Spiritual Classroom
If you walk into a school classroom today chances are good you won’t see desks neatly lined up in rows. You will see tables and ball chairs and rocking chairs - maybe a tent or teepee for a reading nook. Desks might be lap desks, or standing, or my new favorite the wiggle desk — a special desk with a bar on the bottom so you can swing your foot back and forth and wiggle. Space is changing as we become more comfortable with the variety of learning styles children show up at school possessing.
So too in our spiritual classrooms. In the area of education we know that learning can happen anywhere. Field trips are marvelous examples of learning outside the classroom. So too for spiritual education. The Spiritual classroom can be anywhere — in the physical world or anywhere within the interior landscape of the soul.
This page can open you to the limitless possibilities of where spiritual learning or experiences can happen.
Who is the Student?
A child is…
PS22 Chorus "MAKE IT RAIN" Ed Sheeran
by PS22
The Webby Award-winning PS22 Chorus was formed in the year 2000. We are an ever-changing group of 5th graders from a public elementary school in Staten Island, New York. PS22 is NOT a "school for the arts," and the chorus is not a magnet program.
PS22 Chorus features ordinary children achieving extraordinary accomplishments -- musically and otherwise.
Becoming Like a Child: The Curiosity of Maturity beyond the Norm
by Jerome Berryman
• A theological summary of Jerome W. Berryman's understanding of Christian theology and practice through the lens of childhood
• Invites us to engage in the creative process, live creative, authentic, playful lives
Audience: Those interested in Berryman's work; the Godly Playcommunity; those interested in personal spiritual growth; Christian educators; clergy; those interested in the spiritual lives of children.
The Words your Child should hear as School Starts
Each year, the night before school starts, I read this letter to my kids. It's a love letter about the most important thing they will do and be at school.
This year, I'd love to read it to your little Love Warriors. So cuddle up with the kiddos soon and let's talk.
SXSWedu 2017 Keynote, Daring Classrooms
by Brené Brown
We need to understand how scarcity affects the way we lead and teach, we have to engage with vulnerability and we need to learn how to recognize and combat shame. What would it mean for our schools and classrooms if we showed up for tough, honest conversations about what it takes to bring our best, most authentic selves to work?
These conversations may sound risky and vulnerable, but risk and vulnerability are essential to courageous schools. A daring classroom is a place where both teachers and students commit to choosing courage over comfort, choosing what is right over what is fun, fast or easy and practicing values rather than professing them.
Home Churching
4 Kinds of Spiritual Learning
Sacred Stories—Identity Making
Meaning Making—What does this all mean
Liturgical Action—Acts of grace for the whole community
Contemplative Silence—Opportunities to express or recognize the HOLY
- the mystery of life that which is beyond the whys -
Where are the Spiritual Classrooms?
Godly Play Introduction
with Jerome Berryman
Godly Play is based upon the recognition that children have an innate sense of the presence of God. All they lack is the appropriate language to help them identify and express it so it can be explored and strengthened.
The Godly Play approach teaches classical Christian language in a way that enhances the child's authentic experience of God so it can contribute to the creative life of the child and the world.
Joy Studer, Godly Play Facilitator
Creation Demonstration Godly Play Story
Adaptation of the Creation story
The Good Shepherd Godly Play Story
told by Joy Studer
Spiritual Vocabulary & Early Fluency is Important - pdf
The popularity of emoji’s are a great example of our very human need to understand emotions and feelings and have a vocabulary to describe complex ideas. So too with spirituality and faith. We need a language, the earlier the better, to speak of that which so often feels too big to talk about.
Feral Church Children: Kids Need Time To “Just Be” At Church -Article
"I love that young people are in church, not for a specified purpose, but just to “be.” Just to hang out. Just to be bored. Just to poke around... They form relationships, they form their own community."
Hollingsworth, Amy (2007). The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor. Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Arnold, Johann Christoph (1997). A Little Child Shall Lead Them: Hopeful Parenting in a Confused World. Plough Publishing House.
Berends, Polly B. (1998). Gently Lead: How to Teach Your Children about God While Finding Out for Yourself. New York, NY: Plough Publishing House.
Berryman, Jerome W. (1995). Teaching Godly Play: How to Mentor the Spiritual Development of Children. (2nd Ed.). Abingdon Press.
