Teaching is formation, whether we name it that or not. The question is only whether we will do it on purpose.
Every school forms children. Every classroom, every hallway, every lunch line, every silent expectation, every celebrated behavior, every ignored one—all of it is formation. The only question is whether the adults in the building are doing it on purpose.
To educate the whole child is to admit that a child is not a brain on a stick. A child is a body, a heart, a will, a set of loves, a person made in the image of God. When we teach the whole child, we are not simply adding social-emotional learning to our list of academic goals. We are naming what has always been true: education is a spiritual act.
This is not a call for indoctrination. It is a call for honesty. We are already forming children—into consumers, or into citizens; into competitors, or into neighbors; into anxious achievers, or into steady souls. The question is what we are forming them toward.
I want to teach toward flourishing. I want to teach toward truth-telling and gentleness and courage. I want to teach in a way that assumes children are worth all the patience it takes to teach them well. That is a spiritual claim. And it is, quietly, the only kind of teaching worth doing.
“Teaching is formation, whether we name it that or not.”
This reflection lives in the Scripture & Formation room. Come sit awhile.
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