Adding a spiritual component to education might lessen violence in schools

Thanks to the writer of “Shrink the schools, make them safer” (Letters, May 24) for her suggestions to stop the violence of shooters in our schools. She talks about “education’s ineffective responses. Time to turn that around.”

One person has written about the problems of violence, drugs, depression, etc. Lisa Miller has done research at Columbia University on spirituality of children and behaviors. Her book is “The Spiritual Child.”

David Brooks, of the New York Times, wrote of her book: “Miller’s core argument is that spiritual awareness is innate and that it is an important component in human development. An implication of her work is that if you care about social mobility, graduation rates, resilience, achievement and family foundation, you can’t ignore the spiritual resources of the people you are trying to help.

“Public schools often give short shrift to spirituality for fear that they would be accused of proselytizing religion. But it should be possible to teach the range of spiritual disciplines, in order to familiarize students with the options, without endorsing any one.”

As Brooks points out, with so many people slipping off the rails during adolescence, we can’t ignore any resource that will help us in the intellectual, physical and social development of young people.

This story was originally published June 1, 2018 at 12:13 PM with the headline "Adding a spiritual component to education might lessen violence in schools."