ABSTRACT
Emanating from the Australian educational context, which, until recently, placed little emphasis on the spiritual dimension of children and young people’s lives, this chapter explores a framework through which early year’s classroom teachers can recognise and address the spiritual development of their students. The author’s broader research concerns the predispositions young learners bring to the curriculum area of religious education. However, it was discovered that these very orientations, or habits of mind, are in fact the same dispositions through which spirituality may be recognised and nurtured.
The chapter describes the dispositional framework used, the notion of learning stories, and the voice-centred relational method used to analyse early years’ teachers’ interview transcripts. It presents some findings from the original research, and describes a new spiritual disposition emanating from the analysis of some early years’ teachers’ interviews. It concludes with some recommendations for practice in terms of how early years’ educators might recognise, address and nurture the spiritual development and wellbeing of their students.
