The Soul of Education

Helping Students Find Connection, Compassion, and Character at School

Rachael Kessler

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2000
• Print ISBN: 9780871203731
• eBook ISBN: 9781416612629
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Foreword by Parker Palmer

* How can educators and parents of diverse backgrounds come together to find ways to invite soul into schools?
* How do educators address "soul" in education without violating the separation of church and state or the deeply held beliefs of families and students?

In this book, Rachael Kessler shows how. Based on the deeply moving stories and profound questions of students themselves, each chapter responds to the yearnings young people express: Deep Connection, Meaning and Purpose, Silence, Joy, Creativity, Transcendence, and Initiation--each evokes a gateway to inviting soul into the classroom.

Without healthy forums led by responsible adults, young people seek these gateways on their own, sometimes in destructive ways like drugs, sex, suicide, hazing, and even murder. Helping students find constructive ways to express their longings increases their motivation to learn; stay in school; strengthen ties to family and friends; and approach adult life with vitality, character, and vision.

This practical and inspirational sourcebook will support school communities that are committed to preventing violence and alienation and producing responsible, caring citizens.

Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.

Chapter 1

Honoring Young Voices

I am teaching a class for seniors that is designed to be a rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood. Two-thirds of the way through the semester, we travel from our school to a retreat center in the mountains of Ojai, several hours away. We camp in an oak grove, creating opportunities for private reflection, for play, and for facing common challenges.

Now it's the last day of the retreat, and we are preparing for our closing ceremony. Suddenly I realize that Felicia, a beautiful but brittle 17-year-old student who is struggling with the final stages of bone cancer, will never make it down the hill on her crutches. She staunchly refuses our help. Except for hourly injections of painkillers that my colleague is giving her, she acts as if she wants to face death alone.

As her teacher, I want to respect Felicia's strength and not injure her pride. At the same time, I feel that she has reached that stage in her illness and her life where she needs to accept help. Because everyone wants to include Felicia at this ceremony, leaving her behind isn't an option.

Bewildered, I sit down on a rock and take a moment to reflect. What are we going to do? How can I help this dying young woman inspire her peers with her indomitable strength, while also learning—for the first and last time in her life—to accept support from others?

* * *

Felicia joined our class in the spring despite her frail condition. She had been diagnosed with cancer in the 10th grade, and she spent much of her junior year away from school seeking cures anywhere her devoted parents could find hope. She was so weak this year, she could hardly attend classes. By spring, she was on painkillers around the clock, she could walk only with the support of crutches, and her energy was almost gone. But she was determined about one thing: She would participate in this senior rite of passage.

"She wants so much to be normal," her mother confided in me. "She is so independent—she always has been. And she wants to participate just like the others. She knows that this is her chance to separate from us as well—to become a grown-up. She needs so much to do this, I can't tell you how much it means to her."

Working closely with Felicia's parents was essential because the advanced state of her cancer involved problematic issues of medication, transportation, and potential emergency care.

When we left on the school bus for the mountain retreat center, I told my students that Felicia's parents would do their best to bring her. The exuberance of the students as they settled into the retreat was tempered by fear and grief. Felicia was a crucial part of this group that had worked toward the retreat with great anticipation after the wildly enthusiastic stories of previous seniors. Would she have to miss this experience? And if she did come, how would they deal with it?

* * *

In our opening "council" meeting on the first afternoon of the retreat, we passed a round loaf of bread, with each of the 22 students in turn tearing off a piece and stating what nourishment they hoped to receive during the next five days and the nourishment they hoped to give. But then one of the students broke down. "I want so much to give my love to Felicia—I know we don't have much time left, and there's so much I want to tell her. But I feel like I shouldn't talk about it—like she'll know if I get emotional that I know she's dying and we're not supposed to ever think that. I'm supposed to pretend everything's okay. But it's not okay. Sure, I keep praying that she'll make it somehow. But I have eyes. Don't you?" she looked around the room at the faces filled with tears.

Her outburst then triggered another student: "This is my senior retreat," he said. "My special time. I've been thinking about this for four years now. I've got so much going on—so many decisions to make, so many goodbyes. How am I going to take care of all this if I'm worrying about Felicia? I feel selfish saying this, even thinking this. But I know we're supposed to be honest here. If I can't be honest here, where can I be?"

"How do we treat her now?" wondered a third student. "She wants us to act like everything's cool, but it's not. What do we do with oursadness and our fear when we're with her?

"And she won't let us help her in any way. It seems so dishonest. I mean, she needs us. And we need her—she knows things about life we need to learn from her. But can we really talk straight with her about all this? It seems so impossible."

As her best friend May sobbed with grief during this council, I felt grateful that Felicia was not here. It was an opportunity to speak with the students about life and death on a deeper level than any of us had expected.

"We are all so busy trying to take care of Felicia that we have not really tended to our own pain," I began. "This pain of watching your friend dying is yours—and it comes when you already have so much to deal with—making huge decisions, preparing to leave all that's been secure and familiar for you. And in the midst, you are carrying this enormous pain."

I felt the room relax as I named and honored their suffering.

"We have to really take care of each other these next few days," I continued, my own voice shaken by tears. "If Felicia comes, we need to remember to take care of each person here, even as we do our best to care for her."

"Felicia's here," one of my students shouted, as we sat around the campfire before the evening council. I jumped up.

When I arrived at the kitchen, Felicia was waiting impatiently to join the group. Her father and mother had driven her up the dirt road usually closed to cars in this beautiful mountain retreat center.

"How wonderful that you're here!" I said, embracing her awkwardly, around her crutches. "Thank you so much, Mr. Sanchez, for bringing her. We have all been eager to share this time with Felicia."

"Don't thank me," he replied humbly. "We are most grateful to you all for making it possible for our girl to be here." Then I embraced her mother, Ruth, who had become a friend from our many dialogues about her daughter.

"Let's go join the others," I said, beckoning to Felicia. "And you're welcome to join us, too," I encouraged her parents. Felicia glared at them to let them know she was determined to do this alone.

"You'll have to be careful with those crutches, Felicia—it's a bumpy, rocky path," I warned. Her father rushed to assist her, and she pushed him away, angrily.

The other students were ecstatic when Felicia arrived at the fire. Swept up in a wave of whoops and hugs, she melted into the group.

For the next four days, we explored the challenges of navigating the critical passage from childhood to adulthood. In council meetings, students shared their hopes, their fears, their gratitude, and their regrets; gradually, these students found their way to confronting honestly and tenderly some of their most difficult feelings with Felicia. Their reflections about death were perhaps the most courageous and thoughtful I have ever seen expressed by people of any age.

During free time, they explored the land and organized major campaigns of "Capture the Flag" and "Ultimate Frisbee." We challenged them to spend hours alone—listening to the wind in the trees and to their own hearts. We created enactments of the journey of letting go and embracing their strengths and their futures. Felicia participated as much as possible—resting when exhaustion overtook her, but maintaining a strong presence in our group.

We planned our closing ceremony quite spontaneously. During their free time the students had found a beautiful spot down the hill from our meeting rooms, far past the sleeping grounds. In the exuberance of the moment, we teachers agreed, not thinking of how difficult it would be for Felicia to get there. Now we have to confront this problem.

Suddenly I have an idea. I approach a group of boys hanging out together and lower my voice. "Would one of you guys be willing to carry Felicia down the hill if we need you?" Two young men volunteer immediately. One—Jimmy—is probably our tallest, strongest student. He also has a reputation outside this class for being a good-for-nothing cut-up. He has been a disappointment to his father, who had raised him and an older brother, who was a star athlete and academic success. But in our work in this class, Jimmy has proved himself trustworthy, even of this delicate task. Since the first day of the semester, Jimmy has seen this class as a place that was safe enough to expose his pain, his longing, his wisdom. Our group has loved and acknowledged the beauty of this struggling young man.

I ask Jimmy and Will, the other volunteer, to go inside. Then I ask Felicia and her best friend, May, to join me for a moment in our meeting room.

"Felicia, you have a choice to make. The walk we're about to take is too far for you to do on crutches. Would you be comfortable letting either Jimmy or Will carry you on his shoulders? It would mean a lot to these guys and to all of us if you would accept our help." Our days together have made it easier for her to face the truth, to let go, and to let us in. But still she hesitates. She cannot decide.

"Do it, Licia!" May says, gleefully. "You can ride on Jimmy, and I'll ride on Will. We'll be side by side, riding in style. It will feel like a parade!"

Felicia's eyes light up with a girlish joy I had seen only in photos from before the cancer. "Yes!" she shouts, high-fiving May, and then Will and Jimmy. "Let's do it—it will be a blast!"

The rest of us tromp behind them down the hill as Felicia and May ride like prom queens on the shoulders of these proud young boys-becoming-men. They are carrying her for all of us—allowing her to surrender to our love and care.

In our hearts we all know that this is truly a moment of "passage" for Felicia—and for all of us. Despite our continuing hopes and prayers that this young senior will make it to graduation, we sense that a much more challenging graduation awaits her.

A month later, on her 18th birthday, Felicia died.

* * *

Fortunately, most high school classes do not wrestle so immediately with death. Nor do they have the privilege of five days in the magic of mountains. But in most secondary classrooms, adolescents everywhere are carrying the profound questions that challenged Felicia's group. What gives meaning to life? Why am I here? Can I ask for help? Does anyone really love me? The teenage years are a time when the most important questions can fester in loneliness—or with support, inspire a journey toward wisdom and connection.

When a group of students can acknowledge the truth, whether it is malevolent or benign, when they can meet where their personal stories strike universal chords, they become a community that can respond constructively to any challenge—even death. This is the soul of education.

But how do educators begin to make a place for soul in the classroom? What does it mean to nourish the spiritual development of adolescents in school?

There is little in the educational literature to answer these questions. For me, both the questions and the answers have emerged from my day-to-day work with students.

As I developed this work in the 1980s, I sensed that it was meeting student needs at a very deep level; but I didn't know then what to call it. For several years, I thought it was best not to try. Like most educators, I thought it would be too dangerous to acknowledge that we were doing something in school that involved the spiritual dimension. In the mid-'80s, educators did not dare to consider or discuss the possibility that soul might have a place in schools. If we had used the words "spiritual" or "soul," some students would have thought it was "hokey" or "flaky." Others would have felt we were intruding. Parents and colleagues might have heard the word "spirit" and assumed we were proselytizing or practicing devotional exercises that violated their personal beliefs and the First Amendment as well.

I could not explain what it was about the Mysteries classes that invited soul into the room. We were not practicing religion or even talking about religion. Though I was eager to understand, I did not seek answers from books or spiritual teachers. I was determined to learn from my students. Because I wanted to find a pure, fresh, direct connection to what nourished the human spirit, I decided to listen to the voices of the young people themselves.

Teenagers, however, do not readily share what is deeply important with anyone, certainly not with most adults called "teachers." To earn their trust, I had to learn ways to work together to create an environment that was safe and full of respect and compassion so that they would speak with authenticity. The more they felt their voices honored by their peers and teacher, the more they were willing to speak.

I discovered four practices that proved crucial to inviting soul into the classroom:

• A ground rules process that empowers students to define and take ownership of the conditions for safety in their group.
• Games and symbolic expressions that offer teenagers an indirect way to express themselves and meet each other gradually in deeper, more personal ways.
• The "mysteries questions" process, underscoring that we will be talking about what is in the hearts of these particular students, not someone else's "curriculum."
• The council process, which enables students to listen and speak from the heart, telling stories about what matters most to them.

These practices were the steppingstones on my path to discovering a safe, responsible, and effective way to make a place for soul in the classroom. Each was based on the principle of honoring young voices.

Ground Rules

I could never have begun my journey without giving students a way to define the conditions they most needed to speak about their longings and concerns.

"Together, we can make this class a place where it's possible to talk about what is really important to you," I say to my students once they have begun to feel comfortable with our class. (I usually wait until the second or third class, using the first classes to establish comfort and connection with activities that require little risk or self-revelation.) "Our curriculum comes from your issues, your questions, and your challenges as you go through this time of your lives. But if you're going to risk speaking about what really matters personally, what do you need—from yourself and from others—to make it safe to do that?"

"Trust." Invariably, this word comes out first.

"Yes, trust is essential. But what is it that would allow you to trust others, and to trust yourself? Most of us are pretty cautious when we begin to reveal what really matters to us. I think that's healthy, don't you? I don't want to encourage you to trust for the sake of trust. Blind trust can be naive and dangerous. We always have to be discerning. What actions, what behaviors tell us we can begin to trust?"

They begin to call out words, and I stand at the board listening and writing.

"Respect."

"Honesty."

"No put-downs."

"Listening as if you really want to know."

"No laughing at people."

"No interruptions."

"Don't make judgments."

"An open mind."

"Trust."

"Respect for my privacy."¹

"The right to stay quiet and speak only when I'm ready."

Thousands of students across the United States create this same list again and again—from 7th grade through high school.² The language may vary, but the sentiments are the same. Differences may deeply divide this nation, but I find widespread agreement among teenagers (and among adults) when it comes to defining what makes it possible to speak authentically.

Once the students and teacher have collaboratively established ground rules, they can begin to move toward genuine communication.

Games and Symbolic Expression

Trust builds slowly. After all, I am asking students to begin to dissolve some of the boundaries between...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Foreword by Parker J. Palmer
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Honoring Young Voices
• Chapter 2: Deep Connection
• Chapter 3: Silence and Stillness
• Chapter 4: Meaning and Purpose
• Chapter 5: Joy
• Chapter 6: Creativity
• Chapter 7: Transcendence
• Chapter 8: Initiation
• Conclusion: From Fear to Dialogue—From Standoff to Collaboration
• References and Bibliography
• About the Author
• Copyright Page