A Gift
The Awakened Schools Institute is a spiritually activating year-long course that combines groundbreaking scientific research and inclusive educational frameworks into useful tools for educators. Frameworks include culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy, healing-centered learning, literacies across content areas, social emotional learning, social justice education, and trauma-informed teaching.
The Collaborative for Spirituality in Education is dedicated to nurturing the innate spiritual capacity of educators (independent of any doctrine, ideology, or religion) through enriching activities, engaging discourse, scientific research, and contemplative practices. Teaching is an art, a science, a profession, and a practice; this year-long course will provide a space for educators to be guided, nourished, and recharged to show up authentically in their community and practice.
A Gift
The Awakened Schools Institute is a spiritually activating year-long course that combines groundbreaking scientific research and inclusive educational frameworks into useful tools for educators. Frameworks include culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy, healing-centered learning, literacies across content areas, social emotional learning, social justice education, and trauma-informed teaching.
The Collaborative for Spirituality in Education is dedicated to nurturing the innate spiritual capacity of educators (independent of any doctrine, ideology, or religion) through enriching activities, engaging discourse, scientific research, and contemplative practices. Teaching is an art, a science, a profession, and a practice; this year-long course will provide a space for educators to be guided, nourished, and recharged to show up authentically in their community and practice.
- To encourage teachers and school leaders to nurture and ground their practice in their own spirituality;
- To reclaim why teachers entered teaching initially, reclaiming that excitement, love, and purpose;
- To experience what spirituality in education means and to tie that to their reason for becoming a teacher;
- To (re)awaken teachers to this approach to education so that they can change their school culture. By getting back to who they wanted to be as teachers, and to do this collectively so that they can support each other in maintaining this shift and in changing school culture.
The Objectives
The Objectives
- To encourage teachers and school leaders to nurture and ground their practice in their own spirituality;
- To reclaim why teachers entered teaching initially, reclaiming that excitement, love, and purpose;
- To experience what spirituality in education means and to tie that to their reason for becoming a teacher;
- To (re)awaken teachers to this approach to education so that they can change their school culture. By getting back to who they wanted to be as teachers, and to do this collectively so that they can support each other in maintaining this shift and in changing school culture.
Participants
Whole-school change requires a team made up of members who are experienced and seen as leaders. The Awakened Schools Institute will invite small teams of teachers and educational leaders to participate in a year-long process of nourishment, relationship building, and reimagining education for school culture change. These teams should be made up of experienced teachers who are leaders, and may also include those who hold supervisory responsibilities: grade-level coordinators; directors of guidance, athletics, technology, or special education; department heads; or members of the administration. It will be important to have the support of the administration to both make meaningful change and to encourage teachers to participate in this program, but given the constraints on administrators’ time, we do not require the participation of administrators in the Awakened Schools Institute.
Participants
Whole-school change requires a team made up of members who are experienced and seen as leaders. The Awakened Schools Institute will invite small teams of teachers and educational leaders to participate in a year-long process of nourishment, relationship building, and reimagining education for school culture change. These teams should be made up of experienced teachers who are leaders, and may also include those who hold supervisory responsibilities: grade-level coordinators; directors of guidance, athletics, technology, or special education; department heads; or members of the administration. It will be important to have the support of the administration to both make meaningful change and to encourage teachers to participate in this program, but given the constraints on administrators’ time, we do not require the participation of administrators in the Awakened Schools Institute.
Format
Over the course of the year, there will be ten virtual sessions and 2 site visits. Each session will last 90 minutes, and each school visit will take place over two days. We are currently enrolling our 2023-2024 cohort.
The virtual sessions will be a combination of experience and input, providing examples from our data and findings and providing ideas for them to implement in their own classrooms. By trying some new approaches to education over a semester, we will be able to mentor teachers and leaders through these smaller changes as a way to scaffold them into larger, more school-wide changes. The format for each session will begin with an experience connected to one of CSE’s 12 drivers. Embedded throughout will be attention to three drivers, ritual, intentional lexicon, and integrated mission, pulling together what has been learned as a springboard for creating a more systematic approach to change. Each session provides practical suggestions for ways in which participants can further develop their classrooms and schools to be spiritually supportive.
Site visits, led by a member of CSE’s staff and planned in tandem with the school, will build on the work begun in the virtual sessions by encouraging educators to deepen and broaden the reach of what they are learning. During site visits, schools and educators will receive tailored support to apply the content and principles of the virtual sessions to their particular context.
Format
Over the course of the year, there will be ten virtual sessions and 2 site visits. Each session will last 90 minutes, and each school visit will take place over two days. We are currently enrolling our 2023-2024 cohort.
The virtual sessions will be a combination of experience and input, providing examples from our data and findings and providing ideas for them to implement in their own classrooms. By trying some new approaches to education over a semester, we will be able to mentor teachers and leaders through these smaller changes as a way to scaffold them into larger, more school-wide changes. The format for each session will begin with an experience connected to one of CSE’s 12 drivers. Embedded throughout will be attention to three drivers, ritual, intentional lexicon, and integrated mission, pulling together what has been learned as a springboard for creating a more systematic approach to change. Each session provides practical suggestions for ways in which participants can further develop their classrooms and schools to be spiritually supportive.
Site visits, led by a member of CSE’s staff and planned in tandem with the school, will build on the work begun in the virtual sessions by encouraging educators to deepen and broaden the reach of what they are learning. During site visits, schools and educators will receive tailored support to apply the content and principles of the virtual sessions to their particular context.
Example Session #1: Transformative Relationships
Purpose: Recognizing and building transformative relationships in your school.
The session will begin and end with a ritual which will be common to all sessions.
Experience: Teachers and leaders will be invited to reflect on the teacher in their own lives who made the most impact, who saw them for who they truly were, or who shaped their lives or teaching practice. Participants will engage in a think (journaling)/pair (dialogue about your journaling with one partner)/ share (verbally sharing with the entire group) experience. This will build community, orient each participant to what a transformative relationship in schools is, identify what we mean by “spirituality,” and allow each participant to see that their experience is valued.
Input: we will share our data around what transformative relationships look like in the schools we researched, and why we consider this to be the driver which grounds a spiritually supportive school culture and is the foundation for the other drivers. We will also share how the schools fostered these types of relationships.
Practice: We will talk about ways that participants could foster these types of relationships in their classes or schools, and offer some practical suggestions for things that they could try. They will be asked to do this and to be prepared to share about their experiences doing so at the next session.
Example Session #1: Transformative Relationships
Purpose: Recognizing and building transformative relationships in your school.
The session will begin and end with a ritual which will be common to all sessions.
Experience: Teachers and leaders will be invited to reflect on the teacher in their own lives who made the most impact, who saw them for who they truly were, or who shaped their lives or teaching practice. Participants will engage in a think (journaling)/pair (dialogue about your journaling with one partner)/ share (verbally sharing with the entire group) experience. This will build community, orient each participant to what a transformative relationship in schools is, identify what we mean by “spirituality,” and allow each participant to see that their experience is valued.
Input: we will share our data around what transformative relationships look like in the schools we researched, and why we consider this to be the driver which grounds a spiritually supportive school culture and is the foundation for the other drivers. We will also share how the schools fostered these types of relationships.
Practice: We will talk about ways that participants could foster these types of relationships in their classes or schools, and offer some practical suggestions for things that they could try. They will be asked to do this and to be prepared to share about their experiences doing so at the next session.
Registration
For more information, or to register for The Awakened Schools Institute, please contact:
Sarah Keough, CSE Administrator | sarahkeough@spiritualityineducation.org
Virtual sessions will begin in Spring 2024. Register Here!
Registration
For more information, or to register for The Awakened Schools Institute, please contact:
Sarah Keough, CSE Administrator | sarahkeough@spiritualityineducation.org
Virtual sessions will begin: Spring 2024.