Education for Spiritual Health

by Svi Shapiro

Whether we work in schools or send our kids to them, we can surely have few doubts about the present directions of American public education. Schools have become places driven by a mind-numbing standardization of learning, relentless competition that reinforces an ethic of inequality and individious comparison, and students who are increasingly cynical and instrumental in their attitude towards learning. In these circumstances Tikkun's project of spiritual and moral renewal represents nothing less than a transformation of our society's vision for education away from its present focus and emphasis towards the possibility of educating our children for a culture that is loving, joyful, socially just, compassionate, authentically democratic, and appreciative of the wonder and intrinsic value of all life. In this sense our call and quest is to connect the work of education to the moral, spiritual and social renewal of our society and the healing of the global community.

This struggle for change will need to take place on several levels: to help teachers and school leaders regain their sense of a compelling ethical and human vision for schools; to support parents who are anguished by the deadening grind of their children's education and frustrated by its inequitable social consequences in their children's lives; to encourage young people to demand from schools experiences that speak to their quest for meaningful and purposeful lives and is relevant to the concerns and struggles of their everyday world. And, finally for the population at large, there is the need to offer a new definition of what is expected of education. This definition speaks to the schools' responsibility for deepening young people's commitment to democratic values and behavior, and the possibilities of helping a new generation become thoughtfully and creatively engaged with the quest for an environmentally sustainable, humanly just and non-violent world.

Tikkun's educational project of renewal must make the compelling case for a new language of educational purpose that can effectively win support among parents, educators, and citizens in general as it relates our children's needs in the present context of moral and spiritual crisis . This political and discursive struggle will also demand new and innovative approaches to curriculum, leadership and pedagogy that can offer visible and persuasive examples of what is possible for our children within the context of a progressive vision of spiritual healing, ethical renewal and social transformation.