Schools with Spirit : Nurturing the Inner Lives of Children and Teachers

In Schools with Spirit, fourteen respected educators ask whether schools can nurture the inner life of students without violating the beliefs of families or the separation of church and state. For anyone who is concerned for the inner lives of our children, Schools with Spirit inspires, through deeply moving stories, about everything from the first tentative steps toward fostering emotional growth in our children to the bold movement of welcoming the spiritual dimension in our schools. In Schools with Spirit, fourteen respected educators ask whether schools can nurture the inner life of students without violating the beliefs of families or the separation of church and state. For anyone who is concerned for the inner lives of our children, Schools with Spirit inspires, through deeply moving stories, about everything from the first tentative steps toward fostering emotional growth in our children to the bold movement of welcoming the spiritual dimension in our schools. "These essays show what wonderful transformations can happen when teachers are able to nurture spiritual and emotional understanding as part of the lessons they teach." -Marian Wright Edelman, president, Children's Defense Fund "This important book on teaching spirituality in American schools may serve as a significant resource for school teachers and administrators who want to help their students cultivate a sense of spirituality. . . . Teachers who struggle to reach this difficult equilibrium will welcome the wealth that these essays have to offer." - Samuel T. Huang, Library Journal "This book consistently encourages teachers to be courageous and deeply engaged in teaching students, bringing their entire selves, including their spirituality, to their teaching." - Vanessa Bush, Booklist "[Schools with Spirit] illustrates the importance of meeting the emotional and spiritual-as well as intellectual-needs of students and teachers." -Mothering "In times focused upon high-stakes assessment and achievement of standards, it is critical to know that educators are equally concerned with the emotional, social, and ethical growth of students. This book is an excellent resource for all those who daily help students form caring relationships, make positive connections, and understand the strength of the human spirit." -Vincent L. Ferrandino, executive director, National Association of Elementary School Principals Linda Lantieri, coauthor of Waging Peace in Our Schools, is the founding director of the internationally recognized Resolving Conflict Creatively Program of Educators for Social Responsibility, and the director of the New York office of the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). She lives in New York City.

Fourteen educators ask whether schools can nurture the inner life of students and teach them to value spiritual life without violating the beliefs of families or the principle of separation of church and state. They describe their experiences with using techniques to attend to students' emotional and social needs as well as their intellectual development. Some of the methods they've used include teaching martial arts to children, creating opportunities for students to connect with each other, and teaching Native American ideals of balance and harmony. This book lacks a subject index.

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Library Journal

With a series of recent occurrences of violence in schools across the nation, this important book on teaching spirituality in American schools may serve as a significant resource for school teachers and administrators who want to help their students cultivate a sense of spirituality. Lantieri, founding director of the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program of Educators for Social Responsibility and co-author of Waging Peace in Our Schools, advocates that teachers should nurture a sense of spiritual meaning in students, but also carefully emphasizes that spirituality is not synonymous with religion. In this collection of scholarly essays, 12 respected educators join Lantieri in her quest to discover how educators can nurture the inner lives of their students without violating the beliefs of their families or their distinct faiths. Among these educators are Rachel Kessler, who writes on seven gateways to nurturing inner lives, and Geoffrey Canada, who discusses the rewards of practicing and teaching tai chi. Teachers who struggle to achieve this difficult equilibrium will welcome the wealth of practical advice that these essays have to offer. So too will high school libraries and academic libraries with strong collections on education. Samuel T. Huang, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

In Schools with Spirit, twelve respected educators show how they welcome the sacred into their own work with students, in spite of their fears of "overstepping" and in the face of the complex obstacles to nurturing the inner life of children in a school setting. Since the mid-1990s, when Daniel Goleman established that nurturing a young person's "emotional intelligence" enhances his or her ability to learn, schools have been struggling with ways to attend to students' emotional and social -- as well as intellectual -- development. Yet too many recent books and programs tout the "character education" of children as a cure for incivility and worse, and too many of these are barely disguised tracts with religious or culturally noninclusive agendas