψεων του πνευματικού ψυχισμού του αναπτυσσόμενου παιδιού, προκειμένου να ξεκινήσει να εξετάζεται το ζήτημα της συμπερίληψης της πνευματικής παιδαγωγικής στον τομέα της ειδικής αγωγής στην Ελληνική δημόσια παιδεία.

У статті аналізується навчальний процес у вищих духовних навчальних закладах Донецької області в 90-х роках ХХ – першому десятиріччі ХХІ століття. Для всебічного дослідження проблеми автором було залучено конфесійну періодику та нарративний матеріал (інтерв’ю з керівним складом духовних ВНЗ регіону)

Rabbi Yitshak Hutner (1906-1980) was a remarkable scholar, an enigmatic religious intellectual and a charismatic teacher. Drawing upon his public discourses and his written letters, I argue that Hutner's vocabulary-which remained rooted almost entirely in the vocabulary of traditional Talmudism-afforded him a ready garment in which to clothe a syncretic educational theory, which combines Hasidic approaches to spiritual instruction and remakes the traditions of Lithuanian piety and study for his new American audience. The present study interrogates a series of key themes that appear in Hutner's teachings, all of which pertain to issues of pedagogy and the construction of religious education. The essay advances a historical argument by examining the works of an important and influential modern Jewish thinker, but it is also driven by a constructive question: What does Hutner's vision of Jewish religious teaching and learning have to contribute to today's Jewish education, and to the broader world of higher education in North America in particular?

In India Value Based Education is the real need of the hour. As we see how the Society is
diminishing in case of values day by day. It is necessary to develop the programs for inculcating
values in the society.
Today’s Indian youths are little bit confused because of the bombarding of the new technological
devices, information explosion and violent news by the press & media. To inculcate the value
system in their confused minds and make them value-oriented-powerful leaders, educational
institutions should take the initiative to impart Value Based Spiritual Knowledge to this new
generation.
“Imbibing the qualities of good conduct, self-confidence and high values would help students
earn a significant place in society. Education without values is like a flower without fragrance.
Students should realize that character building is equally important as career building. A good
character in life is ultimate thing that stretches person’s self-realization”.
An attempt is made in this paper to discuss the role of the value based education in society, it
elaborately discusses about the implications to develop the value education. Rena, R. rightly
points out that “There is a popular misconception that values are “better caught than taught”. In
reality however, values are both caught and taught.” Today’s generation is not going to catch the
values without teaching. We have to teach the values to this generation before they are caught by
the bombarding of the new technological devices, information explosion and also by the media.
The paper lastly discusses about the value education attempt taken by the author herself by
creating the “SanskarSarjan Blog” for her college students. According to the author Value Based
education cannot be taught without Spiritual Knowledge or Spiritual Consciousness.
In conclusion, mere desire or aspiration to progress in life is not enough; success should be based
on values. And for that value-based education must be imparted in today’s institutions. So that
the students may emerge as good leaders in their chosen fields.

Öğretme evrensel bir gayrettir. Yaşadığımız sürede insanoğlu hep yeni şeyler öğrenmektedir. Öğrenme ve öğretme
karşılıklı bir bilgi akışı olduğu için her iki durumda da aktif olmak zorunluluğu vardır. Öğrencilere ahlaki ve manevi değerlerin
aşılanması ilk olarak ailede başlar, okulda şekillenir ve toplumda yaşanır hale gelir. Bu manada işin en önemli kısmı okula
yani öğretmene düşmektedir. Yeti-şen nesle insanların kabul ettikleri etik ve sosyal değerler eğitimi benimsetmek gerekir. Ahlaki ve manevi değerler eğitimi dediğimizde aklımıza vatanperverlik,sevgi, saygı, sorumluluk, adalet, yardımse-verlilik, doğruluk-dürüstlük,
duygudaşlık (empati), hoşgörülülük, sabır vs. gelir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Değerler eğitimi, ahlaki-manevi değerler, okul, öğretmen

This chapter utilized historical accounts of various cultural, educational, and Buddhist reforms in Thailand and analyzed and interpreted them according to experts in the fields of Thai Buddhism and culture, international comparative education, intercultural communication, learning theory, and political sociology. The analysis suggests that the implanting of a homogenous culture strengthened the nation-state, but weakened a spiritually oriented society. Further, the broken link between spirituality and education has had detrimental effects on Thailand’s educational reform and modernization efforts. The Thai Buddhist heritage of establishing multicultural learning communities of practice has been diminished, becoming an overall Thai cultural deficit that limits its participation in regional and international forums.

This qualitative and instrumental case study explores how volunteer Christian ESOL tutors describe putting their religious beliefs into practice in a church-run adult ESOL ministry. Data was gathered by means of teacher interviews and classroom observations. Theory and research from community ESOL, spirituality in education, and Christian scholarship in language education help provide a background against which the study’s data is analyzed and interpreted. Emergent findings include relationality and empathy, Christian love and care, practical service, and learner-centeredness as professional values or priorities which participants connected with their religious beliefs. Additional issues discussed include proselytizing or witnessing and the non-exclusive nature of the findings.