Spirituality and Education

Andrew Wright

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781135701970
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Spirituality and Education introduces the basic contours of current debate in a form accessible to both classroom teachers across the curriculum range, and to school managers. It covers all key areas, including:
* problems of defining spirituality
* government legislation and supporting documentation
* relevant empirical research
* the social dimension of spirituality
* secular and religious manifestations of spirituality in contemporary society
* theories of childhood spiritual development
* contemporary approaches to spiritual education, including collective worship and cross-curricular teaching.
A variety of different perspectives and approaches will be offered, and readers are encouraged to be reflective through a number of tasks which relate all issues raised directly back to their own specific circumstances. The author includes questions, quotes and lists of further reading.

Part I

The Landscape of Spirituality

1 What is Spirituality?

Part I explores the spiritual landscape of contemporary Britain through the perspectives of philosophy, theology, psychology and sociology. The present chapter lays the groundwork of this exploration by investigating the elusive nature of spirituality and establishing a working definition of spirituality as our concern for the ultimate meaning and purpose of life. The task of establishing appropriate levels of spiritual literacy, it is suggested, is particularly difficult in a pluralistic society in which there is no shared consensus about our ultimate beliefs and values. We are faced with a host of contrasting and conflicting spiritual options which continue to be the subject of fierce debate. It is unclear whether society is in the middle of a spiritual crisis or standing at the dawn of a new age of spiritual opportunity. One of the consequences of such uncertainty is that spiritual education will inevitably be a controversial issue in schools. This state of affairs does not, however, detract from the importance of the subject: it is precisely because spirituality is so problematic that there is an urgent need to develop pupil's spiritual knowledge, understanding and insight.

Towards an Understanding of Spirituality

Spirituality is a notoriously difficult term to define. Perhaps this ought not to surprise us, since at the heart of the spiritual is that which is inherently elusive and mysterious. Most of us will have encountered charismatic individuals who seem to have a unique depth to their being, a spiritual ‘something’ which we are able to recognise, but find almost impossible to pin down. Both the Hebrew and the Greek words for ‘spirit’, ruah and pneuma respectively, are rooted in the notion of the intangible movement of the air. According to John's Gospel, the Spirit of God, like the wind, ‘blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going’ (John 3:8).

As well as being elusive and mysterious, the spiritual is also linked to that which is vital, effervescent, dynamic and life-giving. The person who is the ‘life and soul of the party’ will tend to animate those around them, breathing life and vigour into otherwise dreary proceedings. Towards the beginning of Hebrew scripture we read that ‘God shaped man from the soil of the ground and blew the breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living being’ (Genesis 2:7).

At the heart of spirituality is that which is both mysterious and dynamic. As teachers we have all experienced the difference between a routine lesson and a lesson that ‘comes to life’ as the desire to grasp the elusive nature of the subject under investigation drives the class forward towards new levels of understanding.

Activity

• Get a large blank sheet of paper and brainstorm all the words and images that spring to mind when you reflect on the concepts ‘spiritual’ and ‘spirituality’.
• Use different coloured pens to indicate connections and contrasts between the various ideas you have generated, and if possible try to cluster them into different groups.
• Now produce your own provisional working definition of spirituality in a sentence or short paragraph.

Among the definitions of spirituality offered by the Concise Oxford Dictionary are the following: (i) concerning the spirit as opposed to matter; (ii) concerned with sacred or religious things; and (iii) of a refined and sensitive soul.

Concerning the Spirit as Opposed to Matter

The distinction between mind and matter, which has its roots in the classical culture of ancient Greece and Rome, has had a significant influence on contemporary approaches to spirituality. Plato (c.428–c.348 BCE) viewed the material world as transient and contingent and contrasted it unfavourably with the spiritual realm of eternal and unchanging ideas. He believed that the idealistic domain of our mental processes was of a higher order than the empirical world of physical matter. This produces a dualistic anthropology which, by distinguishing between body and soul, encourages us to understand ourselves as ‘ghosts in the machine’, and ‘spirits in the material world’. If we wish to establish an authentic spiritual life and take seriously questions concerning the ultimate meaning and purpose of existence, then it is imperative that we renounce the physical needs of our bodies and instead cultivate the well-being of our souls. If our bodies will ultimately revert to dust and ash, our immortal souls will live on, if not in paradise then at least in the memories of our loved ones. This belief that our inner spiritual nature is more important than the extent of our material wealth and possessions is reflected in contemporary attacks on the materialism and consumerism rife in Western capitalism, and in attempts to cultivate alternative non-materialistic life styles.

Concerned with Sacred or Religious Things

The material–spiritual dualism is rooted in the humanistic belief that our souls constitute the highest reality in the universe, and that the ultimate meaning of life is wrapped up with our spiritual well-being. However, many religious traditions hold that God – or some form of transcendent reality or power – stands at the centre of things, and that our spiritual lives should be driven by a quest for the sacred rather than the cultivation of our immortal souls. At the heart of this spiritual pilgrimage is a distinction between the sacred and the profane rather than between the spiritual and the material. To confuse the two by equating the sacred with the immaterial and the profane with physical matter can lead to a serious misrepresentation of some religious traditions. In the Western monotheistic traditions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, for example, the material world is celebrated as a part of God's creation. Here the spiritual quest is conceived not as a means of escaping from the physical world but as a process of turning from all that is corrupt, sinful and displeasing to God in order to embrace all that is righteous, holy, and sacred. The rise of atheism has, for many, transformed the religious quest from a search for God to a search for ultimate meaning within an immanent and godless universe. Mircea Eliade notes how ‘desacralization pervades the entire experience of the nonreligious man of modern societies and that, in consequence, he finds it increasingly difficult to rediscover the existential dimension of religious man’ (1987, p. 13).

Of a Refined and Sensitive Soul

The third of our routes links authentic spirituality with the development of self-awareness through the exploration of our private inner-space and cultivation of our inner feelings and emotions. As St Augustine (354—430 CE) urged his readers: ‘do not go outward, return within yourself … in the inner man dwells truth’ (Wright, 1996, p. 139). This particular understanding of spirituality illustrates the two routes we have already outlined: it is easy to equate our inner space with our immaterial souls, and link introspective reflection with those religious traditions which encouraged a contemplative life of private prayer and meditation. However, it is important to note that the cultivation of inner self-awareness does not require a dualistic distinction between mind and matter, and that religious devotion need not be limited to personal piety. The spiritual concern for self-awareness draws on the modern Western commitment to personal freedom and autonomy, a commitment which tends to produce an individualistic anthropology in which personal identity flows from introspective self-understanding rather than the quality of our relationships with others. Here our ultimate spiritual concern is rooted in self-acceptance, self-awareness and the establishment of a positive self-image, a concern that may be aided by contemporary ‘self-help’ techniques such as psychoanalysis and transcendental meditation.

If spirituality has to do with that aspect of the human condition which drives us forward in our quest to grasp the elusive mystery of the world, then these three routes establish a range of spiritual opportunities: spirituality may be conceived as a concern to emancipate ourselves from the constraints of the material world, as a search for the sacred, or as the exploration of our inner space.

Activity

• Compare your working definition of spirituality with the three perspectives outlined above.
• To what extent does your definition draw on the following:
  (i) the contrast between mind and matter?
  (ii) a distinction between the sacred and the profane?
  (iii) the cultivation of self-awareness?

Spirituality and Ultimate Concern

The 1988 Education Reform Act stipulates that children are to be taught a balanced and broadly based curriculum which does the following:

• promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society;
• prepares such pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life.
  (HMSO, 1988, p. 1)

These broad educational aims can be read either (i) realistically, as presenting a down-to-earth concern to induct pupils into the moral norms of civilised society, or (ii) idealistically as – at a deeper and more profound level – concerned to open up the option of an education dealing with the ultimate spiritual destiny of humanity. This raises the question of the relationship between spiritual education and forms of moral, social, personal, cultural, civic and religious education.

There is a tendency to reduce headline-grabbing accounts of the alleged increase in levels of unruliness, violence and anarchy among young people to questions of ‘mere’ morality. The issue of the nature, quality and effectiveness of moral education is one frequently taken up by politicians, parents and social commentators. This debate frequently suffers from a tendency towards polarisation and politicisation, with the left-wing of British social opinion blaming the authoritarian instincts of the right-wing for the ills of society, the right-wing pointing a finger at the left-wing's preference for moral relativism, and both joining forces to present teachers as easily targeted scapegoats. But what is it that transforms a question about moral education into a question about spiritual education? What exactly is it that silences the moral rhetoric and forces us to address the fundamental spiritual questions?

It would seem that the shift from morality to spirituality occurs when humanity finds itself driven to the very edge of civilisation and forced to address the question of the ultimate meaning, purpose and nature of life. Often it is the sheer horror of events that impose such questions on us, as – for example – when on the morning of Wednesday, 13 March 1996 Thomas Hamilton entered the grounds of Dunblane Primary School in Scotland and proceeded to kill sixteen pupils and their teacher before turning a gun on himself. Responses to this, and to many other similar highly publicised incidents, can never be reduced to the level of ‘mere’ morality. It is not enough simply to label such events as ‘bad’ or ‘illegal’, and as we stumble towards the vocabulary of ‘depravity’, ‘malevolence’ and ‘evil’ so we are brought face to face with the question of the ultimate meaning and purpose of human existence. For many, the widespread violence, brutality, terror and inhumanity that characterise the twentieth century serve to undermine once and for all the possibility of spiritual complacency.

Activity

• Draw up a list of your own ultimate concerns.
• Interview professional colleagues about their understanding of the fundamental aims of education.
• Devise and carry out a classroom activity that will enable pupils to articulate and explore their understanding of the meaning and purpose of life.
• Keep a journal in which you record and comment on the core values expressed in the media, focusing especially on newspapers, television and advertising.

Transferring this argument to the classroom implies that ordinary education is transformed into spiritual education at that point when learning ceases to skim over the surface of a subject and instead begins to grapple with issues of ultimate meaning and truth that constitute the very marrow of our humanity. In Religious Education, for example, there comes a point at which mere ‘learning about’ religion metamorphoses into ‘learning from’ religion. Here religious teaching takes on a spiritual dimension, moving ‘beyond an objective study of religions to an exploration of inwardness, a grappling with existential questions, a search for spiritual identity, an encounter with mystery and transcendence’ (Slee, 1992, p. 42).

Routine education is transformed into spiritual education when pupils are brought to the threshold of ultimate meaning in the face of apparent absurdity. As Paul Tillich observes, ‘such an experience presupposes that the spiritual life is taken seriously, that it is a matter of ultimate concern’ (1962, p. 54). Without such ultimate concern, he argues, our lives lack passion, seriousness and creativity.

The anxiety of meaninglessness is anxiety about the loss of an ultimate concern, of a meaning which gives meaning to all meanings. This anxiety is aroused by the loss of a spiritual centre, of an answer, however symbolic and indirect, to the question of the meaning of existence.

(ibid., pp. 54f.)

On the basis of a distinction between ‘preliminary’ and ‘ultimate’ concern, Tillich identifies twin threats to an authentic spiritual life: an apathy that leads only to spiritual indifference, and a misplaced spiritual enthusiasm in which a preliminary concern is elevated to the status of ultimacy (1978, p. 13).

• Spiritual apathy – If we fail to make an appropriate distinction between preliminary and ultimate concerns then we run the danger of becoming indifferent to questions of fundamental importance and devoid of any genuine spiritual sense. As a result, we may find ourselves living as contented pigs rather than discontented philosophers, condemned like Sisyphus in Greek mythology to the futile task of repeatedly pushing a rock to the top of the hill, only to watch it continually roll back down again (Homer, 1946, p. 187).
• Misplaced spiritual enthusiasm – If, on the other hand, we raise a preliminary concern to the status of an ultimate one, the result is likely to be fanaticism or, in religious terms, idolatry. Such fanaticism can be comical, as in the archetypal anorak clad trainspotter, fashion victim or Internet surfer. However, it can also take on a more sinister dimension, for example among those whose ultimate concern is manifested in a bigoted affirmation of national, racial, or religious identity.

Spirituality, then, is rooted in a concern for ultimate meaning, purpose and truth, a concern that can be all too easily ignored or misdirected. Education becomes spiritual whenever a lesson – irrespective of the subject being taught – moves beyond a mundane...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Spirituality and Education
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Series Editors’ Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART I The Landscape of Spirituality
• PART II Contemporary Spiritual Education
• PART III Towards a Critical Spiritual Education
• Further Reading
• References
• Index