Dennis Patrick Slattery / Leigh Selig Jennifer

Reimagining Education

Essays on Reviving the Soul of Learning

189 pages, ISBN 978-1-882670-63-5, Spring Journal

In this collection of essays, Dennis Patrick Slattery and Jennifer Leigh Selig bring together eighteen master teachers from elementary, high school, undergraduate, graduate, adult education, and across many disciplines to share their reflections on reviving, revisioning, and renewing the soul of learning. What timeless and perennial qualities of excellence are germane to teaching and learning, both of which serve the life of imagination and the further cultivation of the soul? The answers rest in these essays, which are repositories of the wisdom of teachers with decades of experience in the classroom, whose only mandate in contributing to this volume was to speak their own truths, which have informed thousands of learners young and old.

As Pacifica continues to develop and more people are drawn to our programs, our learning community faces the challenge of keeping a place for soul in the midst of success and growth. In the daily activities on campus, we are coming to appreciate the custodial nature of this work. A thing of beauty calls for a measure of protection. We are stewards of a vision, an ideal which has selected us. Our purpose is to bring the creative depths of the human psyche into relationship with the citizens, the institutions, and the forces of nature that make up the world. In so doing, we consciously acknowledge the social landscape of which we are a part. We are committed to contributing back into this world an awareness of the unfolding richness of the human psyche. As institutional, academic, and political challenges converge, it is vital to the Pacifica vision that we reflect on and embody a larger sense of the needs of the planet.