Schools with Spirit: Nurturing the Inner Lives of Children and Teachers »

Linda Lantieri, coauthor of Waging Peace in Our Schools, is the founding director of the internationally recognized Resolving Conflict Creatively Program of Educators for Social Responsibility, and the director of the New York office of the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). She lives in New York City.

Fourteen educators ask whether schools can nurture the inner life of students and teach them to value spiritual life without violating the beliefs of families or the principle of separation of church and state. They describe their experiences with using techniques to attend to students' emotional and social needs as well as their intellectual development. Some of the methods they've used include teaching martial arts to children, creating opportunities for students to connect with each other, and teaching Native American ideals of balance and harmony. This book lacks a subject index.

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Library Journal

With a series of recent occurrences of violence in schools across the nation, this important book on teaching spirituality in American schools may serve as a significant resource for school teachers and administrators who want to help their students cultivate a sense of spirituality. Lantieri, founding director of the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program of Educators for Social Responsibility and co-author of Waging Peace in Our Schools, advocates that teachers should nurture a sense of spiritual meaning in students, but also carefully emphasizes that spirituality is not synonymous with religion. In this collection of scholarly essays, 12 respected educators join Lantieri in her quest to discover how educators can nurture the inner lives of their students without violating the beliefs of their families or their distinct faiths. Among these educators are Rachel Kessler, who writes on seven "gateways" to nurturing inner lives, and Geoffrey Canada, who discusses the rewards of practicing and teaching tai chi. Teachers who struggle to achieve this difficult equilibrium will welcome the wealth of practical advice that these essays have to offer. So too will high school libraries and academic libraries with strong collections on education. Samuel T. Huang, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.