This article proposes the Incarnation as a theological principle that illuminates the educational task, especially for Christian-oriented schools. Initially, I develop keys to understanding the Incarnation as an integrating event that can help us understand education as a comprehensive phenomenon. Then, I explore implications: First, based on the…

Spirituality is impossible to define, but numerous, common themes can be discerned. I suggest a model of spirituality based upon the oeuvre of Julia Kristeva, the Bulgarian/French philosopher, semiologist, and psychoanalyst. She is an atheist who has a great respect for belief. Her therapeutic work reveals compassion and a desire for the creation…

Cultural change and global pluralism are causing an increasing plea for Christian-holistic education. However, this term lacks clear definition based on a proper description of the cultural background that provoked it. A secular definition of holistic education is taken from a worldwide movement for Whole Child Development and compared with the…

Much knowledge production, both academic and non-academic, is driven by a need to simplify the world in order to enable people to navigate the complexities of everyday life. Such simplifications not only risk offering less reliable representations of the world, they can also turn into disruptive and harmful images of the world. In this article,…

Ecological crises are also spiritual ones, leading to profound heartbreak. By helping us to understand and value the nature of heartbreak, as well as helping to find a balance between heartbreak and hope, religious traditions can play a significant role in empowering people to address serious environmental problems. This paper discusses how…

Family is the child's first school, the parents are the children's first teacher. Nowadays, in China most families have only one child, the responsibility of parents is not just let the children eat and drink, parents also should bear the task of cultivating children, educating children. About two-thirds of the time spent in the family, family…

This article will focus on the perennial impact of the Salesian education vision in in Salesian schools in the UK. Following an introduction outlining the history of the Salesian presence in the UK, the Salesian education vision will be explored, focused on its classical characteristics, reason, religion and loving kindness. The decline in the…

This article discusses oral history sources that give insight into how a specific group of teaching sisters (also known as nuns or women religious) reflect on their primary identity as vowed women, and their professional identity as teachers. Their identity was bound up with the fact that they had taken religious vows, and entered a congregation…

This article reflects on the difficulty that many students have in appreciating that religions change over time. It describes an assignment that can be used to teach this important religious literacy skill. The assignment focuses on changing norms on courtship, marriage, and family formation in Jewish communities at two different times and two…

Children and adolescents need a vision of hope and success that will motivate them to take action. This discussion describes some ways of pondering the mandate in the Bible to care for the earth and for each other.

Liberal arts courses sometimes face the question of whether core texts can actually 'educate character' or 'care for the soul' in the Socratic sense. The "Bhagavadgita" addresses these issues from a Hindu perspective. But at the same time, the educational function of a religious core text changes decisively when transposed into a liberal…

For centuries, Catholic schools have promoted extra-curricular activity as a means to develop well-rounded students. Sports programming has been a vital aspect of this work, but there is little research into how these programmes can support the combined educational-religious missions of the schools. In response, this paper relies on archival and…

We are living in a time of earth systems breakdown. Humankind and other life on our planet are on the brink, most likely the brink of collapse in some form. The task before us as educators is great since this is a time of multiple and complex crises. However, humanity seems paralysed, unable to face the immensity and urgency of the combined…

The belief that education systems across Australia can and should be standardised through the application of scientific administration 'from above' dominated education policy at both a national and state level between 1999 and 2015. During that period the teaching of religion for Anglicans in Anglican schools was influenced by State and…

According to literature, the classic "paideia" ideal, that is, the ideal of the well-rounded, fully educated, rational human being, has survived to this day, despite many historical and socio-cultural influences that impacted on it through the millennia. In the process, it has to a considerable extent retained its rationalistic bias, but…