IS SPIRITUALITY TAUGHT TO CHILDREN OR INNATE IN THEM?
The following is an analysis of an interview held with a mature woman regarding her childhood experiences. It was conducted as part of a University Research Assignment in order to study the SPIRITUALITY OF CHILDREN. The analysis includes an application of different theorists such as Kohlberg and Piaget. The name of the interviewee and others concerned have been changed to respect their privacy. It is printed here with permission of the interviewee, who experienced many hardships in her family and even in the church. This paper ends with suggestions for teachers.
At first sight Michelle's situation sounds all too familiar and appears easily analysed. The following points make this obvious.
Furthermore, with regards to the crucial role of parents or significant others, Walsh and Walsh point out that 'if the parents' faith rises little above that of children they are in no position to provide an environment in which an adult faith can develop (Larkin, 1997. p 101). Clearly, Michelle 's parents modelled God as one to be feared. Michelle admits that her early religious ideas ‘came from my family. There is no way you can get faith unless you have someone to imitate". Michelle stated that her family and religious in her family 'lived and died their fear of God' and that from her parents she learnt that God was ‘someone that didn’t love me’.
Does the above suggest that Michelle only developed a socially conditioned spirituality?
When Wijngaards says that we need to see that we are actually full of and that "without God we would break to pieces" he is claiming that God reveals himself to us despite ourselves, and that a spirituality can be visible against all odds (Wijngaards, 1996, p 467). He is also stating that whilst all the above supports the idea that spirituality is conditioned and determined by culture and parents, and easily anlaysed in a quantitative manner, spirituality is also something beyond human understanding, capturing the mystery which we all are as humans. Ultimately to explore Michelle’s story is to apply a hermeneutic of suspicion to the theories of spirituality.
As mentioned above, Piaget seems to have support in his beliefs that we pass through two stages in particular heteronomous and autonomous, and that this development runs alongside development in age. Yet, this was not always the case with Michelle. For example, Michelle demonstrated that her love for her mother brought out a stage 6 perspective of Kohlberg's and a Piaget-like autonomous action even whilst Michelle was still operating at a heteronomous stage and still motivated by fear of punishment and obedience to law and rules. Not only was Michelle punished for speaking about her mother and loving her despite her mother's adultery, ("No, if I spoke the truth..I was in big trouble.") Michelle demonstrated a morality of care, which Kohlberg doesn't recognize at any age (Aldridge and Box, 1992. p85). Even in her telling stories to the girls who were frightened because they missed their families, Michelle proves that yet another theory - psychoanalytical theory - is inaccurate. Freud would have us believe that this moral behaviour was out of fear of losing parental love or to deal with guilt (Aldridge and Box, 1992. p85). Michelle was motivated by genuine care for her peers. Also, when she found out her mother didn’t want to contact her, she still loved her mother. The fear of losing the love of her father didn’t seem to matter.
Her care for sick animals also demonstrates this morality of care in Michelle, which can be likened to an orientation for others. Ultimately, the parent modelling which cognitive theory attests is crucial for the acquisition of values was lacking in Michelle 's life (Aldridge and Box, 1992. p87). She developed altruism early on, contradicting Bryan and Crockenby (Aldridge and Box, 1992. P92) who state that children are more likely to help others if they "come from loving and affectionate environments" (Aldridge and Box, 1992. P92). We could say that Michelle experienced this environment with her grandfather and her peers. Michelle states, for example, that the girls were like a family to her even after 40 years. Yet, it would not be sufficient to state that Michelle 's grandfather and the community spirit she shared with the girls, would suffice as the affectionate environment required when, everywhere else Michelle experienced no affection and much emotional abuse.
It would appear that a number of factors appear as important in enabling Michelle to grow in spiritual awareness and response.
It is interesting that Michelle states that the main reason she did not become a damaged child was because the sisters rule of life was 'black and white'. " I didn’t know it then but I was very secure in that". I presume this refers to Michelle’s fundamental stance on truth as opposed to deceit found at home regarding her mother, when ‘truth’ was punished. It also indicates the conflict Michelle experienced with the culture she was faced with. Larkin's iceberg - culture analogy indicates how powerful this climate of deceit and fear and a lack of love can be on a person, which for Anna was the 90% which Larkin says lies below the surface of the culture – iceberg. (Larkin, 1997. pp88-89). If enculturation of this climate of deceit were all-powerful, it would have confirmed Anna's unquestioning nature and her emphasis on fear and on all the other 'religious ' things she learnt - lack of mercy on the weak…. the importance of obedience to rules and practices which were not explained – such as the Mass and the prayers of the Angelus – which does not just coincide with development in age and intellect. Like the sponge Larkin speaks of, Anna would 'simply continue absorbing (Larkin, 1997. p 90).
How is this love of truth, however, indicative of any innate spirituality?
Clearly, culture is not just a driving force; it is also something that can be driven by someone who a Larkin calls 'an architect of culture'. Anna became one when she began to question the cultural construct of morality fostered by her family and one particular religious nun at College.
The incident which Michelle describes regarding disobeying the nun who wouldn’t allow her to go the dance, began a path for Anna which ultimately resulted in another confrontation with the nun and a freedom which Hyde is correct to state as providing an 'insight into the transcendental dimension which could develop into an articulated religious experience" (Hyde, p179). It was interesting too that Michelle could appreciate her actions as a religious response despite the fact that I hadn't. You will note that when I asked her to give me a more ‘religious’ example of a time she had come into conflict with a socially induced conscience, she replied "..it was also religious because it dealt with right and wrong". In the second encounter before leaving school, Michelle discovered that she could begin making decisions about what was right and wrong and about the ‘significance of human life and power and change’ (Larkin, 1997. p 90). She created a New World view and unlike developmentalist psychologists like Kohlberg would suggest (as we will see later) Michelle didn’t have to go through certain stages to get there. As Robinson says, this experience was self-authenticating - it brought an awareness of her true self as an individual and this, as Robinson has stated, has only been appreciated through time (Robinson, 1983. p16) It was at this point that the following description of spirituality could be used to describe Michelle 's response to the sense of other. Spirituality for Michelle seems to be that
" Inner dynamism that enlivens and strengthens the person from within..stirring the development of personal ideals as well as aspirations" (TNDAU, 1:24)
Or as O'Connell says, this experience was the 'moment … [she exercised] that transcending kind of freedom in order to define [herself] as [a] person (O’Connell, 1990. P72). Michelle developed further, her fundamental option for truth and justice. ("Yes, I have always [associated it ] with justice.") Her reaction to the freedom which resulted after her confrontation with sister, expresses this the most. "Total freedom. I can still feel it. It was wonderful".
It is interesting that this has deeply influenced the way she handles her own grandchildren today as evidenced in the anecdote she shared with me. Truth is crucial for her. Her own grief at her grandfather's death evoked ' from adults a benign dismissal," (Lenihan, 1993. P16). Michelle states that "they didn’t even tell me and because I was small they felt I had no feelings..I was devastated". Her father seemed to follow Piaget's belief that children are incapable of seeing the world as adults see it' (Robinson, 1983. P9). Yet Michelle has understood that children are capable of coping with the adult world and concepts such as truth and justice, and death from a very young age. Perhaps she is doing what Lenihan suggests is important when she explores this with her grandchildren; listening to the "hearts and voices of children and the fruits of their reflective listening" (in this case a sense of freedom and peace and no fear which leads to truth) which is crucial to the creation of a theology of children (Lenihan, 1993. P18). Michelle is now teaching her grandchildren something she herself learnt by herself and proving that children from all generations, are capable of dealing with abstract ideas such as 'truth' and fairness, which leads to social responsibility - a reaching out to the 'other'. It is in this concept of ‘other’ that I feel lies the beginning of a spiritual awareness.
Michelle also demonstrated selflessness in her reaction to the death of her grandfather in particular. It demonstrated a depth awareness of the other (Webster, 1990? p 30). Whilst I don't think this 'opening…to mysterious dimensions"(Webster, 1990? p 31) is akin to repentance, which Scriptures suggest is necessary for a development of spirituality (Webster, 1990? p 30), it does demonstrate a deep readjustment for a young child. In any case, if conversion is the key to spiritual development, isn’t a turning to God, a prayer of love for mother and any act of love, a form of conversion, what Jesus speaks of when he says, "Let the children come to me"? I would suggest, using Sister Slusser's expression that Michelle demonstrated 'spiritual literacy' at a very young age (Slusser, 1997. p26). She recognised God's presence in her classmates and in her grandfather and mother - all the marginalised - without naming it as that. However, if what Slusser says is true, namely that children can understand theology when they see virtues embodied in someone (such as her grandfather) she was already doing theology. Through Michelle 's love for her grandfather’s gentleness, (evident when Michelle reflects, " He did things for me..he was the only line I had to affection"). God was touching Michelle and Michelle reciprocated.
Michelle 's story raises many important questions apart from challenging commonly held theories, as already witnessed in this discussion.
Michelle experiences what O'Collins speaks of when reflecting on Pope John Paul's teaching on the 'way human beings can experience God's self-communication in and through ..suffering". (O’Collins, 1992. P? ) For Michelle this suffering at various parts of her life and childhood invited reflection and "open[ed] up the human person to the word of God…" (which I would dare say Justice is central to). But she sees this now as an adult. As a child this was not named or experienced as a spiritual experience at all. As educators, this notion of suffering is often a stumbling block. Perhaps it should no longer be one and we should be ready to discuss it and see the benefits of suffering when it is a healthy part of our spirituality.
It was only as an adult, that Michelle could find in her confrontation with the nun, "God as the 'source of moral responsibility, as the power that validates our freedom and autonomy…that makes us individuals." (Wijngaards, 1996, p 467). At the time Michelle experienced as the first real experience of freedom of conscience. It raises the question therefore, to what extent does our pedagogy help students to see and understand the nature of conscience as a human phenomenon so that they will experience God at an earlier age and realise more positive images of God? To what extent do we also engage them in acts of social justice where they see the love of God reflected in them and where they get to model Christian values? Fortunately, this is being addressed in the current Religious Education Guidelines in particular units on Conscience and Justice, as well as the community service held in schools.
I strongly feel this is where Christian educators have hope today. If we want to help lead students to Christ the most real place for them to find God will be in their "innermost consciousness" (Wijngaards, 1996, p 467) where they experience this 'otherness' that leads to a search for God, AND in their practice of being 'human', through service to others, where they realise their basic goodness and internalise a positive moral behaviour which is altruistic and not egocentric. Often, this may be the only way, to allow God to re-condition our teenage students to their spiritual state as young children prior to the negative affects of social and family conditioning. Often this is the only way we can tackle the question, "How do we counteract the anti - spiritual influence of society and some parents?"
As Hardy attests, (classroom notes) Religious awareness has a biological origin - every child has a spirituality regardless of culture or context. Do we really trust this? It is also an awareness that doesn't fade away easily. Michelle stated that her feelings remained very vivid form her childhood testifying to Robinson's defense on the validity of allowing an adult to reflect on their childhood spirituality. It seems that the 'original vision of childhood' and therefore the spirituality, which accompanies it, doesn’t really ever fade (Hyde, p 179).
It seems up to each of us to help students pay attention to the presence of God, provide situations where they can experience awe and wonder and where they can rise above difficulties and use their imagination to tap into their ‘spiritual memories’. This will allow them spiritual reflection and respect their theologising. The teacher should also help students name his/her innate experience in the context of the Faith, while challenging the forces in his or her life which counteract such a response. Hill says that ' a key way to learning is through the teacher's beliefs and convictions about the subject in hand' (Hill, 1995. p. 134). Ultimately, believing this will lead teachers to call on what I have come to see as the source of spirituality – the grace of God - which works alongside the human response. Cultural and other factors affect this human response and even where these factors are potentially damaging, such as experienced by Michelle, Coles' words run true - 'Children have a surprising psychological strength" (Coles, 1992. p. 66).
We should, therefore, do our best as educators and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit, for as Hay states, ‘The Holy Spirit is not limited to working amongst those of us who are content to speak his name respectfully" (Hay, 1997).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aldridge, J and Box, J "Moral and Affective Dimensions of Childhood" In Ratcliff, D (Ed) (1992) Handbook of Children’s Religious Education Religious Education Press, Alabama
Hay, D (1997) The Tablet May 1997, Course Reader
Hyde,.K.E. (19??). Religion in Childhood and Adolescence. Religious Education Press, . Alabama
Larkin, T "Subjects or Architects Of Culture? Religious Education and Children’s Experience" In Hogan, P and Williams, K (Ed) (1997) The Future of Religion in Irish Education August, 1997. Dublin
Lenihan, Sr.E. (1993). Theology Of Children Word of Life , May, 1993. Course Reader.
O’Connell, T .E (1990) The Human Person . Course Reader
O’Collins, G. (1992). The Tablet , The Pope’s Theology, Hune 1992. Course reader.
Robinson, E. (1985). The Original Vision: A study of the Religious Experience of Childhood New York, The Seabury Press
Slusser, L. (1997). Children’s Spirituality Catechist , March, Course Reader.
Slusser, L. (1997). Children’s Spirituality Catechist , April - May Course Reader.
Webster, D. H. (19??) The Spiritual Development of Children . Course Reader
Wijngaards, J. (1996) The Tablet , God, down to earth Course Reader