One of the
nice things about so many colleges and universities represented in the various
degrees earned by members of my family is the range of alum magazines that come
through the mail. Not only do I see the
schools my wife and I attended, but also I get the benefit of my two kids’
educational excursions. My alum
magazines represent some of American educational elites. Routinely, a bunch of really smart people
come in the mailbox and I get to read their thoughts.
Of course,
not all the articles are interesting to me.
Some I can’t even understand. And
some are surprisingly good. One of the
latter turned out to be an article on the practice of teaching. The focus was hands-on learning. I know I have been teaching quite a long time
now and have my share of cynicism about new trends.” Some trendy stuff comes and goes. But I try to stay open.
So it was
with some mixed interest that I began reading a short article called, “Making
Science Stick.” The article did not
present much that I already did not know because I employ those kinds of
ideas. I gave up on lecturing a long
time ago, so to hear news about “student-centered” education is hardly
novel. I recognize that lectures offer a
mostly passive way of learning. But I
read on.
Then I landed
on a sentence that struck a chord in me.
It seemed to me that it had almost nothing to do with science per
se. I think it also has to do with
religion and, probably, almost every other learning discipline. The sentence read, “One of the most important
goals of a liberal arts education today is to give students the personal
experience of discovery.” The words were
from Michael D. Smith, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard
University. He also teaches engineering
and applied sciences. I do not know him
or anything about him. But I liked the
line.
Since I teach
at a liberal arts institution, I liked how Smith put emphasis on the liberal
arts. I appreciate how he articulates
the goal. There may be other goals, but
I think this one is important. The goal
is to give students the personal experience of discovery. Let’s look at this idea in some detail,
because I can see how closely it links to my view of spirituality.
In the first
place, the grammar of the sentence tells us the goal of education is
discovery. The idea of “discovery” is
both specific and quite general. It is
specific in the sense that it specifies the focus of “personal experience.” Without the prepositional phrase (“of
discovery”), the goal of liberal arts education would be very general, namely,
“personal experience.”
We all have
countless personal experiences throughout a day. I have the personal experience of brushing my
teeth, taking a shower, etc. I like
personal experiences (well, at least, most of them), but certainly would not
claim that all of them are significant and, certainly, not educational. So the prepositional phrase adds wonderful
specificity. Smith says the goal of education
is personal experience of discovery.
However, this
idea of discovery is itself still quite general, even if it is a personal
experience. Let’s take this opportunity
to link the idea of a personal experience of discovery with spirituality. I like to link spirituality to both the idea
of “personal experience” and to the idea of “discovery.”
The way I
understand spirituality is to see it as an experience. In fact, I often differentiate spirituality
from religion by saying spirituality is always experiential---that is, it
always is an experience. So spirituality
has to be more than a belief. For
example, if I say I believe in God, that claim is religious, but not a
spiritual statement. For it to be
spiritual, I need to have an experience of the God in Whom I believe. So I could claim the goal of spirituality is
to cultivate and nurture experiences of God, of grace, etc.
And I also
like the link of spirituality to the idea of discovery. In fact, the notion of discovery seems to be
more appropriate to understand spirituality than does the assumption that
spirituality is a list of answers to religious things. The idea of “discovery” fits my understanding
that so much of the spiritual is a mystery.
God is as mysterious as God is known. Spirituality is the personal experience of
discovering the mystery of God’s presence and desire in the world.
Spirituality
is my own involvement in the discovery process.
I don’t know how else to understand knowing “God’s will” than to engage
this discovery process. It has to be my
own personal discovery because nobody else is I! I need to relate to God and you need to
relate to God---even if it is the same God that we each seek to know.
I am sure
part of why I like this idea of spirituality, as the personal experience of
discovery, is that it becomes a lifelong quest.
I never exhaust mystery. It means
that life is a spiritual quest. I find
it exciting. It keeps me fresh. Every morning I wake up and wonder, what kind
of personal experience of discovery will I get today?
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