smithsonianlibraries :: An illustration of a child’s dream from The ladies’ floral cabinet v.3:no.33 (1874).
Full text here.
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“We need a definition of spirit and spirituality that is separate from religion and religious education,” writes Amelia Richardson Dress. ‘Spirit is the thing within us that makes us us. Spirituality is the way we connect our ‘inner us’ to everything else, including other people’s inner ‘usness.’ This understanding helps us think creatively about how to approach spirituality while respecting a child’s home culture. It also enables us to clearly identify our goal, in order to determine if we are achieving it. While it is extremely difficult to measure the ‘spirit’ of a child in the same way we might measure physical or academic growth, there are indicators of spirituality that we can look for in our classrooms and the children. “It is my belief that the thing which we should cultivate in our teachers is more the spirit than the mechanical skill of the scientist.” -Maria Montessori [thanks Paul Corby]
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