Whole Child Education: Intrapersonal

The final pillar of whole-child education is intrapersonal. Although similar to other elements that have been discussed in this series, intrapersonal development can unlock the potential within the other aspects enabling a person to thrive in life. So, what is intrapersonal development? 

Intrapersonal Development

Intrapersonal development refers to the development "within" an individual person or knowing oneself. As a Christian, I like to refer to this as knowing who God created you to be ... and where you fit in His redemptive story. While often overlooked or left in the "hidden" curriculum, educators need to help students identify their gifts, discover their passions, and uncover ways to use those gifts/passions in a vocational or avocational calling. 

Schools, for too long, have assumed that students will develop intrapersonally on their own, but I've seen too many students wander aimlessly for too long before stumbling into their major and eventually their job. Thankfully, a ton of tools are available for educators to use to begin this process 

Gift Identification / Development

Each student is created with individual gifts, and the first step in intrapersonal development is helping to identify those for students. The second step in this pillar is to develop those gifts into strengths. Like the biblical Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), God-given gifts are to be used and developed ... not hidden. In order for full intrapersonal development, gift identification AND development needs to happen. I like how the strengths perspective emphasizes developing gifts into strengths through learning more about one's gifts (knowledge) and practicing those gifts (effort). 

Gifts + Effort/Knowledge => Strengths

So, how does a school help students identify and develop their gifts? 

Howard Gardner, the founding father of Multiple Intelligences, challenged schools to redefine student intelligence: "It's not how smart you are that matters, what really matters is how you are smart." Unfortunately, most schools place students in subject area boxes based on if they are "smart" in those areas, e.g., I am good at math, I love history, I can't spell; of course, this is reinforced at the end of each term with report cards. Sadly, many students see themselves as "dumb" because they are not smart in academic subject areas. How short-sided, limiting, Hellenistic ("I think, therefore I am"), and intrapersonally damaging if students see themselves only as a subject area! 

So a good place to start this journey is by breaking away from subject-defined categories and utilize a system like Multiple Intelligences to redefine how students see themselves. An educational goal for intrapersonal development is to help students see how they are smart (to use Multiple Intelligence language) or how they are gifted.

Equally disappointing, schools follow up the subject-area intelligence/gifts identification by developing students from a deficit (not strengths) perspective. Let me explain; for most of K-12 education, students are identified by their weaknesses and parents/teachers/schools add tutoring/remediation to develop the students in areas in which they are not gifted. A strengths perspective (as the formula above suggests) would work to identify "how the students are smart" (gifted) and then provide additionally opportunities to grow those gifts into strengths. 

Let's look closer at the two frameworks discussed above: Multiple Intelligences and Strengths.

Multiple Intelligences -- a structure of 9 categories that identify ways students can be "smart" in school and in life. This aligns well with a whole-child perspective and has been used by educators to enrich the "learning styles" conversation.  

Identifying a student's intelligence can be found through many free surveys on-line; however, unpacking how they are smart and how they can use their intelligence inside and outside of the classrom will involve much more work. This is a great starting point to help students see intelligence and "smarts" from a different perspective. 

StrengthQuest -- The CliftonStrengths for Students (name recently rebranded) from Gallup is a more robust program with 34 different themes applied from a strengths perspective for students to thrive in school and life. It has a wide array of resources that can be used to develop students intrapersonally. This program is being used in colleges across the country, especially with first year students. Due to the research done at strengths-aligned universities and the extensive use with college students, CliftonStrengths is leading the conversation in intrapersonal development; however, it does come with a cost ... both a fee to take the assessment and an additional cost to become a strengths-certified educator. While developed more for college students, it can also be used in high school.

Other tools (fee or free versions) are available to help identify student gifts. Here are a few to consider:

• Values in Action -- An online tool that I've used with high school students to identify character strengths is VIAcharacter. Values in Action (similar to CliftonStrengths) provides good resources on each of the character strengths to help students learn more about their character strengths and provide suggestions to practice putting their values in action. 
• The Highlands Ability Battery -- The THAB is one of the most complete career identification and planning resource. While the cost is prohibitive, this tool utilizes a wide range of tests (including personality and interest inventories) and resources to pinpoint a career path for students. Primarily utilized at the college and early career stage in life, this tool has been introduced at the high school level also.
• Spiritual Gifts Assessment -- Christian schools can use a Spiritual Gifts Survey to help students identify their gifts. Of course, deep learning can happen around each of the spiritual gifts through Bible and Christian book study. Students can then be encouraged to practice their gifts at school to improve the school culture.
• Personality Tests -- Schools can also use personality tests, like Myers-Briggs or Enneagram, to help students identify how they were created and ways to use those traits to be successful in school and in life. Like the other programs, educators can find extensive resources to help students develop their personalities into strengths.

Calling Prep

In order to complete a student's intrapersonal development, the gift identification/development ought to be done with the student's future in mind, i.e., a teleological perspective. This includes college and career preparation, but it is even bigger than that. Schools should want to see their students flourish in all areas of life. I like to use the terms "Life Prep" or "Calling Prep" instead of the typical college/career prep to emphasize the "education for all of life" that a whole-child education promotes.

By connecting what happens in the classroom to a future calling, students will see the relevance to the learning and help them see a future-fit for them in the world. This can begin in the elementary classroom with career days by having parents come in to share about their jobs, but it is especially impactful when this happens at the high school level. If an engineer comes into a physics class to share about how they use this content every day, a spark may be lit for these students that will lead to a college choice, college major, and future career. 

An important part of intrapersonal development is identifying what a student is good at and what job fits with their interest/passion. However, career prep is more than just finding a job you love (so "you'll never work a day in your life" as Twain quipped). Calling prep is deeper than that. I love Frederick Buechner's quote: "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Implied in this quote is that we need to both know our "deep gladness" and the "deep hunger" around us. This involves intrapersonal development but it also involves world and market analysis. What jobs are out there? What jobs are needed at this time? By considering the world's deep hunger, we may need to step into a job that we don't love and is hard work ... but it is fulfilling because the world needs us to use our gifts there.

Ikigai is a Japanese term meaning, "a reason for being," or a life purpose, or a calling. The diagram below helps to clarify the elements of intrapersonal development and align it with what the world needs. 

Schools can encourage students to use their gifts to make a real impact in the world by helping them combine what they love, what they are good at, what the world needs with a career. This will be truly calling prep.

What I love about many of the instruments above (CliftonStrengths, VIA, Spiritual Gifts, etc.) is that they identify and help to develop a holistic, intrapersonal person. They are concerned about academic success and future employment, but they also have resources to help students flourish in all areas of life. Likewise, schools with a Hebraic, whole-child perspective want to see student flourishing in all areas: cognitive, spiritual, social, emotional, physical, and intrapersonal.

I hope that this blog series has helped you see whole-child education in a new light.

Whole Child Education: Physical

Like the previous aspects of whole-child education (cognitive, spiritual, social, and emotional), physical development is integral to healthy growth for students (and all humans). We are created to move, and physical activity actually helps keep us positive, energetic, and motivated. Developing the physical aspect of a student and utilizing movement is another essential part of a whole-child education. 

Physical Development

We can all provide examples of when you felt good after a brisk walk, intense workout, physical labor, or even stretching. I know after an hour of working in my office, I need to take a walk to help me re-focus on my work and maintain my productivity. Our physical aspect is part of how we are created, and God intends us to move. It is built into our bio-chemistry; when we exercise, the brain releases dopamine and endorphins that make us feel happy. So, logically, if humans are to flourish, physical activity needs to be a part of life. Likewise, a whole-child education must include movement and physical development. Quite simply, schools that are based on a whole-child perspective must build into the schedule physical activity.

Recess and Brain Breaks

I remember answering "recess" to the question, "What's your favorite subject in school?" While most adults dismissed this as a facetious answer, I was serious. In fact, this is a common answer for many elementary students, and it is usually not because they hate every other classroom subject; it is because something special happens at recess. When students get a chance to be active in school, it gives them a brain break, releases the happy brain chemicals, allows them to connect socially, provides them a stress release, and ushers them into a time of discovery learning through play.  

Finland has been rated #1 in the world for their national educational system. While there are many factors that can be used to rate schools, Finland has been praised for their low-stress, play-focused school system that instills a lifelong love of learning. One specific point that gets cited often is the amount of recess time in Finnish schools; after 45 minutes of classroom learning, students get 15 minutes of recess. The correlation is often drawn between Finnish recess time and happy, successful students; likewise, American schools that have reduced recess time to focus more time on academics are criticized. Would an increase in recess time lead to more success in school?  I am not sure the data allows us to make that direct causal claim, but Finnish schools do provide a positive example supporting physical activity in school.

Few high schools have "recess" time and high school break ends up being spent looking at phones or standing around "hanging out," so how do teenagers gain the benefits that physical activity provides? Unfortunately, many high schools care more about head knowledge and test scores (classroom learning) than devoting time to active "play."  In fact, Carnegie Units used to determine high school credits are tied to time in a classroom, so high school administrators (including the author) build schedules that value classroom time and often reduce break (or recess) times. It does make me pause when thinking about my high school schedule.

However, physical activity can also be included within the traditional class period by providing active brain breaks. Teachers with a whole-child perspective will make sure to provide times of activity during the class period ... even if it is just to give students a break to stretch in the middle of a brain-intensive lesson. Brain breaks can be effective times of re-focus and a way to extend learning, especially if structured around the lesson.

The Colorado Education Initiative has developed a great resource on physical activity brain breaks. Check out the resource at the link below:

• https://www.coloradoedinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/CEI-Take-a-Break-Teacher-Toolbox.pdf 

Physical Education and Athletics

Curricular and co-curricular physical activities clearly provide students with an opportunity for physical development and growth.  Physical Education (PE) classes are still a staple in most K-8 schools; however, more and more high schools are eliminating PE from the required courses for graduation, or they are allowing students to fulfill PE graduation requirements through playing a school sport, working out at a fitness club, or independent study physical activity logs. While most of these decisions are related to budget cuts, it does show the value that some schools place on physical development and physical education. 

Not all schools that have cut PE classes are against the physical development of students or whole-child education; in fact, some schools have, replaced the traditional PE classes during the school day with more extensive physical activities requirements before or after school. Some have even required all students to play at least one school "sport" each year. Realizing that not every student is an "athlete," these schools have added non-competitive physical activity programs that meet before or after school for all students, like aerobics, strength and conditioning, hiking, swimming, dance, etc. While these co-curricular programs do not provide the "brain breaks" during the school day, they can be amazing avenues of physical development.

Most communities also have a public supported recreation department that provide free (or low cost) opportunities for students to stay active. Partnering with these recreational organizations can be a win-win situation for both the schools and the recreational organizations, as the school can potentially reduce costs and the awareness/utilization of the recreational programs are optimized. Additionally,  schools can adopt programs, like Girls on the Run or NFL Play60, created by non-profit organizations to offer "plug and play" programs for their students. 

Schools who believe in a whole-child educational perspective will provide a plethora of ways to formally and informally develop the physical aspect of the student: open play recess times, structured PE classes, classroom physically active brain breaks in classrooms, after school programs, and co-curricular athletics. Schools should offer all of the above and more to develop students physically. 

By providing these programs, students will be healthier, happier, and more motivated to flourish in all areas of a whole-child education.

Whole Child Education: Emotional

In education, the social and the emotional aspects of human development are often connected and labeled as social-emotional learning. However, each of these areas is uniquely vital to human flourishing that they deserve to be treated separately. 

Emotional Development

If I was using a Venn diagram to show the interconnectedness of each of the areas of whole-child education, I would be tempted to put "emotional development" in the middle; each of the other areas impacts the emotional health of a student, and the emotional health of a student impacts the other areas.  For example, a student who is depressed is not going to be able to focus on his school work, and a student who performs poorly in his school work can become depressed. A positive example is a student who exercises (physical development) feels more happy as dopamine and endorphins are released through exercise, and a student who feels happy and has a positive self-image will want to be physically active.  The interdependence of a student's emotional health is more prominent than the other elements of whole-child education.

The importance of emotional and mental health for student flourishing is clear. Unfortunately, students (and all humans) seem to be struggling with their emotional health more than ever. There was a recent Gallup poll, published December 7, 2020, that the mental health of Americans is at the worst levels in history (Brenan 2020 ,"Americans Mental Health Ratings Sink to a New Low"). This confirms the alarm raised by the American Academy of Family Physicians in 2018, who highlighted a study that cited up to one in six children (aged 6-17) have a diagnosed mental illness (2019, "One in Six US Children Has a Mental Illness"). Finally, these studies confirm the negative trend over the past 10 years of increases to childhood depression, anxiety, and behavior disorders, according to the CDC. 

The School Counselors' Role

Clearly, emotional and mental health is something that needs to be addressed in the school setting.  Having certified school counselors who are trained to deal with emotional and mental health issues is essential. While often seen as an "extra" staff member who can be outsourced in tight budget years, schools with a whole-child perspective will make counseling staff a priority. The recommended ratios from the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) is one counselor for every 250 students. Designating budget room for counseling is an important step that will pay off in student flourishing. However, the counseling staff needs to be more proactive than reactive to achieve the full benefit.

The counseling staff, of course, can address emotional and mental health crisis situations, e.g., death of a parent, suicidal ideation and actions, student conflict, and home abuse; however, to be most effective, school counselors should focus on proactive educational programming for both teachers and students. Professional development for teachers and school staff members should be a priority of the counseling staff, equipping teachers to deal with and help develop the emotional health of students. This can include formal "trauma informed teaching" workshops, instruction on how to identify at-risk students, and development around how to help without hurting the situation. Counselors should also lead a school's student crisis management team to identify students who are struggling emotionally or with mental illnesses, and develop/implement intervention strategies to help these students thrive.

The counseling staff also needs to take the lead in proactive student instruction in emotional/mental health. This can be from a purchased curriculum (e.g. Harmony SEL ) or self-developed lessons from the vast resources available online. The instruction should be age-appropriate but proactive and focused on providing coping strategies for students (all students) as they encounter stress, depression, and mental health disabilities.

The Teacher's Role

Recently, teacher education programs in colleges and teacher professional development has included more about trauma informed teaching and mental health; this needs to continue. However, this should not be seen as turning teachers into counselors. In fact, one of the most important lessons for teachers to understand is when to refer a student to a counselor. Teachers, primarily, need to understand emotional and mental health and its impact on a student's learning and behavior. Secondarily, teachers need to know how to incorporate emotional development into their classroom structures and lessons. 

While not dealing with emotional crisis situations, teachers can definitely impact student emotional development. Teachers must have a true heart for the students, caring about their emotional health. This manifests itself by teachers assuming a listening posture and a "whatever it takes to help" attitude; this will demonstrate that the teacher cares for the students and that their classroom is a safe emotional space.  Out of this classroom ethos, a teacher will then be able to challenge students to grow as a complete person; students will respond well to being pushed rigorously because they know that the teacher cares for them as a whole person and wants to see them grow.

Schools can also have a school-wide system for emotional learning, e.g., monthly virtues, regular chapels/assemblies, and monthly character awards. Likewise, classroom rhythms/rules can focus on emotional health teaching students coping strategies to manage stress and anxiety, providing learning experiences around topics like grit and resilience, and encouraging students to practice positive mental health and wellness.  

Unfortunately, classrooms/teachers, especially those who over-emphasize academic rigor, often are the causes of student stress, anxiety, feelings of failure, and depression. This emotionally unhealthy classroom environment (typically from the Greek educational philosophy) are also found in schools who hire academic coaches or college/career counselors instead of school counselors trained to work with emotional/mental health and development. This has to change, and a school with a whole-child education philosophy is best prepared to address these concerns.

It all begins from a whole-child (Hebraic) philosophy that loves and cares for the whole person, and then hires teachers, counselors, and staff who align with that perspective. However, counselors can't just wait around for a crisis (even though this may keep them busy); they must think proactively in preparing professional development for teachers and emotional health strengthening lessons for students. 

Working together from a whole-child perspective, schools can begin to change the troubling trends in student mental health into a flourishing future for our students.

Whole Child Education: Social

The cognitive and spiritual are really important aspects of education, and all schools teach for cognitive development and faith-based schools focus on the spiritual development of students, but whole-child education involves even more.  

Social Development

In my 30 years of working in education at the high school and college level, the social aspect (and the ineffectiveness of schools to develop this well) has had the most impact on student flourishing and student retention. Thinking solely about new students who enter a school at the high school level, when a social group or an individual friend welcomes and embraces them, they flourish; if this does not happen, the students struggle in almost all other areas of student development. 

I, of course, have a ton of examples of both the positive and negative social dynamics in school. I have seen the beaming faces of new students as they are invited to sit with a group at lunch, and, I know that this simple action will help them thrive. I have also had new students crying because nobody has reached out to them, and, likewise, I know that this is going to negatively impact their ability to thrive. If you are familiar with the book/film Wonder, the strongest and most consistently positive character is Summer, who has the courage to step out of her friend group to eat lunch with Auggie. View that scene HERE

Social dynamics does not only impact new students. Unfortunately, I have seen students withdraw from school because of social dynamics within a class that has been toxic for years: "mean girls" (and boys), ignoring/isolating, and bullying. Middle and high school can be either amazing times of social development or "the worst years of your life." Much of the negative social dynamics has to do with students learning what to do (and especially what not to do) through trial and error. Every students in middle and early high school are at different social maturity levels. Combine the variety of social maturity levels with wild hormones, intense peer pressure, and poor examples of healthy social interactions, and you have the recipe for disaster ... especially when you add the "dating" and social media fuel to the fire. Talk about a volatile combination that is sure to explode ... unless someone steps into that mess to help with social development. 

Sidenote on Dating: I am more and more convinced that "dating" is not a good idea in middle or high school. This is not because I am against these relationships but, rather, that I have seen so many of them implode and cause collateral damage socially, which, in turn, impacts student learning. On this topic, I share with students and parents that there are three entities in every dating relationship: the student, the person he/she is dating, and the friends around them ... and I guarantee that one of those entities is not mature enough to handle a dating relationship. Of course, nobody listens to me, and, each year, I have another set of examples about why you shouldn't date in high school.

I work with social development most specifically in high school with freshmen, and this area of personal development is all over the spectrum with this age group. The freshmen halls have both physically mature girls who are quite sophisticated socially and pre-pubescent boys who would never dream of talking to a girl. The saying that "freshmen girls are mean and freshmen boys are stupid" often rings true from the high school principal's perspective and what I deal with in discipline. Thankfully, freshmen mature into sophomores and boys and girls begin to balance out physically and socially. The social issues often (but not always) go away ... and it is always funny when sophomores shake their heads at the drama in the freshmen class and remember the same things happening last year in their class. Of course this is the vast majority of students, but unfortunately, some senior girls are still mean and some senior boys are still stupid.

I always feel like the school has failed when a student feels alone/isolated and changes schools, a dating relationship ends poorly and disrupts learning, or when a school still has mean/stupid seniors. How can schools help students grow in social development? How can a school teach students to be nice and to be a good friend?

This is one of the most difficult areas to address. As was highlighted in the video clip from Wonder, the last thing that a new student wants is for a teacher to force a student to "be nice" to the new student; it really ought to happen organically, and "nice" has to be a part of the school culture.

Building a Culture of Nice

"Play nice" has been a mantra repeated by parents and teachers since early childhood, but how do you build a culture of nice?  Like spiritual development there should be a formal and informal process that collectively changes the culture.

The formal aspect of this is teaching, modeling, and practicing these social skills on a regular basis. This begins with the rules found in the student handbook; when teachers spend extended time discussing the rules, explaining the why behind the rules, and giving examples (and letting students come up with examples) of how to act. The ongoing proactive discussions will help build a culture, and schools will begin to see students self-policing social interactions from a "that's not the way we act here" perspective. Unfortunately, we cannot assume that students have these skills when they enter school, so "nice" needs to be taught at each level and reinforced often. There are so many lessons to be taught; for example, elementary students need to be taught how to play nice at recess, middle schoolers need to be taught how to interact with each other on social media, and high schoolers need to be taught how to have crucial conversations when friends made poor choices; of course these are just a few examples.

Social development is more than just being nice or playing nice, it also involves lessons on healthy friendships and relationships; essentially, teaching students how to be a good friend. Students, unfortunately, do not see enough positive relationship examples (in life or in the media) for educators to assume that this doesn't need to be taught. Broken is an apt term for families, friends, and marital/dating relationships today. Students need to be flooded with examples of positive relationships, lessons on healthy relationship tending, and modeling to overcome all the negative examples.

One of the difficulties in teaching social development is when does it occur? These lessons don't always fit into a specific content area. However, a school built on the whole-child philosophy needs to carve out time to intentionally teach social development. As mentioned, it should begin with reviewing school rules at each level and enforcing/reinforcing those rules through the year. However, there needs to be time regularly set aside to teach these important life lessons. Some schools will implement these lessons in homeroom, crew time, advisory, or chapels/assemblies. 

Similar to spiritual development, the informal "instruction" is often more impactful. This happens when teachers and administrators "catch" students "being nice" and reinforce that behavior, and it happens with shoulder to shoulder short conversations as students are walking down the hall. It doesn't need to be posted or broadcasted, but it does need to be recognized and named at least to the specific student who is being nice. The opposite, of course, is also true; when students are not acting in appropriate ways socially, they need to be confronted, disciplined, and challenged to change their behaviors ... and tending a school culture sometimes means removing a student who is toxic socially.

By formally teaching and informally reinforcing "nice," students will develop socially and a culture can change.

Prepare for Future Flourishing

The importance of equipping students socially is not just to help them thrive in the present, but it is also to prepare them to flourish in the future.

An interesting expression highlights this point: "A's work for C's." Often educators place value and worth on a gpa and a student's ability to "do school" well; however, a student's social quotient (SQ), a measure of social maturity, is more important than their IQ in determining how successful they will be after their formal schooling ends. Thriving in family, community, and work depends on a person's attentiveness in personal relationships, being able to connect with a wide range of people professionally, listening and encouraging well, caring deeply for neighbors, and having the courage to step out of one's social comfort zone to risk getting to know someone new. These are all skills that should be taught in school, especially if future flourishing is a goal.

All educators can identify students who struggle in school but will flourish in life. Lean into these students and encourage them to lead; this will, not only put wind in their sails at school, but it will help them see their future in a positive light.

The importance of focusing on social development is essential for whole-child education and future flourishing. Unfortunately, schools are usually teaching these skills in a reactive way through discipline and correction. Even if the discipline process is framed from a restorative perspective, social development would be much richer if done proactively.

The next article in this series will highlight an area often combined with social development as social-emotional learning.  Next up is emotional development.

Whole Child Education: Spiritual

As the previous article pointed out, clearly schools should be about cognitive development; however, a hyper or sole focus on cognitive development does not help students flourish. I'm afraid our culture is reaping the rotten fruit of the heavily Greek model of education that produces smart but faith-less, selfish, depressed, and purposeless students.  A whole-child approach would produce smart AND faith-full, kind, emotionally healthy, and purposeful members of our society. 

An example of our hyper-focus on cognitive development is my daughter who is studying for the GRE to get into a Physician Assistant school. She is memorizing obscure vocabulary words so that she will score well on the Graduate Record Exam. Now, I absolutely want to have smart professionals in the medical field, but I also want to them to score high on social and emotional measures. A smart physician assistant who cannot listen and relate to her patients, is a poor PA no matter what she scores on the GRE.

Similarly, whole-child education has a "smart AND" perspective; graduates of a whole-child education should score high in academics AND spirituality, social interactions, emotional and physical health, and calling.

Spiritual Development

Returning to the Hebraic paradigm, a whole person was described as "heart, soul, strength" (Deuteronomy 6:5). While "heart" is a synecdoche for a whole person, the "soul" is added in both the old and new testaments to highlight a person's spiritual being. We are spiritual beings. Of course, Christians who believe in the Bible accept this, but most religions and self-help gurus affirm the same thing ... we have a spiritual soul. Deep in our being, in our spiritual soul, is a desire to believe in and worship something greater than ourselves, the transcendent; as a Christian, this is the God of the Bible.

American public schools have been so hyper-focused on cognitive development and hyper-sensitive to the separation of church and state that they have, for many years, neglected the spiritual development of students. Instead of believing in something greater than ourselves, students are taught to believe in themselves, other humans, or in humanity's collective knowledge. Although aligned with the religion of the American dream, believing in oneself is ultimately empty, especially in answering the ultimate questions of life.

As a Christian working in a Christian school, my examples will come from that faith perspective and school environment. However, other religious schools also focus on the spiritual development of students, and many private and public schools are realizing the need to add spiritual elements to help students flourish.

Ultimate Questions

A faith-based educational environment that focuses on developing the spiritual being is best able to help students answer the ultimate questions in life. 

• Origins -- where did we come from? where did I come from?
• Purpose -- why do humans exist? why do I exist?
• Eternity -- what happens after we die? where am I going after I die?

In Christian schools, these answers come from the Bible and even catechisms or doctrinal statements. Of course, the creation account in Genesis provides answers to origins and throughout the Bible are descriptions of eternal life. Additionally, the Bible emphasizes purpose and meaning in life; it shows why we exist (to glorify God) and how we should live. In fact many verses in the Bible become "life verses" that guide the lives of Christians. For example, the Bible says to love God and our neighbor (Mark 12:30-31), to value justice, mercy, and humility (Micah 6:8), to live in peace with everyone (Hebrews 12:14), and to serve the "least of these" (Matthew 25:40). Each of those passages (along with many others) have been adopted by students to help give purpose to their life and, ultimately, glory to God.

Without a faith foundation to help answer these questions, students are left without answers to these ultimate questions. Without answers from a transcendent source, students remain perplexed, unsettled, and full of doubt.  Eventually these students stop seeking answers to these questions and become apathetic or they find answers that are purely self-serving and egotistical. Both of these sides provide little comfort (or development) for the spiritual soul. Students are left with an unsettled "is that all?" spiritual perspective and much doubt about their identity and purpose in life.

Guiding Principles

In addition to helping to answer the ultimate questions in life, spiritual development leads to a set of religious beliefs that provide moral and ethical guiding principles for students. Students in our modern world are presented with many, often conflicting, messages about morality and behaviors. Without a developing spiritual soul and its connection to their faith, students are left to make decisions based on society, peers or even the adults in their lives ... all who can lead them astray.

Through an educational system that focuses on spiritual development and faith formation, students will have a fixed point, like a lighthouse, to guide them through the swirling storms of life. This faith foundation will help students "test the spirits of the age" (I John 4:1) against biblical truth and align their actions to their faith.

Spiritual Development in the Classroom

Spiritual development in a Christian school is both formal and informal. 

Formally, spiritual development happens in Christian schools through Bible classes and a Bible curriculum. These are classes in the school day to help build biblical literacy and different publishers have developed extensive curricula taking students through the Bible and from a wide variety of theological perspectives. Additionally students gain formal Bible instruction through morning devotions and chapels. All of these collectively build a biblical knowledge foundation that can be quantifiably measured. 

Arguably, equally impactful are the informal times of faith formation. While all faith formation can be called discipleship, the informal conversations that teachers/coaches have with students remain at the heart of spiritual development. Conversations about faith as they organically arise in the classroom or hallways of the school represent the "walking and talking" discipleship modeled by Christ. Christ did life with his disciples and took faith pauses to point out God's work in life. Christian teachers also take "faith pauses" to point out to students the places in the content where God shines through; this also happens when teachers walk shoulder to shoulder down the hall with students. It may be hard to believe, but spiritual development also occurs in the principal's office as students are encouraged to make better choices ... yes, discipline and discipleship have the same root words. 

Full assessment of a student's spiritual development continues to allude Christian educators. Outside of biblical literacy, an individual's spiritual maturation is truly personal, subjective, and fluid.  In this area, maturation is not a steady linear line upward correlated to age. We all feel closer or further from God in different seasons of life (and does it show greater spiritual maturation to feel closer to God?). As soon as someone tries to quantify the spiritual, it becomes complicated to interpret the data. What does the number of times that a student prays in a day tell us about spiritual maturity?  How does an educator measure the heart?

Some instruments have been developed to measure spiritual development, e.g. The Spiritual Assessment Inventory (Hall & Edwards 2002), and, of course, developmental psychologists, e.g. Fowler (1981), have written extensively on spiritual development. Both the SAI and Fowler have extensive research supporting spiritual development that would be helpful in considering assessment. Additionally, a helpful and brief article on assessing spiritual growth is writing by Steven and Joanna Levy for ACSI ... "Rethinking Assessment: A Tool for Learning and Spiritual Development."

The difficulty in assessment is going to be seen in the other non-cognitive areas of whole child education (social, emotional, physical, intrapersonal). However, educators should not shy away from these areas of whole-child education just because they are difficult to measure.

The school should help build a solid foundation that begins with biblical literacy (and hermeneutics), encourages spiritual disciplines and habits, and help students consider academic subjects and life issues through the eyes of scripture. Out of the biblical foundation students can be encouraged to think biblically (ad fontes -- what does the Bible say about this?) and act biblically (how would God want us to act? or wwjd?). 

While supremely important in the overall development of the whole child, it needs to be done in partnership with the home and the church.  As mentioned above, schools can be powerfully supportive roles in building biblical literacy and encouraging spiritual disciplines. However, I believe PreK-12 schools should allow specific doctrine to be taught by the student's church and home. Unfortunately, many churches and parents are not embracing their responsibility to teach theology, i.e., catechism classes or theologically rich family devotion and discussion times (but that needs to remain for another article).

Of course, spiritual instruction does happen in the home and the church, but a whole-child educational perspective recognizes the importance of the "soul" in the student and its connection to flourishing. Schools that embrace the spiritual aspect of a student will partner with the home and the church to help develop students spiritually.

Focusing on cognitive and spiritual development is a good start to whole-child education, but it is not the end. Students need social, emotional, physical, and intrapersonal development.

Up next ... the social aspect of whole-child education.

Whole Child Education: Cognitive

The first article in this series introduced the concepts of a Hebraic (heart - whole child) approach to education instead of the Hellenistic/Greek (mind - specialized) approach to education. Simply, a whole-child approach broadly focuses on six tenets of student development (discussed below), while the modern Greek model is primarily focused on cognitive development. In education, we value what we measure; clearly, we value the cognitive development over everything else because schools and students are rated based on standardized test scores, and typically not much else.

A complete shift to a whole-child perspective in education would impact everything from school curriculum, to staffing, to government funding, to assessment, to school ratings, to college admissions. However, many local schools have realized the importance of a whole-child perspective, and, while they are still required to play in the Greek educational sandbox with assessment, they are adding whole-child elements to help students flourish. 

So, what does this look like in schools and classrooms?

Here are the six tenets of whole-child education that I will be discussing:

1. Cognitive
2. Spiritual
3. Social
4. Emotional
5. Physical
6. Intrapersonal

Cognitive

"Cognition" is an odd term, but it essentially means thinking, acquiring knowledge, and gaining understanding. It's the "brain work" most often connected to school learning and an essential part of any educational environment. Of course, all schools are, and must continue to be, focused on cognitive development. Cognitive development includes, at the most basic level, learning the 3 R's of reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic, but, surprisingly, our modern (and Greek) educational ethos has stopped there. Just look at what we measure (typically reading and math). How limiting to the potential of education! In contrast, a whole-child perspective on cognitive development would align with Comenius who stated curriculum should be "as broad as life itself." 

John Amos Comenius, when outlining his perspective on curriculum, states ...  

There is nothing in Heaven or Earth, or in the Waters, nothing in the Abyss under the earth, nothing in the Human Body, nothing in the Soul, nothing in Holy Writ, nothing in the Arts, nothing in Economy, nothing in Polity, nothing in the Church, of which the little candidates of Wisdom shall be wholly ignorant. (Laurie, 1892. John Amos Comenius) 

A curriculum "as broad as life itself" would be an exciting set of core and elective courses (and topics) for the "little candidates of wisdom" (aka students). How liberating, relevant, and empowering school would truly be if "LIFE" was the overarching curricular goal!

A school that is committed to a whole-child curriculum would include the "traditional" courses for students, but each of then would be constantly pointing students to life, adding relevance to these subjects for the students. Additionally, students would have a plethora of elective courses that are as "broad as life itself." Students would be able to take classes in those areas that bring meaning to life: media, art, music, culinary arts, relationships, gardening, woodworking, interior design, fishing, etc.

How liberating a whole-child curriculum would be in contrast to the restrictive curriculum found in the majority of modern educational systems today. 

Unfortunately, schools are too heavily focused on assessment to be concerned about life. Most American schools are rated on reading and math through state and national standardized test scores, and colleges value prospective students on the same two subjects (ACT, SAT, CLT); therefore, an excessive amount of instructional time is spent in these two subject areas. While these are two amazing subject areas (I was a former English teacher), often students struggle in these traditional subjects to see the relevance to life.  

Modern educational systems seem to be content with the limited nature of cognitive development today (two subjects) rather than pushing for a broadening of the curriculum (and the assessment of more subjects). A logical first step to expand the curriculum would be to expand the subjects being assessed. It has always been perplexing to me that other "traditional" subjects taught in school (like history, science, world languages, fine arts, physical education, etc.) are not on standardized tests used to evaluate school programs. Knowing educators value what we assess, equally perplexing is why the leaders in these areas haven't fought harder for their subjects to be included in these assessments. A school that is committed to a whole-child system of cognitive development would utilize (and probably have to develop themselves) assessments for all subjects being taught. 

In addition to the academic program, a school following a whole-child educational philosophy would look quite different. Teachers would need to have a zest for life, and a desire to share their passions with students. Of course, a staff filled with a zest for life need school administrators willing to say "yes" to their ideas. With "life" as the curriculum umbrella, schools would need to be flexible enough to pause to address life events that arise. Also, the school calendar and class schedule would need to have enrichment days and discovery weeks for travel, field experiences, and expeditionary learning.

Wouldn't it be invigorating to work in a school that embraces the whole-child perspective ... a school that has a curriculum as broad as life itself!

Next up in this series is Spiritual Growth.