Тhe Role of Philosophical Thinking and Philosophical Knowledge in Understanding National Identity

Abstract

This article examines the An education for the whole child, as fostered historically by educators and philosophers, requires that teachers attend to all developmental domains such as the: social, aesthetic, language, affective, physical, and cognitive, including the spiritual dimension (Clark, 1991). Nevertheless, in the United States the spiritual dimension has been excluded systematically from the educational processes. Schools have imposed a silence regarding sharing about the inner life (Bosacki, 2002) that is both problematic and contradictory in the context of this democratic society. That silence becomes problematic because people in society, as Wright (2000) describes, seem to feel an urgency to search for the meaning and purpose of their lives, and the educational processes are completely alienated from this urgency. The fact that the institution of the school does not foster this type of development is a contradiction, given its responsibility for the integral or holistic development of the students (Lawson, 1996). How can early childhood education be holistic? How can it attend to the whole child if it does not attend this inner journey also called spirituality?