A New Curriculum: Spiritual Values

The final and unavoidable conclusion is that education—like all our social institutions—must be concerned with its final values, and this in turn is just about the same as speaking of what have been called ‘spiritual values’ or ‘higher values’.

Abraham Maslow Religion, Values, and Peak Experiences. p.52.

            Children are innately spiritual, but not innately moral.  Paradoxically, to say, as Maslow does, that education must be concerned with “final values” means that they are first and foundational.  But values of any sort are not taught, principles and virtues are taught.  I mean that what are called spiritual values are the gems within the mine of humanity.  They are moral and intellectual powers in a state of potential.  Virtue and principle are what educe them, bring them forth, drawing them out into actuality.  Principle and virtue mine the gems.  They teach the value of the value. 

            Inner moral potentials, such as love, justice, courage and compassion are called human values, because they are of most value to human life.  The expression of these values, such as loving ones parents, aiding the oppressed, standing up for principle, and giving to the poor, I will call virtues, for a virtue is not a disembodied concept, but a consistent pattern of behavior.  Virtue is the proper expression of a value in services performed for others or for the common good.  Virtue is the dynamic force of example.  Concepts of proper behavior and attitude are more properly called spiritual principles.  Principles tell us the full and proper expression of the moral potential: for example, "Love your neighbor as yourself."  Such principles are found in all great spiritual traditions. They are universals of behavior and thought that parents everywhere try to inculcate in their children; that churches teach their flock, which are embodied in great art, and lived by noble people. 

            But they also grow in complexity and range as humanity morally evolves.  For example, Baha’u’llah wrote: “Of old it hath been revealed: "Love of one's country is an element of the Faith of God." The Tongue of Grandeur hath, however, in the day of His manifestation proclaimed: "It is not his to boast who loveth his country, but it is his who loveth the world." Through the power released by these exalted words He hath lent a fresh impulse, and set a new direction, to the birds of men's hearts, and hath obliterated every trace of restriction and limitation from God's holy Book.” (Gleanings:95)

            A spiritual principle, then, is an articulate statement of a value.  A virtue is a practical demonstration of a value.  Both spiritual principles and virtues harmonize with the moral potentials within the human reality, working as a kind of objective correlative to the inner values.  They draw out and train or actualize moral potentials by giving them forms to express themselves through, as mathematics, for example, draws out and trains a certain potential for logical reasoning with measurable quantities by giving it forms—arithmetic, geometry, etc.--to express itself through.  Spiritual principles also create a moral context for solving practical problems, meeting challenges and quickly evaluating novel situations.  The House of Justice wrote: “There are spiritual principles, or what some call human values, by which solutions can be found for every social problem….The essential merit of spiritual principle is that it not only presents a perspective which harmonizes with that which is immanent in human nature, it also induces an attitude, a dynamic, a will, an aspiration, which facilitate the discovery and implementation of practical measures.” (The Universal House of Justice, Messages 1963 to 1986, p. 690)  

            Maslow also stated that: “The teaching of spiritual values, of ethical and moral values, definitely does have a place in education, perhaps ultimately a very basic and essential place.”  (Note that “ultimately” is really “very basic and essential.”)  Goals and foundations are alike, with this difference: goals are transformed foundations.  What does this mean for teaching, curriculum, and education?

            The teaching of values is often called something like moral education or character education.  It is usually thought of as presenting values such as love, justice and tolerance through stories, examples and discussion in "Moral Education" or "Character-building" classes. This is a good method, and is often the best arrangement possible in many schools. The Virtues Project, for example, is a well-conceived and effective curriculum for this kind of Moral Education.

            But teaching values in this way is, for most students, insufficient to achieve the aim of personal transformation or to enable them to break free from the horrific psychic undertow of a corrupt society.  Conceived in this way moral education remains only a special subject of study, often divorced from practical daily realities rather than illuminating them.  It is a situation where the formal study of values is only another and often mis-fitted part of the curriculum. I say mis-fitted because in most schools moral values of peace, harmony and prosperity for all must compete with history classes which unconsciously value conflict because they study war as the main preoccupation of human beings, and with social studies classes which unwittingly value violence, prejudice or vengeance because they study the various means of exploitation and revolt. They must also compete with natural science classes which conceive nature as a dead object and material progress as a legitimate form of greed, with economics instruction which promotes materialism because it only emphasizes increasing material productivity, and with civics classes that inculcate nationalistic attitudes instead of universal ones. Spiritual values can be overwhelmed in this situation and study of them in such an anti-environment usually has only a marginal effect on human behavior.

            The aim of spiritual education is not just to enable students to perceive the value of sharing, caring, and helping, which is easy enough, but also to train them to express the moral capacities, obtain the social skills and gain the material wealth to apply these by articulating their proper expression and demonstrating their transformative power.  For my money, there is no better curriculum in the world than the Ruhi Curriculum to “ultimately” accomplish this most “fundamental” task of education.   

            All education is moral education.  Knowingly or not what subjects are in the curriculum reflects assumptions of what is good to know, classroom arrangements embody somebody's ideas of the good learning space, teacher/student interaction often unconsciously presents relations of authority.  There is no way around it.  Education means to bring forth.  All education will bring forth.  The question is: What will it bring forth?  If the goal is ultimately the spiritualized student, then the curriculum’s foundation must be spiritual values and principles.  The academic curriculum must itself be founded upon and organized upon spiritual principles.  Some of these will be presented in the next post.