Educating in the Spirit: Evidence-Based and Theological Foundations for High Impact Educational Systems

This book is an attempt to address two struggles for "theistic educators" (e.g., those who approach their educational vocation from a religious perspective), whether they are working in secular or faith-based institutions. The first struggle is that, while numerous guidelines on teaching excellence have been compiled, the resulting checklists can contain more than a hundred criteria to consider. This book therefore identifies the evidence-based guidelines that are likely to have the highest impact on student achievement, thereby empowering educators to focus their efforts in more substantial ways. The second struggle is related to the lack of resources, which can help educators to view and approach their vocation from a theistic perspective. While there are texts that discuss the relationship of spirituality and/or theology to education, few to date have sought to bring evidence-based educational literature into dialogue with the western Christian tradition and thereby develop a "bottom-up" theology of education. This book addresses this historical and theological gap. Overall, this book is therefore intended to not only provide theistic educators with high-impact guidelines that can significantly improve the quality of education in their school systems, but it also strives to do so from a thoroughly theistic perspective.

Eric Kyle is Assistant Professor of Theology and Director of the Service-Learning Program at the College of Saint Mary in Omaha, Nebraska. His research focuses on the systematic study and practice of spiritual formation.