Spirituality and Creativity: Meeting Learners' Spiritual and Cognitive Needs Through Creative Problem Solving

Spirituality and Creativity: Meeting Learners' Spiritual and Cognitive Needs Through Creative Problem Solving

Stephen T. Schroth, Jason A. Helfer
Copyright: © 2023 |Pages: 18
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-6371-0.ch008
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Abstract

The chapter draws on some key spiritual values from the wisdom of the past that have been passed on from generation to generation across religious and secular lines. Some of these guiding values and principles include the search for truth, nurturing respect, and becoming a good person, to name a few. The chapter combines the accepted values with a more progressive view of education that calls to surrender the goal of shaping or molding the pupil's mind, exchange it for liberating the mind, and strengthening its critical powers. Creative Problem Solving (CPS) and Differentiated Instruction, can answer the call for strengthening critical and creative thinking and can be used by teachers at any grade level, in any subject and at any time to better support spiritual and cognitive needs of all learners.
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Creative Problem Solving And Spirituality

The very term creative implies the inner work of the spirit in each individual. In CPS the creative process is at work for the learner and the teacher. It is also accepted that there is no one way to solve a problem or come to a solution. The teacher and the learner work in a creative way to support each other in the pursuit of knowledge, wisdom, and solutions. Vilayat Inayat Khan, teacher of meditation and of the traditions of the East Indian Chishti Sufi order of Sufism, states, “The human spirit lives on creativity and dies on confromativity and routine”.

For the purposes of this chapter, spirituality is defined as the quest for meaning and how one experiences the world in which the individual interacts. Persons on this quest may be devoid of religion or may be devout and orthodox with regard to their practices and beliefs, but either path to spirituality is valid because the focus is on the search, or the quest to make meaning, to connect in a positive way to those they work and live with, and to contribute their understanding and wisdom to the world. (Kirmani & Kirmani, 2009 & 2013).

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