ABSTRACT
Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha has much to offer teachers and students in religious studies classrooms. In seeking something of enduring educational value from this classic work, the book is best treated as literature, not as a religious primer. Siddhartha teaches us, but it does so more by showing than telling. In its pages we can find an implied theory of teaching and learning as espoused and lived by Siddhartha and other key characters. As a literary work, Siddhartha affords us a glimpse of how and why decisions are made and actions are taken, in specific contexts and through our social relations with others, as part of the process of lifelong education. Considered in this light, the book is also an invitation to reflect on the extent to which, and ways in which, our educational formation is connected with our development as spiritual beings.
