Critical Review of the Current Approaches to Spiritual Education for Children with an Emphasis on Islamic Teachings

A historical review of spiritual education for children reveals three main outlooks on the relationship between religion and spirituality upon which approaches to spiritual education are founded. These three are the religious outlook, the secular perspective, and the irreligious point of view. It can be said that in religious outlook, where spirituality emphasizes the maintenance of a personal relationship with the truth, children’s spiritual training leads them toward attainment of personal knowledge which is mixed with love and creativity. In the secular perspective where spirituality is defined as aesthetics and construction of meaning in interaction with the environment, spiritual education emphasizes the development of identity through constructions of meaning and narratives. The third point of view that considers spirituality as a developmental construct consisting of certain assumptions and a kind of thinking style used by people in justifying their behaviors, approaches spiritual training cognitively. Considering the ambiguity of truth, the danger of substituting individuals for the truth to be followed, limitations of spiritual education, and the superficial look at religion in these perspectives, Islamic teachings can offer an alternative model for such an education.