"To educate is to guide students on an inner journey toward more truthful ways of seeing and being in the world," writes Parker J. Palmer in The Courage to Teach. He defines spirituality as "the diverse ways to answer the heart's longing to be connected with the largeness of life." We have been inspired by these definitions of education and spirituality to create a "map" to some of the resources on this website about teaching as a spiritual practice. Reading about teaching as a vocation and watching movies about some idealistic teachers, we find ourselves contemplating how teachers live out these spiritual practices.

  • Connections: Teachers encourage us to cultivate the art of making connections.
  • Enthusiasm: Many of them are energized: they do not hold anything back.
  • Hospitality: they welcome alien and different thoughts and ideas.
  • Imagination: Teachers spur us on to express ourselves and to be creative.
  • Listening: They make it clear that all things in the world want to be heard.
  • Meaning: They are meaning-makers par excellence.
  • Nurturing: They help us learn how to take better care of ourselves and others.
  • Openness: Teachers model empathy and a love of diversity and pluralism.
  • Questing: They savor questions and the thrill of the journey.
  • Transformation: They are catalysts of change and seekers of wholeness.
  • Unity: They want us to see the commonalities that tie us to others and to respect differences as well.
  • Wonder: They hope that we will become more curious.
  • You: They want us to become all we were meant to be.