What to do with spirituality in secular schools?
Resurgence in spiritual thinking
Margot McKinnon has written a thesis on spirituality in the school system.
Photograph by: Photo courtesy Margot McKinnon , Handout
CALGARY — As a classroom teacher in Calgary, Margot McKinnon noticed her high school students were interested in the topic of spirituality.
But she was becoming concerned because many of the students were coming to her desk asking if they were allowed to wonder about spiritual things.
“It was that ‘allowed’ that got me worried and concerned about our public education system,” says McKinnon.
“I also noticed that students were having spiritual experiences.”
For example, if they were studying Shakespeare’s MacBeth, she would ask if anyone had ever seen a ghost and that would spark discussion.
“They wanted to wonder about ‘do you think there is a God, do you think I have a meaning and purpose?’ I always felt as if we were not really supposed to be talking about that. And invariably a student would say ‘are we allowed to be talking about this here?’”
That was the spark she needed to conduct her doctoral study through the University of Oxford on Charting the Territory for Spirituality in Secular Schools: Conversations with Canadian educators.
“I found that the teachers and principals in the school jurisdiction that I was looking at were really interested in the topic,” says McKinnon. “They found that students were bringing their spiritual beliefs into the classroom and into their learning. Science for example. The students wanted to talk about their ideas about God and how that related to what they were being taught in science.
“So teachers were being caught in a bind. They weren’t given instructions or clear parameters about where to go when students brought this into their learning. And there weren’t any conversations in the school jurisdiction about what they were to do. And yet these teachers were very interested in those topics themselves and they said really it’s the elephant in the room.”
It’s a timely discussion now because of a resurgence in interest in spiritual thinking. McKinnon says it’s time to re-imagine the secular school system. Teachers want professional development opportunities in this area as they try to be responsive to the spiritual needs of teens in high school.
“The teachers want to build informed practices. They want to be wise,” says McKinnon, who today is an independent researcher, who gives workshops, and coaches people one-to-one.
In the past, whenever this topic has come up, people often asked religious leaders or religious people what they thought should happen in the school system. But McKinnon says many people, outside of organized religion, are fascinated by spirituality and religion. And teachers themselves can also be spiritual mentors to students.
In her study of teachers, principals, senior administrators and trustees from an Alberta school jurisdiction, she found that all respondents thought spirituality was an essential part of student identity and subjective belief, but were uncertain about how to proceed with bringing spirituality into the school system.
“Teachers and principals appeared to be sincerely compassionate toward the stresses of the adolescent student and they wanted to learn more about how to engage students in activities where they explore their beliefs and wonders,” she says. “They said that teachers who integrated spirituality into their teaching practices did so ‘under the radar’ or ‘covertly’ because they lived in an academic culture that made them feel that to engage in conversations with 15 to 18 year olds about spiritual beliefs, their significance as human beings, their spiritual identity, was somehow wrong even though, as my practice indicated as well, students really wanted to explore their wonders.”
But she was becoming concerned because many of the students were coming to her desk asking if they were allowed to wonder about spiritual things.
“It was that ‘allowed’ that got me worried and concerned about our public education system,” says McKinnon.
“I also noticed that students were having spiritual experiences.”
For example, if they were studying Shakespeare’s MacBeth, she would ask if anyone had ever seen a ghost and that would spark discussion.
“They wanted to wonder about ‘do you think there is a God, do you think I have a meaning and purpose?’ I always felt as if we were not really supposed to be talking about that. And invariably a student would say ‘are we allowed to be talking about this here?’”
That was the spark she needed to conduct her doctoral study through the University of Oxford on Charting the Territory for Spirituality in Secular Schools: Conversations with Canadian educators.
“I found that the teachers and principals in the school jurisdiction that I was looking at were really interested in the topic,” says McKinnon. “They found that students were bringing their spiritual beliefs into the classroom and into their learning. Science for example. The students wanted to talk about their ideas about God and how that related to what they were being taught in science.
“So teachers were being caught in a bind. They weren’t given instructions or clear parameters about where to go when students brought this into their learning. And there weren’t any conversations in the school jurisdiction about what they were to do. And yet these teachers were very interested in those topics themselves and they said really it’s the elephant in the room.”
It’s a timely discussion now because of a resurgence in interest in spiritual thinking. McKinnon says it’s time to re-imagine the secular school system. Teachers want professional development opportunities in this area as they try to be responsive to the spiritual needs of teens in high school.
“The teachers want to build informed practices. They want to be wise,” says McKinnon, who today is an independent researcher, who gives workshops, and coaches people one-to-one.
In the past, whenever this topic has come up, people often asked religious leaders or religious people what they thought should happen in the school system. But McKinnon says many people, outside of organized religion, are fascinated by spirituality and religion. And teachers themselves can also be spiritual mentors to students.
In her study of teachers, principals, senior administrators and trustees from an Alberta school jurisdiction, she found that all respondents thought spirituality was an essential part of student identity and subjective belief, but were uncertain about how to proceed with bringing spirituality into the school system.
“Teachers and principals appeared to be sincerely compassionate toward the stresses of the adolescent student and they wanted to learn more about how to engage students in activities where they explore their beliefs and wonders,” she says. “They said that teachers who integrated spirituality into their teaching practices did so ‘under the radar’ or ‘covertly’ because they lived in an academic culture that made them feel that to engage in conversations with 15 to 18 year olds about spiritual beliefs, their significance as human beings, their spiritual identity, was somehow wrong even though, as my practice indicated as well, students really wanted to explore their wonders.”
Her study concluded there is a need to create opportunities for educators to engage in professional development conversations about spirituality focusing on building a definition for the word spirituality that would be appropriate and useful for the secular setting.
mtoneguzzi@calgaryherald.com
Twitter:@MTone123
mtoneguzzi@calgaryherald.com
Twitter:@MTone123
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Christianity
ReplyDeleteIn Christian Spiritual Formation the focus is on Jesus. It is a lifelong process as a believer desires to become a disciple of Jesus and become more like him. This would be possible because of the divine grace of the Gospel and the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. Dallas Willard writes that “spiritual formation for the Christian basically refers to the Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.