This chapter argues that today's dominant forms of education are insufficient for today's world because they ignore the vast and conventionally untapped resource that lies in the disciplined inwardness that is contemplative life. It then surveys a range of transformative examples that are emerging in the educational movement known as…

Spirituality offers a range of connections--to oneself, others, organizations, a higher being--that may shift over the course of an individual's lifetime. The spiritual values of compassion, humility, and simplicity are a basis on which spiritual practices and identities form and grow. In turn, practices and identities shape the meanings and…

This autoethnographic account describes interconnections among the author's personal prayer life, teaching, and research. The contextual frame for the story includes episodes and observations from a twelve-year span, encompassing postacademic tenure and promotion to the present. The author's prayer is that others might resonate with parts of this…

Throughout a ten-year friendship and professional relationship emerging from a shared graduate school experience, the authors have consistently acknowledged their spiritual beliefs as the fiber of their existence and purpose. Even though there are many occurrences in their personal lives from which they could each "testify" about the grace of God,…

One September morning, the author woke as a teacher--an international teaching assistant (ITA), to be exact--at a California State University (Cal State). As a twenty-five-year-old teaching assistant, he had the opportunity to teach hybrid public speaking classes that were designed for the American Culture and Language Program (ACLP), which turned…

Wholeness brings to mind the soul/spirit and, quite naturally, a discussion of what constitutes spirituality. In general, the definition of spirituality is associated with an attitude or way of life that may or may not be connected to Christian, Buddhist, Hindi, Jewish, or Muslim religions. Whether the approach to the topic is religious or…

Spiritualism can exist in a secular educational institution. In this autoethnography, the author shares the spiritual challenge she had with students in her initial years of teaching as an assistant professor. She discusses her spiritual pedagogical approach, which she integrates into her teaching strategies to touch the minds, hearts, and spirits…