Five classroom activities for sustaining a spiritual environment

Abstract

This article outlines five activities that provide an environment conducive to the wholeness of each child and the health of a group: including, attending, embracing, releasing and remaining. Including is hospitality offered to difference, so that each child shows up; attending is a just distribution of attention, so children learn meaningfully; embracing is appropriate ministrations of presence, so children become relational; releasing enables children to learn on their own; and remaining refers to faithful constancy, ‘being there’, dependable availability and integrity. Using these five activities, teachers create a spiritually rich environment in which all children feel they belong yet are free to be themselves. I hope to show its centrality in creating a learning community capable of meeting the deepest human needs. By carrying out these five activities—including, attending, embracing, releasing and remaining—adults create an environment that fosters spiritual growth and grow towards human maturity themselves.

Keywords:

• Identity
• Spiritual education
• Spirituality
• Environment
• Meaning‐making
• Inclusion

Notes

1. For a good example of the Project Approach see K. L. Bellous (2005), Looking at the trees around us, Early Childhood Research and Practice, 6(1). Available online at: http://ecrip.uiue.edu/v6n1/index.html