Sign Up For Our Newsletter

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” 

    First Amendment – United States Constitution

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits Congress from establishing laws that favor one religion over another.  Constitutional experts have interpreted this amendment as prohibiting the federal government from funding religious education.  Indeed, as a result of this amendment many public school teachers are afraid to even discuss God and spirituality in their classrooms. 

Many teachers do not encourage students to listen to their deepest feelings and their inner-most selves.  They do not push students to experience the deep beauty of the world in which they live.  They don’t promote wonder and amazement. 

In discussing a lack of spirituality in American public schools, Parker Palmer writes:

As a teacher, I have seen the price we pay for a system of education so fearful of things spiritual that it fails to address the real issues of our lives—dispensing facts at the expense of meaning, information at the expense of wisdom. The price is a school system that alienates and dulls us, that graduates young people who have had no mentoring in the questions that both enliven and vex the human spirit.

Many educational leaders advocate the importance of promoting the importance of spiritual thinking in America’s classrooms.  Charles Suhor writes, “Education is a sorry enterprise if we teach little of what we ourselves acknowledge to be the central and defining experiences in our lives.”  Suhor contends that spiritual moments, when we recognize the wonder in the world, in ourselves and in others, form the central experiences of life.  Studies of literature, science, and art amongst other subject areas, can and should promote this wonder and amazement. 

In his research on multiple intelligences (here and here), noted Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner has identified the intrapersonal intelligence as a fundamental framework in which many people think.  People who think through the intrapersonal paradigm have an uncanny ability to conceptualize their own role in the world around them.  These thoughts prompt wonder and amazement.  Gardner has also written about naturalist, spiritual, and existential intelligences.  Though he has not accepted these as separate intelligences, he has emphasized the fact that the thought processes of a large part of the population wax on these issues.  When teachers ignore the most profound questions of life and the wonder of the world, they ignore the most fundamental needs of their students.

Many traditional public schools ignore spiritual issues, for spiritual questions tend to frighten boards of education and the staffs that work for them.  Indeed, many parents would feel uncomfortable if their children were exposed to these issues in school. 

Certainly not all school boards ignore God.  Some mandate the teaching of intelligent design rather than evolution.  However, teaching intelligent design is not the same thing as promoting wonder and amazement.  Indeed, as I’ve seen in many parochial schools, sometimes concepts of God and God’s behavior can be taught in very non-inspirational ways. 

What I and other educational writers argue is that it’s vitally important to promote within our students a sense of inspiration about themselves and our world.  Many schools lack this.   

One of the wonderful things about schools of choice is that non-traditional public schools and private schools often do promote spiritual thinking amongst their students.   When I teach, I occasionally ask my students to be quiet and “listen to the most important voice in the whole world – your own voice.”  Incredibly, I’ve had groups of fourth graders sit and reflect for up to ten minutes.  I’ve encouraged my students to look outside and focus on the beauty of nature.  On their own, they’ve experienced the “wow” moments of life, those moments that are often missing from traditional public schools.  I’ve asked my students to write about these experiences.  Notice, one doesn’t have to speak about structured religion in order to promote wonder and spiritual highs. 

Some parents might not be thrilled to have their children think in this way.  Some might argue that it’s not the teacher’s role to infuse wonder and amazement into their students.  These parents might say, “Just the facts, Ma’am, just the facts.”  The wonderful thing about schools of choice is that different parents can choose slightly different curricula for their children.  Personally, I want to teach wonder and I want my children to learn it.

Andrew Pass operates an education consulting firm and blogs at The Current Events in Education.  He lives with his family in Michigan.