Abstract
The importance of spirituality for teachers’ reflection is explained in this chapter. Specifically, spirituality represents the process by which one’s life is given a greater sense of ultimate meaning and purpose and can occur initially in an existential sense but can be extended through a shared sense of community. By examining literature from the UN and from Dewey, democracy itself can be understood to depend on a particular spirit animating citizens to embody a democratic life, which enables people to learn ‘to live together’ and ‘with others’ in order that global peace might be possible. This is considered so important that the neglecting of the spiritual by teachers impoverishes experience in all its manifestations. Dewey’s notion of ‘the religious attitude’ is understood to involve reflections which ‘go over again’, ‘consider carefully’ and ‘pay attention to things’ to enable what the authors refer to as a three-stage process of growth. This involves first feeling isolated or even lost, then secondly attaining existential responsibility and thirdly understanding ourselves as social beings who ought to enable classrooms and communities to grow together spirituality, as this is what contributes to a worthwhile life which is shared throughout communities.
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Notes
- 1.
Dewey identified that both supernaturalism and militant atheism share an unreligious attitude of inattentiveness towards life. Discussion will be limited here to Dewey’s critique of existential, militant atheist spirituality due to space constraints.
- 2.
Perry (1970) developed a general 3-stage scheme, which was subdivided into 9 stages altogether. The general scheme consisted of Dualistic Thinking (assumption of absolute and objective knowledge); Multiplicity or Relativist (acceptance of a variety of legitimate views); and Commitment (moral and valid claims).
- 3.
From a religious orientation of openness to the experiential continuum, the natural world is no longer perceived as ‘indifferent and hostile’ or as a mere backdrop or resource for the pursuit of one’s private purposes, and other people are no longer perceived or related to primarily as obstacles, rivals or as superfluous to achieving one’s goals.
- 4.
‘Breakthrough’ here does not mean the influx of an other-worldly force into this realm of nature but, rather, simply has the mundane meanings of ‘an important, sudden event that helps to improve a situation’ and ‘an act or instance of moving beyond or through a problem’.
- 5.
Dewey means the American tradition.
- 6.
‘Spiritual individuality’ was also referred to by Dewey (1999) as the ‘new individuality’.
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Statham, A., Webster, R.S. (2019). Reflecting Together on Spiritual Possibility. In: Webster, R., Whelen, J. (eds) Rethinking Reflection and Ethics for Teachers. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9401-1_7
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