Soulful Schooling
A mechanized approach to living in the 21st century has led to the educational climate that produces consumers and producers for competitive global economies. A machine like approach of modern day education fails to address the real issues of our lives – dispensing facts at the expense of meaning, information at the expense of wisdom.To harmonize the whole is the task of education. True education must address issues of meaning and purpose. We as a school are exploring integration of spirituality in various spheres of school life.
SPIRITUALITY
Spirituality is not about religion. Many people today would say they are spiritual but not very religious. While religion may utilize spirituality, it also involves much more including beliefs, institutional affiliation, creeds, dogma and perhaps most importantly instructions on how to live. Spirituality claims none of these things; it merely acknowledges that there is a human experience to be lived.
Spirituality is about meaning, inspiration and wisdom. It is about a deeper sense of purpose and place. It is about connectedness and the highest aspirations of the human spirit.
David Tracey calls this ‘generic spirituality’. “It’s part of a genre of talking about meaning, and talking about what’s sacred in life but not necessarily being part of a specific religious tradition.”
According to Dr. Wolman, spiritual intelligence is our human capacity to ask ultimate questions about the meaning of life; and to experience simultaneously the seamless connection between each of us
and the world in which we live. The subjective world, with which spirituality deals and the objective world, which intelligence seeks to comprehend, both reside within each of us.
Silent hour, meditation, reflection and intuition are encouraged and practiced in school in order to nurture students and teacher’s spiritual intelligence and transport them from
- Mind’s knowledge to Soul’s wisdom.
“What is in it for me”? “To Will it make someone happy”?
- Competition to collaboration
“I must win” to “let us all do our best together” “I” to “We”
- Complaint to compassion
“I fight the situation” to “I seek to understand and love in every situation”
- Head to heart
“I see logic” to “I see love”
SILENT HOUR:
“Silence” in spirituality is often a metaphor for inner stillness. A silent mind, freed from the onslaught of thoughts and thought patterns, is both a goal and an important step in spiritual development. Such “inner silence” is not about the absence of sound; instead, it is understood to bring one in contact with the divine, the ultimate reality, or one’s own true self, one’s divine nature. In school. we practice silent teaching and learning for one period a week. The idea being not just to rest the vocal chords and control the noise levels in school but also to give children an opportunity to sharpen their perceptive intelligence and experience the benefit of a personal connect.
MEDITATION:
Meditation as Wikipedia explains is a practice in which an individual trains the mind or induces a mode of consciousness.The term meditation refers to a broad variety of practices (much like the term sports) that includes techniques designed to promote relaxation, build internal energy (chi, ki, prana, etc.) and develop compassion, love, patience, generosity and forgiveness.
Introducing children to yoga, meditation, and spirituality is one of the greatest gifts we can give them. It can set their future on a nourishing and creative course. Meditation techniques for children can help them relax and focus better during school, so that they can concentrate and memorize more effectively. From the spiritual perspective, good meditation techniques teach children self-awareness, encourage them to be themselves, and help them face life with greater belief in their potential.
SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLIES:
Spiritual assemblies are organised once a month to create an awareness amongst children about a higher self, the inter connectedness of the universe and other higher questions of life. The assemblies focus on stories, anecdotes and real life references that direct children’s attention to spirituality through child friendly ways. It provides a platform to deliberate on higher questions of life.
Meditation will bring you a great silence — because all rubbish knowlegde is gone. Thoughts that are part of the knowlegde are gone too… an immense silence, and you are surprised: This silence is the only music there is. All music is an effort to bring this silence somehow into manifestation. – Osho
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Avalon Heights International School
Plot no 7 ,
Sector 19 B,
Vashi,
Navi Mumbai 400 703