Supporting Children and Youth Through Spiritual Education

Across academic circles over the last few decades, the interest and inquiry on spirituality continues to broaden. Currently, the school system in the United States and many Western countries put their focus on academic achievement at the expense of preparing their students' inner cores for skills they will need to deal with a more complex and challenging world to come.

Supporting Children and Youth Through Spiritual Education provides a platform for researchers and experts in the field of spirituality in children and youth to voice the urgent need for an educational system that truly nurtures the whole child. The book also considers the need to remove the misunderstandings about the terms "spirituality" and "religion" among those who work directly with children and youth. Covering key topics such as religion, cognitive development, and spiritual needs, this reference work is critical for principals, administrators, industry professionals, researchers, scholars, practitioners, academicians, instructors, and students.

About the Author :
Mubina Hassanali Kirmani , a graduate of Harvard University, Cambridge, has been professor of Education at Towson University in United States. She brings over 30 years of experience in teaching at primary, secondary and higher levels of education along with working on women’s education in Sub-Sharan Africa through the World Bank, Washington, D.C. She is an Award-winning book author and has written and published widely on a range of topics including innovation in education, childhood development, cultural and religious diversity, and spiritual development. She has been invited to present at national and international meetings and conferences. She has chaired several committees on diversity and multicultural education at her university and was the recipient of the 2015 President’s Diversity Award at her institution. She founded and currently serves as chair of the Professional Learning Community on Spirituality in Education drawing faculty and teacher educators committed to make a difference in the lives of children and youth. Amy L. Chapman is the Director for the Collaborative for Spirituality in Education, a center for research and teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University, which examines spiritually supportive schools and the impact of school culture on civic participation. She is also the Director of the Innovating Forward Initiative at the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Teachers College, which provides seed grants to innovative community or campus-based partnerships to support spirituality for mental health and overall thriving. As a researcher, Amy uses qualitative approaches to understand how people define, develop, and change communities. She researches factors which support or inhibit youth civic participation, spirituality in education, and the ways in which social media can be used to support or thwart community and civic participation. A former public and private school teacher, Amy holds three degrees from Boston College and a doctorate in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology from Michigan State University. Barbara M. Steele has an M.Ed in Reading. She was an early and elementary grade school teacher for fourteen years and has been an instructor at Towson University for the past thirteen years preparing early childhood teachers. Mahnaz Moallem is a professor and chair of the Department of Educational Technology and Literacy, College of Education, Towson University, Maryland. She joined Towson University in Aug. 2018. She was a professor of Instructional Technology and Research and Grant Coordinator at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), College of Education where she worked as a faculty member since 1993. She received her Ph.D. in Instructional Systems Design/Learning Systems and her Program Evaluation Certificate from Florida State University. As a learning science/learning design researcher, she studies applications of various learning and instructional design theories and models for learning and human performance improvement. She has a particular interest in the application of Problem-Based/Project-Based Learning (PBL) and assessment of complex learning outcomes such as problem-solving and critical thinking for STEM fields. During her career, she has designed, developed, and successfully implemented and evaluated several programs that have been using PBL as their pedagogical framework. Mahnaz has been the recipient of several awards in scholarship, teaching, and graduate mentorship. Besides, within the last fifteen years, she has been awarded funding to coordinate several innovative projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Department of Education on the integration of PBL with computer modeling and simulation. She has worked with many international colleagues and serves on editorial board of a number of prestigious national and international journals. Mahnaz has been the recipient of several teaching and research awards and has served as a rotating scientist (IPA) for two years at the National Science Foundation. Stephen T. Schroth holds a PhD in Educational Psychology/Gifted Education from the University of Virginia, where he studied with Carolyn M. Callahan and Carol Ann Tomlinson. Past-Chair of the NAGC Arts Network, Dr. Schroth is an associate professor of Early Childhood Education at Towson University. The author of over 175 publications, including books, monographs, chapters, articles, and other reports, he served as a classroom teacher, gifted coordinator, and arts prototype school coordinator for a decade in the Los Angeles Unified School District. For seven years he served as director of the award-winning Knox College 4 Kids and has written curricular units for the Lyric Opera of Chicago (with J. Helfer).