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January/February 2002 Spirituality
A Question of the Heart

by Susan Dermond

Susan Dermond

“Values are more a question of the heart than of the mind,” George R. Beinhorn writes in the November/December, 2001, issue of Mothering. “…We tend to decide whether something is right or wrong not by thinking through the issues, but by feeling their rightness or wrongness.”

About five years ago, a horrific local high school incident was in the news. Several students showed a video in class of themselves torturing a cat. An adult, when asked if they would be suspended, said something to the effect of “Don’t blow it out of proportion. It was a cat, not a person.”

Several years and several school shootings later, we are a bit more sophisticated about such crimes. It is common knowledge that a high percentage of shootings are committed by young men who had tortured animals. Such behavior feels wrong; we don’t need intellectual analysis to know this, yet scientific studies also show that this is a sign of deep psychological disturbance, confirming our feelings of revulsion.

Educating the Mind

Numerous examples, from Hitler to the Unabomber to the Taliban leaders, show that intelligence and cognitive ability do not determine moral behavior. Yet most character education, conflict resolution, and peace programs consist of using cognitive skills: discussion of moral dilemmas, study of different outcomes for tense situations, and learning skills, such as peer mediation. Occasionally role-playing or stories might be used to illustrate a point, giving an opportunity for students to get out of the mind and into feeling-experience. However, the emphasis is always on using one’s reason.

The fact is that in moments when violence erupts, many people are not capable of stepping back into reason, because they haven’t developed the inner strength and calmness of the heart to do so.

Educating the Heart

Let’s define heart as wisdom born of calm intuition and mind as intellect unconnected with inner feeling. If choosing the right course of action really is more a matter “of the heart than of the mind,” can we help children develop this aspect of themselves? Yes!

Parents come to my classes hoping to find ways to help their children develop calm, inner feeling. Yet they are often unwilling to limit over-stimulation by media and the influence of a negative school environment, factors that prevent their children from even being receptive to uplifting influences.

Many techniques help children develop their heart and intuition, including story, music, nature, yoga, meditation, and dance. The heart of a child is wide open to receive feelings and emotions. Harsh, violent, and cynical impressions, whether received from television, film, video games, or peers who ridicule or bully, cause children to harden their hearts for self-protection. Other children develop physical ailments or clinical depression. And, sadly, some become bullies themselves.

Finding like-minded parents and teachers to learn from and share with is essential for parents who want their children to experience the calm inner feeling of the heart. We need to look at what it means to be more in the heart on both personal and institutional levels.

Finally, simply having the conscious awareness that the education of both heart and mind is necessary will help us begin to recognize which influences help open the heart and which influences cause harm. We can consciously seek the resources to give our children true character education—the development of heart qualities.

Susan Dermond is the Director of Living Wisdom School, a private elementary school, and editor of I Came from Joy, a spiritual activity book for children. On January 12, 2002, she is offering a workshop, “Raising Spiritual Children in Troubled Times.” For more information call 503 671-9112.