A spirituality of teaching, among other things, attempts to elicit candid,
first-person accounts of the larger meaning of students’ lived experience,
whenever these meanings are appropriate to the subject matter at hand.
And it attempts always to exemplify such qualities as truthfulness, courage,
and integrity. I consider these to be the cardinal spiritual virtues not only of
teaching and learning, but of living an excellent life as well. I predicate my
spirituality of teaching on the well-tested assumption that, given an ethos of
mutual support and caring in the classroom, my students will not hesitate to
talk with one another about how their deepest beliefs, ideals, hopes, fears,
doubts, and, yes, religious faith (or lack of it) influence the work they do as
educators.