The Heart of Learning ─ Spirituality in Education

The Heart of Learning asks teachers and students to recommit themselves to what they love most in education. The renown contributors outline a map for enabling us to connect with the very reasons why we teach and learn thus to achieve greater fulfillment in both. Incisive essays by Parker Palmer, Rachel Naomi Remen, and the Tibetan lama Dozgchen Ponlop Rinpoche examine how our unique, individual experiences of the sacred can profoundly enrich how we learn and teach. Writings by bell hooks and the Dalai Lama show how we simultaneously can cultivate both individual beliefs and openness to the diversity of the contemporary classroom. Works by Huston Smith and Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi explore our need to balance our past histories and traditions with the needs of present and future generations. This extraordinary collection of original work provides a unified, inspiring, and immensely practical new paradigm for how teaching and learning can mean more, accomplish more, and inspire the best in each of us. This book is a must for every teacher, student, parent, and anyone who loves to learn.

Steven Glazer organized the Naropa Institute's landmark conference, "Spirituality in Education," from which this book was created. Long active in the not-for-profit educational world, he has taught in the Newton, Massachusetts, public schools, and lives in Patagonia, Arizona.