The Ineffable in Everyday Teaching-

doorways to spiritualization

as ‘that which makes of the parts a whole’

by Roger Prentice: Institute of Holistic Education, UK

 part of SunWALK

an integrative spiritualizing model of Holistic Education

Ineffable:

1. too great or intense to be uttered in words

2. too sacred to be uttered

3. indescribable; indefinable

Sacred:

Worthy of or regarded with reverence and awe  

Awe

Overwhelming wonder

What is the shape of the wind?  

There is a Zen notion that the shape of the wind is the shape of the branch round which the wind blows.

For a long time I thought that the question, “What is it that makes of the parts a whole?” to be one of the most interesting and important questions in relation to holism and Holistic Education.  The question is likely to come from those who disparage the idea of holism.  I was once asked  by the educational philosopher Terry McGlaughlin[1] why I wasn’t concentrating on a few of the bits.  My answer, which I doubt if I mustered at that time, is that to take account of the whole, of mystery, is part of what is demanded of us by being here, in the world, with others.  It is part of being human, it is a demand, so many ‘believers’ would say, that comes with being human as, potentially, a reflection of God.   This is part of God being in search of man, as the great Rabbi Heschel would say.      The Whole, Mystery, (God if that is your preferred term), has to be factored in to the equation of being human and of developing a model of education that includes the most enduring of human concerns as well as contemporary needs.  

 The answer to the question, “What is it that makes of the parts a whole?” can be ‘philosophising -  I once heard Matthew Lipman, the professor who developed Philosophy for Children, suggest that.  It could be the individual’s worldview or inner ‘map of reality’.  It could be reasoning.   Here I suggest that that which makes of the parts a whole is spiritualization, via periodic experiences of the Whole.  I suggest that there are , broadly two forms, of what is essentially the same experience, the mystical and the aesthetic-creative.   

Such a form of education does not need ‘spirituality’ or ‘ ‘moral education’ as bolt-on extras’ because both are the very warp or woof of the process, part of the same education that teaches technical needs, from reading to the further reaches of physics.   SunWALK is a first attempt to conceptualize such a model.   Spirituality is seen as the source of the will to act morally.   Spirituality is seen as having two levels the ‘human’ and, if the terminology works for you, the ‘Divine’.

Here however I want to concern myself less with the ‘grand theory’ and more with how doorways to the ineffable can, by the teacher, be opened, particularly via the study of literature and via creative writing.    In particular I want to focus down to how in education we might deal with the interface, the placenta if you like, between the known and knowable and the unknown and unknowable.   This is  to employ ‘multi-level’ dialogue in the most sensitive interaction between teacher and pupil/s.    Here I am suggesting that in the arts in general, and in ‘English’ activities in particular, we are touching upon that borderline between the parts and the whole, between the known and knowable and the unknown and unknowable.    One such dimension of this ‘placental flow’ is experience of the ineffable, or more correctly the experience we have in the glorious failures of trying to express the ineffable.     This paper then looks at what, and who, can open doorways to the ineffable.  It starts with what I hope is mildly amusing, self-deprecating, experience of trying to say what Holistic Education is.  

CONTENTS

1  Introduction: - what am I actually doing with this thing called holistic education?

2  Individual genius: -  as creator of doorways to the ineffable

3  A literary leaning: - in looking for doorways for the ineffable

4  Key elements in any model of Holistic Education – what does any model of holistic education have to provide an account of?

5  Nurturing the human spirit - the heart of the SunWALK model of holistic education

6  Honouring the ineffable, sacred, mystical centre – as everyday teaching experience

7  Common ground: -  the ineffable, the sacred, the mystical and the aesthetical

8  A thanksgiving:- thank God for those who have resisted the pressure of Flatland knowing, especially the Stars who lead us to doorways to the ineffable

  9  Conclusion  

Full paper in Word format (105kB)