"Spirituality and Education" Pt. 1

Disclaimer: This post is a "stream of thought" post so I apologize if it is a bit rambling.

I recently attended a conference concerning the issue of spirituality in education. The conference was primarily focused on the issue of the spirituality of college students. This is a topic I am very interested in, and have been doing research on for the past year. It seems that college students (specifically in North America) are undergoing a significant developmental change. My colleagues in the world of higher education are struggling on how to deal with the issues of morality, spirituality and ethics when it comes to our student’s beliefs and behaviors. I find this a very difficult issue as well, because our students are obviously struggling and despite many of our efforts we are just unable to help them. This problem is not just at public or "secular" institutions, but is widespread and occurring at religious institutions as well. There seems to be an underlying desperation among my colleagues, and that honestly concerns me. What concerns me most is that many of my colleagues have not yet worked out their own spiritual existence, so it is very hard for them to work with students who are also trying to work out their spiritual existence. The proposition that one can help another work out spiritual crises when they have not gone through a similar crisis is quite frightening. To make things worse, most of our college students are of the Millennial Generation. This generation is very different from those of the past, and they are evolving faster than Higher Education can keep up with them. There is no correct way to address this issue, but it must be discussed and we must find a way to better help our students and ourselves.

I will address this issue more in a few days. If you have any thoughts, please share.