Week 9 - Mary Moua

Often times college and school focuses on just academics and pure academics without providing a space for anything else which prevents students from receiving that “holistic education experience” that they should be provided with. I think the author's note about how students are suppressed from receiving this holistic education especially stood out to me because spirituality is marginalized within the education system, not just in higher education but also ranging all the way back to elementary school up to higher education. There’s little time, space, or room to talk about religion or spirituality and all we focus on are academics, standardized testing, and exams. It’s interesting though because there is a connection between spirituality and academics with the way one feels, thinks, and practices their spirituality influencing how they perform at school. The author also emphasizes on the importance of “connection” and the different connections between spirituality and things such as self, community, history, and higher power. The education system has tried to suppress and invalidate the concept and practice of spirituality in schools for too long, but fails to realize that everything is all interconnected and related to one another in several ways. Since I argue that there are interrelations and connections between spirituality and school, my question revolves around this connection of how can schools better implement either studies of spirituality or spaces for folks to practice their spirituality in schools than they are already doing now? Is it possible? And most importantly of all, will schools allow this or will they continue to restrict the topics of spirituality and religion from being taught in schools?

Sources:

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/family/2016/03/teaching_mindfulness_meditation_in_schools_a_skeptic_s_investigation.html

Eric Ritskes. “Connected: Indigenous Spirituality as Resistance in the Classroom.”