Fortunately, American colleges and universities have escaped school violence carried out in Arkansas, Oregon, and Colorado in 1998 and 1999. Institutions higher education, influenced by cultural changes, play less parental role than they did 30 years ago. Faculty, however, regularly see disaffected, lonely, isolated, and fearful students pass through our classrooms every year. Many us concentrate on subject matter, believing alienation students not to be in our domain. Because intense relationships that develop over semester or year study, faculty members have opportunities to influence students personally, even as our primary goal remains to help them master field study. Some faculty disdain becoming involved in students' emotional or spiritual lives, while others embrace any opportunity. The primary purpose this paper is to discuss how faculty can and do develop spirit in classes they teach and thus become more effective teachers. has numerous definitions, including religious, sacred, and moral ones not directly applicable here, but those useful for this paper are the breath or a character, disposition, or temper peculiar to and often animating particular individual or group. Of course, once we use spirit, we can't ignore adjectival form spiritual, first definition being of nature spirit rather than material. Another useful definition is related or joined in spirit; spiritually akin; having relationship one to another based on matter spirit. These definitions, all from Webster's Third International Unabridged Dictionary, point to essential problem this paper, expressed eloquently by Conze (1967): Spirit is non-sensuous and we have no sense-data to work on. In addition spiritual actions are disintegrated when reflected upon. If they are not to lose their bloom, they must be performed unconsciously and automatically (p. 23). He argues, however, that because it is spiritual aspects life that breathe meaning into it, It seems rather stupid to discard life-giving qualities these realms simply because they do not conform to standard truth suited only to natural world, where to scientist phenomena appear worthy notice only if they are capable repetition, public observation, and measurement'' (p. 24). So despite lack hard data about student performance or even descriptions repeatable techniques by teachers, I will proceed because I am convinced, like Conze, importance spiritual aspects life, particularly that aspect that concerns us here: teaching and learning. Perhaps more traditional way speaking about spirit class would be to say feeling or affective qualities class. I became aware different feelings in classes as participant in faculty development program called first New Jersey Master Faculty Program and later Partners in Learning in which faculty pairs sit in each other's classes over at least semester and sometimes year. For full description this program, see Katz & Henry (1988) or Smith & LaCelle-Peterson (1991). These pairs focused not on performance teacher but rather on response students to teacher. In addition to observations, each partner interviewed students in observed class. Although these interviews could follow any number themes, basic focus was, How do students learn? For this paper I followed same mode inquiry outlined by Katz and Henry, sitting in on classes--not just once, but many times--both at community college and at university. I interviewed faculty from all types colleges and universities and interviewed students from classes that I perceived to be imbued with breath life, spirit that not only supported learning but also students themselves. The three professors whom I determined to have created most spirit in their classes all taught at community college. …
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Jan 10, 2016
Raymond Emmanuel + 1
Open Access