The Soul of Education: Helping Students Find Connection, Compassion, and Character at School [Paperback]

Rachael Kessler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0871203731 | ISBN-13: 978-0871203731

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.

Rachel Kessler, the director of The Institute for Social and Emotional Learning and a coauthor of the ASCD book Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: A Guide for Educators, is a consultant for curriculum and professional development living in Boulder, Colorado.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The Soul of Education offers an inspiring, hopeful, and much-needed antidote to the malaise that afflicts too many children . . . a practical, inclusive, and sensitive guide for helping young people connect with their spiritual yearnings. -- Dan Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence

Kessler celebrates the diversity of beliefs in our free country. . . . But she wisely understands the spiritual emptiness of our times and knows that we ignore the souls of our children at their peril, and ours. Children need encouragement and guidance in struggling with the deeper meaning and purpose of life in a society that glorifies the material over the spiritual. -- Marian Wright Edelman, president, The Children's Defense Fund

Wonderfully mature, insightful, and candid about the challenges we all face, smart about how she proceeds toward addressing them, Kessler does a superb job of going to the root of what's most missing in our public education system, reframing and legitimizing it effectively. -- State Senator John Vasconcellos, California

Product Details

• Paperback: 202 pages
• Publisher: ASCD (March 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871203731
• ISBN-13: 978-0871203731
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #369,832 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-have on the Bookshelf, June 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Soul of Education: Helping Students Find Connection, Compassion, and Character at School (Paperback)

This book triggered angry feelings for me. I wished I had a teacher like Rachael Kessler when I was growing up. Indeed, so few young people do. I caught myself recollecting my teen years, when I asked the very same questions the youth explore in the "Council"-an integral part of the Passages program described in the book. The youth in my generation had no Council for raising these questions; no safe place to tell stories, reveal the mystical, ponder meaning, or explore differences. Yet, as I later learned in my undergraduate studies in philosophy, it is the exploration of precisely these questions that provides the insight, sensitivity, empathy, and wisdom that open the inner self to the path of a civil society and a meaningful life. This is the forerunner of virtue. A few examples from Rachael's book will illustrate the type of universal questions I mean:

Why do I feel scared and confused about becoming an adult? What does it mean to accept that this is my life and I have responsibility for it?

How do I know I am normal? What is normal?

Why do people hate others-blacks, whites, Hispanics, etc.?

What is our purpose in life?

Why do people tire of life?

How does one determine one's sexuality? Are there symptoms? Is it a decision or a natural "given"-are you stuck with it or is there a choice?

Why are people so cold in taking care of the planet?

How come people kill other people?

Where do we go when we die?

This is but a sample of a myriad of questions that young people explore in the Council in the search of the inner self and the connection to the outer world.

Spirituality is a basic ingredient to our humanity with multiple domains and forms of expression, of which formal religion is but one. This book lays out an excellent discussion regarding the education of the soul: why it is needed in public schools and exactly how to teach it without violating the First Amendment or stomping on the toes of organized religious groups. In fact, any thoughtful review of this book will reveal that the type of spiritual development Rachael is proposing is "simpatico" with most organized religions. Further, and this is a critical point, she emphasizes the emptiness and frustration in individuals that results from spiritual paucity, and how this fact may lead to severe consequences for youth and community. In this discussion the author makes a connection between youth devoid of positive spirituality and acts of violence.

It makes sense that Rachael Kessler writes and teaches about the need for spiritual education in our schools. Born to parents who learned the year of her birth that most of their families had been sacrificed to the Holocaust, the author writes,

I was carried in the womb of that grief, I grew up in a family where suffering was imbued with nobility. . . it was noble both to suffer and mitigate the suffering of others.

By her late teens Rachael had found a purpose to embrace: to reduce the suffering in this world to the extent she could. She has been working to achieve this mission ever since.

This is a must-have on the bookshelf: a good "how-to" reference, backed up by solid philosophical underpinnings and appropriate methods.

7 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Encouragement for Common Sense, May 20, 2000

By 

Don Jacobs - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Soul of Education: Helping Students Find Connection, Compassion, and Character at School (Paperback)

In my book,PRIMAL AWARENESS, I show how and why the great values were a part of indigenous learning and in WALKING THE TALK we will hopefully make this a reality again for all learners. Rachel's book courageously has set the stage for everyone to implement character education by reminding us that without a spiritual approach to learning, values have no relationship to reality.