Developing spiritual intelligence in our school community

My reading lately has been around developing intelligence in people, and I have been particularly interested in the recent focus on Spiritual Intelligence. Cindy Wigglesworth, the President of Deep Change, Inc, has written an article on the history of ‘intelligence’, which culminates in her sharing her definition of spiritual intelligence and why she thinks the world today is in desperate need of this intelligence being developed.

How high can you go?

When we adults were at school, intelligence tests only told our teachers and parents about whether we were mathematically and linguistically intelligent. Those who struggled to read or compute were considered not to be ready to succeed in the world. In reality, we know that this is not true as many really successful people were not great at school!

In 1983, Howard Gardner wrote a book which had us new teachers really excited – he declared that actually people had 7 intelligences and that we as teachers should be encouraging children to develop in all 7. Later he reviewed his idea by joining ‘interpersonal’ and ‘intrapersonal’ intelligences together into emotional intelligence. He was also one of the first ‘thinkers’ to suggest that there was also a ‘philosophical intelligence’.

Team building at its best!

Daniel Goleman then continued the intelligence discussion with his book in 1985. He said that ‘star performers had significantly stronger relationship and personal networks than average performers’. He joined Richard Boyatzis to declare later that EQ was made up of skills in 4 quadrants: self-awareness, self-management, relationship skills and ‘other’ awareness. After research Goleman and Boyatzis found that self-awareness needed to be grown before any of the others as a person couldn’t do any of the others if they weren’t aware of their feelings etc.  

Cindy defines spiritual intelligence as ‘ the innate human need to connect with something larger than ourselves’. She says this has 2 components: a horizontal and a vertical component. The vertical component is obvious – the connection to a higher being, and the horizontal component is ‘service to our fellow human beings and to the planet at large’.

Pinelands North Primary has always developed spiritual intelligence in our pupils. Leadership activities like LEAP, which was put together for grade 4 to 7 pupils in the first week of our 2017 school year, encourage children to reflect on their own growth in kindness, persistence, generosity of spirit and that of others. These activities also encourage children to be relentless in their pursuit of life. Children learn to reflect on how they can be more courageous in tackling life’s issues themselves, and then help others battling in life too.

As part of this programme we have developed a pathway of thought in the quiet quad alongside the hall. Children are encouraged to go there if they are struggling with the ‘boulders’ in their lives, to reflect, have some quiet time or just to sit and think. We are also currently building a labyrinth in another quad, Beck se Plek, and will be changing the ‘flooring’ to various different textures.

Creating thinking stones for the Quiet Quad

The animals at our school create beautiful opportunities for empathy development - duckling dying after being attacked by a crow IS sad, but is also necessary as food for the crow. Not chasing our animals is another thing we insist on – questions are asked which allow children to reflect on their feelings about being chased, and so we help them understand how animals feel.

Creating 'flags' for our Quiet Quad

Cindy ends her article by explaining why she thinks spiritual intelligence is so important in our current world. She correctly notes that most wars are caused by diverse religious beliefs, so if we teach children to ‘behave with compassion and wisdom, while maintaining inner and outer peace, regardless of the circumstances’, we will be creating adults for the world who can become empathetic presidents of countries who will think twice and negotiate in faith before considering invading another country.

Family dinner times are perfect times for families to share thoughts that help children learn about spiritual intelligence. While having supper, ponder some of these questions as a family:

What did you do today that showed your friends you can be generous?

How were you courageous this weekend?

Tell me one wise thing your teacher told you today? Why was it ‘wise”?

What will you do the next time you have a fight with your siblings, that shows that you can be forgiving?

Obviously the adults that children come into contact with need to model these spiritual intelligent behaviours too. They have a very important role to play in showing children how to be respectful of other religions and peoples, how to reconcile family arguments, and how important it is for people to have some time in their week when they are mindful, meditate or practice their beliefs. By doing this, you are creating spiritually intelligent adults for 2030!

Additional reading: Google ‘spiritual intelligence’ or go to www.deepchange.co