Soul of Education

The Soul of Education: Helping Students Find Connection, Compassion, and Character at School by Rachael Kessler (ASCD, 2000)

"In The Soul of Education, Kessler celebrates the diversity of beliefs in our free country and does not advocate teaching dogma. But she wisely understands the spiritual emptiness of our times and knows that we ignore the souls of our children at their peril and ours. Children need encouragement and guidance in struggling with the deeper meaning and purpose of life in a society that glorifies the material over the spiritual." 
- Marian Wright Edelman, President, The Children Defense Fund "The Soul of Education offers an inspiring, hopeful, and much-needed antidote to the malaise that afflicts too many children…a practical, inclusive and sensitive guide for helping children connect with their spiritual yearnings." 
- Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence "I wish I would have had the information found in The Soul of Education during the twenty years I served in public education. I believe Rachael Kessler has found the missing links to educational reform. Public Education does have a soul." 
- Forrest L. Turpen, Executive Director, Christian Educators Association International "The examination of the quest for meaning among today’s adolescents is both daring and needed." 
- Howard Gardner, author of Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century

Sample Chapters

Table of Contents

Chapter One:  Honoring Young Voices

Conclusion:  From Fear to Dialogue - From Standoff to Collaboration

Student Questions

• Why am I here?
• Does my life have a purpose?
• How do I find it?
• How can I NOT be a cynic?
• I have been hurt so many times, I wonder if there is God.
• How does one trust oneself or believe in oneself?
• Why this emptiness in this world, in my heart?

These are a sampling of real questions posed by high school students involved in an innovative in-school program that integrates heart, spirit and community into academic learning. The Soul of Education: Helping Students Find Connection, Compassion and Character by Rachael Kessler (Published by Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development / May 2000 / traces the development of this program and addresses the many issues surrounding it. The story is told through the compelling experiences of dozens of adolescents from classrooms around the country. The Soul of Education is also the story of Kessler's passion to understand what feeds the spirit of young people and her mission to create curriculum, methodology and teacher development that serves that need. Does a child's soul have a place in the classroom? Educators and parents have struggled with this question for years. "We decided to exclude the spiritual dimension from education because we adults couldn't agree on what 'it' was or how to teach 'it,'" says Ms. Kessler. "Liberals fear that 'fundamentalists' will sue them as 'new agers' if they introduce a spiritual dimension into the classroom. Christians fear that secularists will paralyze their efforts to provide spiritual guidance to children in schools. Collectively, we reached a standoff, and our children have been the losers." The Soul of Education tells how Kessler and her colleagues successfully addressed the question of the inner life in the classroom. After listening for many years to the adolescents in her classes, Kessler began to see a pattern. She calls this pattern "The Seven Gateways" to the soul of young people."

1. The yearning for deep connection 2. The longing for silence and solitude 3. The search for meaning and purpose 4. The hunger for joy and delight 5. The creative drive 6. The urge for transcendence 7. The need for initiation

"Just as each students spiritual path is unique," says Kessler, "so is the form these gateways take." She emphasizes that these guidelines are never to be forced into a step-by-step curriculum, but can help to develop a wide range of opportunities in school life for engaging the souls of students. "All of these gateways," she stresses, "abide by the core principle of honoring young voices; creating ground rules together, reaching out cautiously and indirectly through play and metaphor, gathering and listening to their most profound questions, and telling stories from significant moments in their lives." The Soul of Education also demonstrates how nurturing inner the life can lead to success in all areas of our children's lives -- academic, social, and civic. It will be appreciated on a number of levels:

• For parents and educators
• As a thoughtful, understanding guide to living with, loving and communicating with adolescents.
• As a hopeful template of how to develop successful group interactions with teens.
• For adolescents
• As inspirational examples of how these young people learned to turn these experiences into triumphs.
• For policymakers
• As a framework for understanding that the spiritual void is one of the root causes of school problems and as a tool for developing concrete, practical solutions for school and community.

We continue to ask ourselves why our children hate school, why there is so much hopelessness, failure and violence in those institutions. With the publication of The Soul of Education, we have access to new patterns in education that may help make a difference.