In this special issue, the third edition of Pastoral Care in Education for 2016, we bring together five articles and a thematic book review on the subject of spirituality and educational concern. There has been widespread international concern about the impact of aggressive neoliberal educational policies over the past two decades upon the breadth of educational experience and student health and well-being. These concerns have been expressed at numerous editorial board meetings and have featured as the context and/or theme of many articles in this journal over recent years. In the UK and other westernised education systems we have witnessed the introduction of state-sanctioned curriculum, where both what is taught and how something is taught has become tightly controlled and scrutinised. In a drive to raise standards within core subjects, many other key aspects of learning such as creativity, spirituality and interpersonal skills, all themes within this issue, have been squeezed and denigrated. At the same time, we have witnessed greater testing taking place in schools in several countries and greater kudos being given to what these tests mean. Both teachers and students have become identified with results and these have become indicative of personal and professional worth. There has been much debate concerning whether such educational policies are actually effective and the impact they have on curriculum, pedagogy and inclusion. There has perhaps been less open debate about the moral and ethical basis of such policies and the impact they have on students’ opportunities to understand and relate to themselves and one another. This special issue, and future issues, seek to open up a space where both the impact of such policies on ‘spirituality’ might be discussed and indeed how spirituality may speak to some of these concerns.
A broad notion of ‘spirituality’ is adopted in this issue, neither confined nor divorced from any religious, spiritual or secular movement. Articles in this edition explore spirituality by addressing such broad questions as ‘who are we’ and ‘what kind of schools do we wish for this and future generations?’ What kind of relationships do we want to foster within our educational communities and what kind of values, attributes and skills ought to be promoted amongst students living in a world fraught with conflict and uncertainty? We have been fortunate to receive a number of high-quality submissions in response to a call for papers given last year, some published here, with a few others held over for future issues or still under review. Issues and debates raised here will continue.
In the first article, Trotman offers some direction towards a spiritual pedagogy of pastoral care and is hence apt to open the special issue. It sets this agenda against the educational climate of political manoeuvres and the likely impact upon student well-being. It proceeds to address the practical difficulties facing pastoral care policies and programmes in such a climate alongside theoretical difficulties in defining such elusive terms as spirituality, pedagogy and pastoral welfare/care. It then offers some insight about what a spiritual pedagogy may include, drawing upon philosophical and educational debate. Such pedagogy, it is argued, needs to be compassionate, dialogic and participatory; embodied as a lived experience within educational communities rather than as instrumentality, externally imposed.
Taking the notion of relatability over instrumentality further, Guilherme and Morgan follow with an article about the potential contribution of Martin Buber, a Jewish philosopher, theologian and educational thinker to debate about the spiritual aspects and functions of education, including pastoral care. Buber is of course famous for the notion that human beings experience two types of relationship: I/It and I/Thou. The article will introduce and extend these key concepts in greater detail, arguing that performative educational cultures are associated with commodification and instrumentalisation; which in turn promote objectification within personal relationships (I/It relations) with potential limiting or harmful consequences. Whereas education that promotes the acknowledgement of the divine within one another can help students develop deeper and more meaningful ‘I/Thou’ relationships with each other and the world around them. Creating an educational culture where the latter becomes possible or more common is an enormous challenge and this is also briefly discussed.
Quakerism is an approach to spirituality that also seeks to see that of ‘God’ or the divine in everyone, sometimes explored and accessed via sitting in gathered stillness. An article by Wood and Tribe reports a small-scale qualitative study investigating the perceptions and experiences of communal silence amongst students attending a Quaker secondary school. The study highlights how such spaces can be both personal and interpersonal, affording young people an opportunity to develop greater awareness and intelligence in relation to their own inner life whilst also developing connection with others. Their conclusions remind readers that considerable personal and educational development can take place away from the emphasis on doing and striving characteristic of much of the school day. Hence, there is the suggestion that other schools may wish to consider the frequency of opportunities afforded to students for quietness and reflection.
The fourth article by Tan and Tan connects arts education to concepts rooted in Confucian spirituality. It suggests that creativity creates opportunities for students to appreciate beauty, joy and ethics (he: harmony) whilst also developing inner stillness and cooperation with others (dao: the way, or shared human vision). Empirical examples of arts education are shared to explore how the specific pedagogy of communal arts education can help foster such important experiences, which defy measurement and are thus at risk of simplification and/or marginalisation when subjected to performative educational priorities.
‘Mindfulness’, a secularised version of meditation, which emphasises the idea of bringing awareness to the present moment, deliberately and non-judgementally has received a phenomenal amount of personal, professional and multi-disciplinary interest in recent times. This is particularly the case concerning the application of mindfulness in health and educational settings with a steadily growing number of research studies seeking to investigate both its potential impact and implementation issues. Hence, it seems highly appropriate that this special issue concludes with an empirical article about mindfulness at a University setting and a thematic book review. Nixon and colleagues discuss the current provision of mindfulness courses within the UK, alongside students’ motivations, expectations and aspirations for studying this rapidly developing field. Neil finishes this special issue by reviewing three key texts about mindfulness, children and education, which are sure to be of interest to readers.