Building Connections: Spiritual Dimensions of Teaching / Edition 1

by Eileen M. Cunningham

Overview

One of the most significant challenges facing teachers today is their capacity to work effectively with diverse learners. Building Connections responds to the essential needs that teachers have expressed as a result of reflecting on their experiences in schools, with learners and their families, and with colleagues. Many teachers today consider teaching to be a calling, a mission that reaches out to youth. They want to be faithful to this mission, to create effective learning environments and experiences that foster successful student achievement, and to have a sense of wholeness while doing so. This book is a personal reflection on the author’s experiences with diverse people. It represents Eileen M. Cunningham’s attempt to transpose these experiences and her responses to them into a framework that can be used by others who want to make sense of their experiences through a spiritual perspective.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820448602
Publisher:	Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
Publication date:	08/10/2001
Series:	Counterpoints: Studies in Criticality , #130
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	124
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

The Author: Eileen M. Cunningham, O.P., is Professor of Education at St. Thomas Aquinas College. She received her Ph.D. in curriculum and teaching from Fordham University in New York City. She has traveled extensively to Peru, Pakistan, Korea, Switzerland, Puerto Rico, Japan, France, Ireland, and India. In each country she has lived in villages and visited schools in order to learn about the people through firsthand experiences. She has had several articles published chronicling her reflections on these experiences.

Editorial Reviews

«‘Building Connections: Spiritual Dimensions of Teaching’ is well written and touches upon the connection of teaching to one’s personal journey. It wonderfully reviews the importance of reflection and describes how reflection on culture and self is central to excellence in teaching. Eileen M. Cunningham shares her own story and powerfully leads the reader to understand this central aspect of teaching. She easily shows reflection is key to teaching and, even more profoundly, to fully understanding the spirituality that is part of every teacher’s day. This book is a must read for those who prepare teachers and for those who want to develop fully into excellent teachers.» (Ronald R. Cromwell, Dean, School of Education and Allied Studies, Bridgewater State College, Massachusetts)
«The author, through her personal, professional, and faith experiences, clearly envisions and activates teaching to that of a ministry. The notion of teaching being a spiritual dimension goes beyond simple reflection in practice and is reminiscent of the observed behavior of expert teachers looking at the affective impact and «rightness» of their instruction. A must read for those charged with the preservice preparation of teachers for our elementary, middle, and secondary schools; for those responsible for and participating in continuing professional development, this book offers a multiplicity of thought-provoking gems that could well serve as foci of reflective exercises and activities in enriching the capacity of all teachers to ensure all students learn to their potential.» (Charles C. Mackey, Jr., Executive Coordinator, New York State Education Department)

From the Publisher

Cunningham (education, St. Thomas Aquinas College) reflects on her experiences teaching and learning in schools in Peru, India, Japan, Ireland, and the Bronx, emphasizing the importance of learning to work effectively with diverse students. She puts her experiences and her responses to them into a framework that can be used by others who want to make sense of their experiences through a spiritual perspective. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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