Spiritual Education

What is spiritual education?

Spiritual education is often seen as learning about religion, about God or Jesus, and other spiritual figures, or learning about spiritual teachings. For Christians, it's often associated with studying the Bible or other spiritual texts. Spiritual education can involve these activities, but it's not defined in this way. Spiritual education consists of helping people to grow spiritually. For our purposes here, to help children grow spiritually.

How do we do that? We do it by attending to their spiritual needs. The spiritual needs of children are addressed further here. We attend to children's spiritual needs and growth in all our daily interactions with them, whether it is in school, as teachers, or at home as parents or friends. Most of the time we don't teach them explicitly by giving them lectures or talks, but rather we apply what is important for them to learn in all the everyday interactions that take place with them.

We help them sharpen their discernment by asking them about the significance of things. We help them learn to make smart choices. We inspire them to learn more about things that are important for them. We motivate them to be honest at all times, and not be tempted by deception and illusions. We help them build self-confidence based on who they really are, and not based on whether they follow trends or peer pressure. We help them develop their creativity, and to learn that they will be successful in life by being creative, in finding new, valid approaches to issues, and not by being passive followers. We help them to refrain from activities and associations that are not constructive for them. We help them find joy in constructive activities, and we spend time with them doing this. When they get older, we motivate them to see themselves as important members of society, who will be responsible for the future of the world. We help them to find their purpose in life.

When they are ready, we help them take charge of themselves spiritually, which means to be able to make choices regarding what goes on in their consciousness, in the form of thoughts, feelings and beliefs. This process will lead to self-mastery, so they can find real self-worth, and not be tempted to develop artificial needs or addictions, which are always caused by lack of self-worth. We help them learn that what they make of their inner world will determine how their outer world will become.

With this approach to spiritual education, which focuses on practical application, children are not bored by it, but they can instead find it inspiring to learn and find new and better ways to do things, and to handle situations in their lives, so they can find themselves more successful in accomplishing what will be important for them.

For a more detailed curriculum outlining spiritual education at school, please refer to the following document titled "Classes Dedicated to Life Skills and Spiritual Subjects".