Spiritual styles: creating an environment to nurture spiritual wholeness

Abstract

Children need to sense that their way of being spiritual is honoured within learning environments that nurture the human spirit. This assertion rests on two assumptions: that children have different ways to express a desire to make the world a better place and that there are patterns to these ways that can be identified, understood and involved in educational practice. We define human spirituality as a sense of felt connection, a public‐domain concept that grounds the capacity to make meaning and to live meaningful lives. The human spirit as the communicative agency that makes meaning within the self and with others, Nature and God is drawn toward wholeness if it recognises its own style for making meaning and making the world a better place and also realises that its style is encouraged in educational settings. We will outline four styles that express spirituality through words, emotions, symbols and actions. We draw out the four spiritual styles to encompass a range of options for spiritual expressiveness that is described theoretically and uncovered in research with children. We hope this article will persuade educators to seriously consider the issues that surround these different expressive styles, and assess children accordingly, so that children come to see that their educational settings perceive, understand and invite the characteristic ways they express themselves spiritually.