Negotiating spirituality in teacher education

Nancy Kung

Abstract

Teachers teach out of who they are (Palmer, 1998), and teaching, or enacting curriculum, is what all teachers do, whether working in teacher education or at some other level of education. When the whole teacher is drawn into a relationship with their students, when connections are established, teaching is then a gifting of the teacher’s self, a relational engagement (Palmer, 2003). If education is about making choices, it needs to address the ethical responsibility of recognising wholeness in education and the “recognition of the person as spiritual” (English, Fenwick, & Parsons, 2003, p. 4). Engaging with spirituality in teacher education is not without its tensions. The practice then becomes a case of pushing boundaries. The aim of this article is to uncover the inherent complexities and challenges of negotiating spirituality in teacher education in order to advance conversations on who is the spiritual self that teaches.

Introduction

Having taught for close to three decades I am convinced that it is increasingly difficult to deny the teaching self as teachers relate and connect with students. Personal histories and experiences come into play the moment we step into the classroom. Heron (1999) argues that when educators evoke the spiritual dimension in their teaching, educators are teaching from their spiritual self—their being. Groen (2002) acknowledges that her teaching roles as an adult educator and spiritual person had run on parallel tracks, but these two tracks have begun to intersect and become one track. I am at present travelling on a similar road, grappling with how knowledge and lived experience of my spirituality affect my practice. This search has intensified as I gracefully age into the teaching profession and choose to stay for reasons of the heart. It is affirming to know that many educators have “wondered if other adult educators were experiencing a similar change in their perspective and practice” (Groen, 2002, p. 34); that I am not alone as I seek to understand the self that teaches.

Currently, many teacher-educators are interested in the possibility of negotiating spirituality in education (Wright, 2000). I share this interest. I have, for a long time, been reflecting on how I can situate myself in a religiously pluralistic environment. Like Groen (2002), I am a spiritual person; spirituality intrigues me. How teacher-educators conceptualise and experience spirituality within the workplace excites me. Yet, in reality, as adult educators we often engage our spirituality as we cultivate and promote all levels of critical and creative thinking in each learning event (Carey, Dunston, Kaiser, & Oldmixon, 2005). Indeed, spirituality is everywhere, waiting to be evoked (Tisdell, 2003). At all levels of learning and teaching, teachers bring their spiritual self into the classroom as they negotiate the prescribed curriculum—the “givens”. Spirituality is enacted through the curriculum. However, spirituality remains a controversial issue. This paper seeks to establish a platform on which other researchers can feed back on, add a voice to, a challenging topic, to critically engage and not avoid spirituality as an ambiguous too-hard area best avoided. It is precisely because there is no public consensus that this topic should warrant our attention, be explored and investigated with vigour to advance understanding and debate of a challenging and contentious topic of research.

Celebrating holistic education

Holistic education has its roots in the philosophical ideas of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Steiner, and Montessori (Gutek, 2004). Miller (1999, p. 193), deliberating on the key principles that underpin holistic education, affirms that “the human being is a complex existential entity made up of many, many layers of meaning”. These complex layers wrap around a distinct spiritual core. This prompts Hooks (2003) to challenge educators to go beyond stimulating the intellect and to share in the emotional and spiritual growth of students. Sadly, at the core of the educational system is the transmission of knowledge to produce individuals for competition in a global economy (Miller & Nakagawa, 2002). Clearly, there is a need to work from a holistic perspective in the teaching and learning context.

Contrary to the popular belief that society is becoming more secular, there is in fact a surge of interest in spirituality (Cunningham, 2001; Lauzon, 2001; Sinnott, 2001; Thatcher, 1999; Tisdell, 2003; Wright, 2000). Though it is true that society is hostile to different expressions of spirituality, Miller (1999) argues that society is entering a transitional period of change from one world view to another. Within New Zealand society spirituality is also a popular theme of debate. In a newspaper article Brandon (2005), a Presbyterian minister, called on New Zealanders to reflect on why we need our spirituality. He argues that we are spiritual beings with a spiritual dimension. This dimension connects us with other beings and, more importantly, with God, the Creator. In the field of teacher education, Giles and Sanders (1996) also argue for a relational model that portrays a holistic concern for the student teacher, expressed through common everyday experiences driven by a love for God and others.

An increased awareness of things spiritual is timely and relevant in the New Zealand educational context, as evidenced by the acknowledgement of the spiritual in Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 1996) and the New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education, 1993), which is the compulsory school curriculum. The presence of a spiritual dimension is explicit in the aspirations set out by Te Whāriki, where one of the aims is for young children “to grow up as competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make a valued contribution to society” (Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 9). Similarly, health and physical education, one of the seven curriculum strands in the New Zealand curriculum (Ministry of Education, 1999), emphasises the need to promote the spiritual in children’s learning and development.

Consistent with the Māori world view, Reedy (1994) claims that there is a divine spirit that lives in every child, a “spark of godliness” (mana atau). The challenge for teachers would be to evoke that spiritual connection with the universe to enable the child to explore, discover, assess, and then understand the surrounding world. The spiritual budding of the child therefore needs to be addressed in early childhood settings and in schools.

The acknowledgement of spirituality in mandated curriculum in early childhood settings and schools has significant implications for teacher education. To begin with, teacher-educators would need to take up this challenge to address the spiritual dimension within teaching and learning in teacher education in order to support student teachers to “develop both conceptual and pedagogical knowledge about spirituality” (Fraser & Grootenboer, 2004, p. 308).

What is spirituality?

The term “spirituality” has many shades of meanings; it is elusive and hard to pin down, and is an often-avoided topic of research, conversations, and debate. When attempting to define this term, English and Gillen (2000) equate the exercise with pinning jelly to a wall, Burkhardt and Nagai-Jacobson (2002) sum up this effort as lassoing the wind, and Harris (1996) equates it with reaching for the invisible and the mysterious.

Tisdell (2003) asserts that other than religiously affiliated institutions, schools and higher centres of learning have deliberately chosen to be silent on, or have even avoided, the inclusion of spirituality in their curriculum. Wright (2000, p. 1) argues that the “spiritual and spiritual education are essentially controversial issues about which there is no public agreement”. Hence, Vogel (2000, p. 17) writes that to some “the word spirituality diminishes their religious faith”, while others are at home with this word because “it does not contain particular doctrinal, historical, or theological content”. However, debate around understanding of this term is slowly changing. A renowned educator, Hooks (2003), has explicitly challenged educators to welcome spirituality as part of the call to teach, because it is the spiritual dimension that gives teachers meaning and purpose in teaching.

This revival in the spiritual dimension also permeates adult education and training (English et al., 2003). The nature of, and the possibility of addressing, spirituality in philosophy has been explored by Neiman (2000), and a significant outpouring of deep human longing for the spiritual in teacher education has been observed by Fenwick (2001). Theoretical debates on what constitutes intelligence have acknowledged the spiritual and existential dimensions. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence (Lefrancois, 2000), which advances seven kinds of intelligence, has more recently come to explore the possibility of three additional types of intelligence: naturalist, spiritual, and existential.

Towards an understanding of spirituality

As we have seen, a definition of spirituality is problematic, slippery, and hard to quantify. It is, as Vogel (2000, p. 17) claims, “a nebulous task”. No single definition seems fully complete. In their article Addressing the Spiritual Dimensions of Adult Learning, English and Gillen (2000) confirm that there is lack of consensus on what this term means. This does not mean there is a lack of interest or concern for this aspect of holistic development. Efforts to define this complex and elusive term, “spirituality”, have been made by a number of educators (Bone, 2003; English et al., 2003; English & Gillen, 2000; Gibbs, 2006a, b; Lauzon, 2001; McSherry, 2000; Schneiders, 2003; Sinnott, 2001; Tisdell, 2003).

In the search to understand what spirituality is, I will begin this journey by addressing who I am as a person. I am a bag of multiple selves with a distinct spiritual core. As a teacher-educator who holds a Christian faith, the principles of relatedness and connectedness (Gibbs, 2006b) inform my understanding of what spirituality is. Learning and teaching, I believe, are about people and being in the presence of people. Teachers are relational beings who seek wholeness through relationships. Reflecting on journeys towards authenticity in becoming and being a teacher, Gibbs writes that “teaching is about people” as “teaching involves a teacher with students” (2006b, p. 76). This insightful reflection mirrors Buber’s claim that teaching is an encounter and a dialogue (Yoshida, 2002).

Advancing this line of thinking, Hart (2001) asserts that as educators “our lives are full of moments when we have a choice between going a little deeper or moving on to the next item, person, or task” (p. 1). Moments emerge and present themselves in varied forms in teaching and learning situations. It is when educators elect to dive deeper, to stay longer, to linger in that experience that each connecting moment is perceived as having quality or intensity, and is valued for its transformative power to significantly shape our lives as teachers. These dialogical moments can either form or deform the learning experience. Genuine dialogue is a holistic response.

Thus, central to my understanding of spirituality is an understanding of the self, others, and connections expressed through relationships—a being with and being alone. Schneiders (2003) sums this understanding up as “a relatively developed relationality to self, others, world, and the Transcendent, whether the last is called God or designated by some other term” (p. 165). This spiritual awareness can also be seen as a search for self-identity, evidenced by a longing to be connected to a whole, a “Oneness” with God, or a power higher than the self, and thus “an embodied way” to engage minds when advancing dialogue on the complex nature of spirituality in teaching and learning (Davis, Sumara, & Luce-Kapler, 2000). If education is about making choices, it needs to address the ethical responsibility of recognising wholeness in education and the “recognition of the person as spiritual” (English et al., 2003, p. 4).

Addressing spirituality and religion

An investigation of spirituality would inevitably come up with the need to address the religious. It is important to restate that “spirituality and religion are not the same” (Tisdell, 2003, p. 29), although beliefs and claims of religion may inform spirituality. It is equally true to say that an understanding of spirituality can inform religious persuasions. Expressions of spirituality, however, can take different forms and shades. Cunningham (2001), in an attempt to understand spirituality and the issues surrounding an engagement with spirituality, begins with the premise that all persons have a spiritual nature. However, he reiterates that “adherence to a particular religion is not universally claimed” (p. 23). Many educators and researchers, for example Coles (1990), have affirmed Cunningham’s position on this illusive topic. It is an accepted fact that religious beliefs are not universally binding. To focus on religion would naturally take teachers on an exclusive, rather than an inclusive, spiritual journey, a separation of who is “in” and who is “out” (Bone, 2003). Clarke (2002) also affirms that spirituality is not religion. Spirituality is generally used to “denote engagement with a self-transcendent, all embracing cosmic reality that is independent of religious dogma” (p. 3).

Indeed, spirituality is not about propagation of the religious, although in this article I acknowledge that an investigation of spirituality would inevitably lead to a need to address and confront the religious in the curriculum of schools. This personalised point of view emerges from an awareness that acknowledges the secularisation and globalisation of education. The inclusive approach seems necessary in the present multifaceted educational settings where teachers have to deal with diverse multiethnic groups of students from a range of religions and faiths. Thus, I advocate for critical education that stands for freedom to search, explore, and investigate all forms of truth. An engaged pedagogy that promotes dialogue and conversations on contentious topics like spirituality, religion, and sexuality is an inroad to negotiate spirituality in the classroom. For instance, Linke (2002), writing on children’s spiritual development within the context of early childhood education, challenges early childhood educators to include “spirituality in young children’s curriculum” (p. 22). This inclusion values the being of each child and provides answers to a perennial search for our identity as embodied human beings.

It is imperative to signal that this search for truth is not irresponsible freedom of deconstruction that leaves the spiritual arena borderless, but a critical reconstruction that liberates students to find their way through the maze of spiritual traditions. Freire (1972) terms this a form of emancipatory education that empowers and directs students towards critical awareness and preparedness to actively engage in controversial, contentious, and open dialogues. As such, the transformative nature of critical education liberates students to confront and stay in the dialogue on issues that relate to the challenges of spirituality, religion, and education. It mirrors a genuine education that opens alternative spiritual traditions, not forced on students but offered up as critical considerations that result in genuine spiritual literacy (Wright, 2000). Could critical education that empowers students to construct and reconstruct the meanings of education be the in-road to negotiate spirituality in education? One of the goals of education, if not the main goal, write English et al. (2003) is to liberate students to discover meanings and purpose to life, to nurture and grow the human spirit.

New Zealand accepts and tolerates an array of religious beliefs. As such, the pluralistic nature of religious practices in this country poses a challenge for teachers who are keen to address spirituality in higher education without being found to be exclusive of and intrusive upon other faith traditions—including atheism and agnosticism. Hence, the educator works at the boundary, confronting tensions and challenges of professional practice. Choosing to ignore this ethical dilemma because religion is a controversial issue is to ignore the reality that it is ingrained in the curriculum. Grappling and wrestling with the relevant and related issues within oneself, and listening to the views of others, is a healthy option.

This sobering truth, argues Wright (2000), is driven by the fact that spiritual education and religion cannot be separated. Wright claims that “any investigation of spiritual education cannot ignore the difficult question of religion” (p. 26). This challenged Laurence (1999) to question if religion and spirituality can find a place in higher education. Reflecting on the secularisation of education that indicates an acceptance of religious diversity, Laurence cautions educators not to lose sight of the significant role that religion plays in education. On a similar note, Gutek (2004) writes that in most countries spirituality and religion have historically existed alongside education. Citing the United States as an example, Carey et al. (2005) further advance this theme by asserting that the emergence of an intellectual world driven by objective science and the positivists in the late 19th century signalled the blurring of ties between religion/spirituality and higher education. However, with the dawn of a new millennium, higher education is finding its way back to embrace spirituality and religion in the curriculum.

Teacher-educators are at a crossroad, on the one hand challenging students to think about spirituality, and on the other not proselytising their own spirituality, leading to a blurring of the professional and personal boundary. These are moments of tensions as teachers feel vulnerable, exposed, and naked before the class. Laurence (1999) suggests that this ethical dilemma can be resolved by embracing a religious pluralism that encompasses religion and spirituality without preference to one faith tradition.

However, embracing religious pluralism raises another challenging question: Would a swing from religious diversity to religious pluralism help teacher-educators to encounter and deal with the wide spectrum of religious traditions evident at all levels of teaching and learning settings? Fenwick (2001) argues, and I concur, that the pluralism of spiritual expressions witnessed today is an open invitation for educators who are keen for pedagogical engagement with spirituality to wade into uncharted waters and push boundaries. Getting students to recognise religious diversity, to engage in religious plurality, and to be open to the existence of an array of religious traditions is a possible way to address spirituality and religion in higher education.

Know your spiritual self

Spirituality is not just an understanding of concepts, subject content, and strategies to teach, but is a dynamic journey of sorts. To engage with spirituality in teacher education, educators need to have walked their own spiritual journey in order to initiate others to travel a similar one. Along this line of argument, Neiman (2000) proposes that good spiritual guides must know their own spiritual landscape well to guide others on a similar journey to find each person’s spiritual self. Linke (2002) acknowledges that teaching professionals tend to steer away from religion or spirituality because of “discomfort about knowing how best to respond, or even personal discomfort about the question” (p. 22). Instead of deflecting responses, which may convey a lack of value of things spiritual, educators should work to ground their own spiritual life more fully, to work at bridging the gap between the personal/professional boundary, and to find a safe sanctuary to refresh and rejuvenate (Lauzon, 2001). Educators must enter the spiritual arena confident and rooted deep in their faith tradition, yet open to engage in honest, respectful dialogue with other faith traditions confident of their own faith beliefs, and hence unshaken by the truth of the other (Schneiders, 2003).

Conclusion

The elusive nature of spirituality, and the fact that it is a controversial topic of debate with no closure and a sensitive area best avoided, are some of the reasons why many researchers are reluctant to venture into this field of study. This is despite the fact that there has been a surge of interest in things spiritual. Spirituality as a topic of research investigation has received unparalleled attention since the turn of the 20th century (Carey et al., 2005). The mysterious and dynamic nature of spirituality should lure teachers to encounter the spiritual self and to cherish and nurture what they find (Cunningham, 2001). The learning environment is rich in opportunities to weave spirituality into the learning and teaching process. My hope is that the issues, concerns, and challenges examined in this article will help illuminate the nature of spirituality, broaden the depth and breadth of knowledge on this topic, and open possibilities for engagement with spirituality in relation to education, to transform education for a noble cause—for the good of education.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Colin Gibbs and David Giles for their insightful and provocative dialogue on this challenging topic of research; Colin and David are the author’s doctoral supervisors. Thanks also to Andy Begg for his words of encouragement to explore this contentious topic.

The author

Nancy Kung is a senior lecturer in the School of Education at Auckland University of Technology. She lectures on the Masters in Education Programme, Graduate Diploma in Tertiary Teaching Programme, and Bachelor of Education Programme (Early Childhood and Primary). She is currently pursuing her PhD study exploring teacher-educators’ spiritual experiences in teacher education settings. Her other research interests include case-based instruction as an alternative pedagogy in teacher education, narrative inquiry as a research approach, and teachers’ stories.

Email: nancy.kung@aut.ac.nz