Spirituality Temperament Self-Control Resilience and the Young Child

Spirituality The concept of the separation of Church and State has often been thought to be part of the original Founding Father's perception of religion and part of the Constitution. Essentially, this phrase means that there is a Constitutional mandate that there will be no State religion, and that the sociological roles often attributed to religion will, in fact, be manages by the State.

This ideal, formulated by Enlightenment thinker John Locke, was part of the social contract between government and citizens which was used by the Founding Fathers to form and organize the new Republic. The intent was to protect the individual from the State requiring a certain religion, not to protect the State from religion -- an important distinction as the Republic grew. This, however, did not mean that the founders of the Republic were anti-religious -- quite the contrary.

Thomas Jefferson and George Washington both were extremely devout, and believed that religion should play an important role in the holistic education of all individuals (MacLear, 1995). Within the educational system, just as clinical knowledge and technique are at the heart of the quantitative model, spirituality and the understanding of the role religion plays in society are necessary to round out the qualitative.

Educators do not work with one part of learners, they work with the whole nature of the being, the holistic model that understands that knowledge and familiarity with a subject, regardless of one's belief system, is helpful and supportive for long-term growth and lifelong learning.

Too, the engendering of respect and empathy for one's fellow human being is part of a broad-based education that is designed not simply to produce automotons who are stuck in the lower levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, but who will grow both academically and spritiually to become functioning and well-rounded global citizens. Since spirituality is a complete human characteristic, it is important to help develop the characteristics that engender this development (Lerner, et al., 2006). The 21st century school is unlike any school systems of the past.

There are more diverse learners, the speed at which learners must master material is greater, there are more technological options to learning, and the expectations from stakeholders of all types are far more robust. Once we realize that spirituality is a necessary part of every culture, and that more and more cultures are part of the school system and therefore childhood and adolescent development, there becomes a universal need for spirituality to be present within the K-12 curriculum.

That is not to say that this must be static and monolithic -- just as history, the humanities and social sciences evolve within the curriculum, so should religion and spirituality (Mattis, et al., 2006). Research, however, does show that there is a disconnect between the sense children make regarding spirituality depending on age, cognitive ability and levels of specific guidance. It appears that children do not really make sense of a personal understanding of religion and thus tend to follow the pathways of trusted adults.

Indeed, the understanding of spiritual development is such that it is difficult to be certain of a child's view of spirituality until mid-late adolescence, in much the same way as the abstract concepts of chronology and space (Karlsen, et al., 2013). None of this should really surprise us as educators. We know, for instance, that there are certain philosophical constructs (utilitarianism, metaphysics, etc.) that are abstract and require a certain level of cognition to understand and apply.

Just as we do not give third graders significant moral or ethical conundrums to solve, we should realize that religion and spirituality, while being intensely personal, are part of a congnitive development pattern in human development. We know psychologically that the human brain grows drastically during the adolescent years, but that until late adolescence and early adulthood, even certain cognitive functions regarding judgement and self are not fully formed.

We also know that children are extremely imitative, they enjoy stories of wonder and imagination, and respond well to myth, ledgend and folklore. The key is not whether it is right or wrong to introduce religion or spirituality to children, it is.