The modern day crisis in education and in raising children has developed from our failure to recognize or honor the spirituality of our young ones. David Marshak, a professor in the School of Education at Seattle University, has written an insightful book about three early twentieth century spiritual teachers whose holistic and healing approach to human development can help us address this problem.
Rudolf Steiner's theosophy, Aurobindo Ghose's Hinduism, and Inayat Khan's Sufism share "a common vision of human growth, wholeness and evolutionary change." They emphasize the unfoldment of spiritual energies; the development of intuition and vision; the importance of art and imagination; and the sturdy values of reverence, freedom from prejudice, and inner balance.
Marshak convincingly depicts the revolutionary nature of this approach with visits to a second grade Waldorf School in Lexington, Massachusetts, and an ashram school in Pondicherry, India. By the end of the book, he has made the point that we need to have more faith in each child's inner teacher to guide his or her own becoming. When teachers and parents begin to see themselves as curators of children's souls, they will be at the starting point for a renovated and desperately needed reframing of education for our times.