INFUSE EDUCATION WITH
SPIRITUAL VALUES
Something has gone seriously awry with American public schooling. Forth-four percent
of students read below the minimum level for their grade; 72 percent among African-Americans.
In many inner-city high schools, the graduation rate is as low as 40 percent.
Blaming teachers or administrators for the ailments is simplistic and cruel. As
a group, our educators are dedicated public servants, well-trained and committed
to their vocation. They also are underpaid and under-appreciated.
But if American teachers are among the best in the world, why is our public education
the weakest of all developed countries? There must be something wrong with the system
itself - something "beyond the symptoms."
Current proposals for reform address only the symptoms (i.e., how to raise math
scores), and focus on money. And indeed, our nation should ensure that every child
has fair access to good education, including educational technology. Likewise, teachers
deserve salaries commensurate with their training and the social service they provide.
But neither money nor technology are panaceas. There is evidence that increased funding
well-used - to create smaller reading classes, for example - can have positive results,
but beyond this, the gross correlation between school spending and student performance
is unimpressive. Per-pupil expenditure in public schools increased by 22 percent
in the 1970s and by 48 percent in the '80s, but SAT scores declined almost 100 points.
A 1996 study by the Rand Corporation found that personal computers are only "marginal
contributors" to student learning.
It's time to reach beyond symptoms to the foundations of what, how, and why we
teach. It's time to renew a humanizing and holistic vision for American education.
I say "renew" because America's Founding Fathers had such a vision.
Education is humanizing as it empowers students to become fully alive, to care
for their own and the common good, to relish life and accept its challenges, to exercise
their rights and honor their responsibilities, to champion justice and compassion.
It fosters students who are confident in their own identity but open to other cultures
and perspectives, and who have a knowledge of and appreciation for the sciences,
humanities, and arts.
Holistic education engages the whole person - teaching students to think critically
and creatively for themselves. Such visionary education requires solid grounding
in reading, writing, arithmetic, and rhetoric but adds two more - respect and responsibility.
And that brings us to the crux of the crisis. The most likely sources from which
to draw a humanizing and holistic education are more spiritual than philosophical.
Such education addresses the "deep heart's core," as poet Yeats said. At
its best, education is a spiritual affair.
Any mention of soul and spirituality triggers concern about separation of church
and state. But the ban on an "established religion" shouldn't mean excluding
common spiritual values from our educational system. Proselytizing on behalf of a
particular religion is very different than allowing spiritual values to permeate
our approach to education.
Meanwhile, we are complacent about the philosophy that presently undergirds our
schooling - a narrow pragmatism concerned primarily, as philosopher William James
said, with "the cash value." Such a philosophy isn't neutral: it's as value-laden
as any spirituality, imparting an outlook that canonizes whatever "works."
There are spiritual values around which many of the great world religions and
spiritualities reach consensus. for educators to allow such spiritual convictions
to permeate their teaching and the ethos of schools would be transforming:
- The equal dignity, rights, and responsibilities of everyone. This would encourage
a liberating, integrated education instead of a functional, fragmented one.
- Life is a gift charged with purpose and meaning. This could encourage students
to find hope and joy in living in contrast to nihilism and escapism.
- An emphasis on community - an understanding that we need and must care for each
other. This could offset the reigning "me" attitudes.
- Spirituality emphasizes the quest for wisdom of life. This could lend a noble
vision to study, with every discipline of knowledge fostering an ethic for life.
- All great spiritual movements teach justice for all and compassion for the needy.
This suggests education in critical consciousness and commitment to social service
and transformation.
- At their best, most faiths are universal in outlook, emphasizing open hearts
and minds and cherishing truth.
- All spiritualities also are convinced that the person is essentially spiritual,
that the human vocation is to live in "right relationship" with God - however
named - and with oneself, others, and creation.
Such values seem distant from the reality of American public schools, but we must
ask why - and then, why not?
Article by Thomas H. Groome, professor of theology and education at Boston College,
and author of "Educating for Life: A Spiritual Vision for Every Teacher and
Parent" (Thomas More Publishing).
(Reprint, Christian Science Monitor, February 10, 1998)
Copyright © 1996. The Light Party.
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