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.