5

HOW CHILDREN' S FAITH

DEVELOPS
By MARY McCLURE
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a c h i l d . . . 1
o
NE OF THE GREAT PRI VI LEGES OF MY MI NI STRY i n
theological and religious education is the opportunity to
observe fledgling teachers, as wel l as seasoned teachers, as
t hey facilitate the learning which takes pl ace in classrooms.
When I began in this work, I concentrated on the students' efforts with
children in class instead of observing the how and why of children' s
learning and reflecting upon the particular contexts and strategies
whi ch facilitate that process.
The Educat i on Ref or m Act (1988) for England and Wales requires,
by law, that a school must have a balanced and broadl y based curricu-
lum whi ch ' promot es the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical
devel opment of the pupils at the school' .2 Thus the spiritual develop-
ment of children should be an integral part of the educational endear-
our in all schools. There is, however, a necessary and important
distinction to be made bet ween spirituality and faith, 3 a distinction
which is certainly crucial when one i s engaged in the education of
young children. And, lest we forget, children are different from adults.
They are not diminutive adults. Childhood exists in its own right. It is a
significantly different way of experiencing the worl d from the ways in
whi ch adults experience the world. Children are chi l dren. Is it possi bl e
to assert that children have f ai t h or should the question be, is it possi bl e
to educate pupils in appropriate f ai t hed contexts which create the
potential for faith and for faith devel opment ? This is my interest and
my concern.
I will take a bri ef l ook at James Fowl er ' s 4 wor k and then propose a
different, and, from my own experience, more authentic account of
children' s capacity for spirituality rather than for faith.
Stages of faith: the works of James Fowl er
T h e works of James Fowl er a r e r e ga r de d as among the most
influential in the area of research into faith development. He claims that
the processes, structures and forms of faith change and devel op from
6 How CHI LDREN' S FAI TH DEVELOPS
childhood to adulthood. His research and resulting theory of faith
devel opment owe much to other model s of devel opment by stages
which are found in various types of psychol ogi cal theory. They are
those of Eri k Erikson, perhaps the greatest influence on Fowler, who
described a series of eight devel opment al stages whi ch span the human
life-cycle; Piaget, who described cognitive construction and develop-
ment in terms of three stages; and Kohlberg, who proposed that moral
reasoni ng devel oped over six stages. In more recent writing, Gilligan
offered her modification of Kohl berg' s theory by the application of
gender differences. Fowl er ' s claim is t hat he has di scovered six
universal stages or styles of faith. 5 He also claims that while these
stages are universal, very few peopl e make it to Stage 6, whi ch he calls
Universalizing Faith/The God Grounded Self; in fact, no one he
i nt ervi ewed for research purposes was classified in this stage. He
helpfully gives us examples of this t ype of faith in the persons of
Martin Lut her King, Mot her Teresa and Dag Hammarskj rl d.
Do chi l dren have f ai t h ?
For Fowler, children up to t wel ve years of age are represented in the
first t wo stages of his theory. However, the earliest years constitute a
pre-stage, Stage 0, whi ch covers the first four years of life. It is
foundational in that a child' s early positive experiences of being
nurtured by a parent create ' our first pre-images of God' , conveyed
through ' recognising eyes and confirming smiles' . 6 The essence of
childhood is naturally to trust adults unless the childhood experiences
negate this. This natural capacity for trust creates a basis for predisposi-
tion for faith.
Children aged from three/four to seven/eight move into the stage
which Fowl er names Intuitive-Projective Faith. At this stage and age
children do not have or need boundaries bet ween reality and fantasy,
and bot h can intermingle without any problem. I once saw a teacher
question children about a gospel story whi ch she had related the
previous day.
' Do you r emember the story about the little girl who was ill
. . and somebody sent for Jesus?'
' Yes,' replied eight-year-old Patti, ' and Jesus came in and
ki ssed her because she had hurt her finger and she had been
asleep for a hundred years. And she woke up and he gave her
something nice to eat.'
This exampl e illustrates Fowl er ' s stage and meets its criteria - b u t is
it possi bl e to call this f ai t h? It illustrates how children confuse, without
HOW CHI LDREN' S FAI TH DEVELOPS 7
any awareness of ambiguity, fairytale and gospel story - and bot h are
regarded as stories about real things. If, as Fowl er states, it can be
regarded as ' intuitive faith' , then I suggest that it is something more
akin to a child' s insatiable capacity for story than to a child' s capacity
for faith. At t hi s stage God' s story is as real as Toystory, Martians,
fairies and Power Rangers.
Six/seven- to elevergtwelve-year-olds, and some adults, are de-
scribed as having reached Stage 2, a Mythic-Literal Faith. This is a
stage when cognitive devel opment enables the child t o begi n to order
the chaos and distinguish readily bet ween fact and fantasy. That
description, it should be noted, is an adult perception of the previous
stage, not the child' s perception. Not only do children want to know i f
stories are ' ~ue' ; t hey also want to know the names of peopl e in stories,
even i f t hey are generally unnamed as in Scripture - ' But what was the
l eper' s name?' The overriding compul si on of this stage is to be and
remain one of the group. I f one' s friends ' have faith' the individual has
faith. Many children will begi n to go to church at this st age i f their
peers are church-attenders. Images of God are concretized into projec-
tions of their own experiences of significant adults. I once observed
thirty eleven-year-olds ' draw' their image of God - thirty depictions of
the Sacred Heart. The class teacher was not onl y a parishioner of the
Sacred Heart parish but also had a great devot i on to the Sacred Heart!
Another teacher, for whom the Shroud of Turin held great meaning,
produced a class of t wel ve-year-ol ds with the same devot i on to the
Shroud.
Li ke any researcher, Fowl er has attracted disciples as well as critics.
I think that his model of faith devel opment is very interesting and his
descriptions of the early stages of faith devel opment (Stages 0, 1 and 2)
certainly resonate with my own experience of children at this stage. I
am not convinced, however, that children ' have faith' in Fowl er ' s
terms of what constitutes faith: ' Faith has to do wi t h the making,
maintenance, and transformation of human meaning' .7
As reflective adults, we know that expressions, as wel l as under-
standings, of faith change. Appreciation of the content of faith changes
and devel ops as individuals change. Change in individuals prompts
changes in the expressions of faith:
One who becomes Christian in childhood may indeed remain Christian
all of his or her life. But one's way of being Christian will need to
deepen, expand, and be reconstituted several times in the pilgrimage of
faith. 8
8 HOW CHI LDREN' S FAITH DEVELOPS
Does Fowl er ' s wor k suggest strategies for enhancing the faith
devel opment of children within the context of the Catholic school or
more informal contexts for faith devel opment ? While many religious
education resources refer to Fowl er ' s theory, there is tittle evidence
that it provides a model for any change in the forms of praxis in which
religious educators are engaged. By ' forms of praxis' I mean curricu-
lum strategies whi ch aim to change the ways in which religious
education is taught in order to create contexts where authentic dialogue
becomes a possibility. This dialogue should engage the teacher with the
particular culture in which the learner is situated. Religious education
needs to be inculturated i f it is to contribute to the spiritual develop-
ment of young people.
My own research in Scotland, into how pupils experience and reflect
upon their formal religious education, has shown that most pupils
experience religious education in ways whi ch alienate t hem and effec-
tively cl ose any opportunities for meaningful dialogue. Most syllabuses
or programmes of study still have assumptions about levels of practice
and commi t ment which no longer correspond to t he pupils' actual
experience. And yet religious education continues to be considered to
be the main vehicle of ' teaching the faith' in our Catholic schools. I f
education in faith is a possibility then it is ultimately concerned with a
personal and communal search for meaning, val ue and purpose whi ch
contributes to the devel opment of the whol e child as a person.
At the risk of being radical, I am much more concerned with the
s pi r i t ual i t y o r s pi r i t ual d e v e l o p me n t of young children than with their
faith development. To focus on the first is consci ousl y to create
contexts where the child' s level of awareness of the spiritual dimension
of life is raised, and so to make possible the second, the devel opment in
faith. First there is spirituality: those encounters with the divine
mystery. Then faith, like theology, comes as the result of reflection on
those encounters.
I propose that as religious educators, and potential animators of faith
in young children, we direct our energies towards the promot i on o f
spirituality in young children by the creation of ' curriculums of
discernment' in our schools.
Noam Chomsky recogni zed that ' human beings are endowed from
birth with linguistic competence, allowing t hem to draw on a deep
linguistic structure which is common to all human beings' . 9 It can
surely be argued that human bei ngs are also endowed with a similar
spiritual compet ence whi ch enables t hem to access and draw deepl y
upon that whi ch is held in common. It is possi bl e to devel op children' s
HOW CHI LDREN' S FAITH DEVELOPS 9
awareness of the spiritual dimension of life, a di mensi on whi ch shares
the characteristics of other forms of learning - imagination, emotions~
cognition, reason.
Case study: Edward
I have been engaged in the observation of a particular child for two
years. I have wat ched Edward grow physically, cognitively and spiritu-
ally. Edward is delightfu !. He is delightful quite simply because he has
a highly devel oped capacity for delight. The pre-narrative quality of his
experience, like that of all young children, enables hi m to rejoice in
each new possibility, whet her it is the unexpect ed brightness of Colour,
any representation of the sun, moon and stars or the r hyt hm of music
whi ch instinctively makes hi m dance. For Edward, response to external
stimuli is i mmedi at e and all-consuming. I have seen hi m in ecstasy,
totally absorbed in and drawn towards realities outside himself. With
Edward, what you see is what you gett Young children wear their
feelings and emotions on the outside of their skins. The gradual
acquisition of language does not diminish thiS capacity for awe and
wonder but enhances it. Edward delights in new words. He repeats the
new acquisition to hi msel f and to anyone who will listen.
Edward is a member of the worshipping communi t y of his parish,
where the resident priests exercise a certain degree of evangelical
patience with Edward' s ' interruptions' or interventions during Sunday
liturgies. Edward spends some time in the creche, but actually prefers
to be part of the liturgical action rather than cut off i n a r oom where
only the priest' s words, like some kind of dramatic monologue, are
transmitted through the sound system. Edward is basically a commu-
nitarian, as all healthy two-year-olds are. He also prefers adults to
come down to his level so that he can look t hem in the eye.
Does Edward have faith? No, but Edward is oozing spirituality. Even
as a two-year-old, he has a t remendous capacity for silence and
reflection. ' Experts' always underestimate young children' s capacity
for reflection. Edward loves stories, and is an experi enced listener. I
wonder why it is that when he starts school aged five, most teachers
will underestimate his capacity t o listen, and speak oft en about the l ack
of concentration in all young children. Edward can concentrate. He can
delight i n play with others and can also amuse himself. He is happy
with his own company. He has t he capacity to become totally absorbed
in what he attends to - a picture, some music, a puzzle. He is exhibiting
all the capacities and predispositions of an individual who has an
awareness of the spiritual dimension of the life - and who also mi ght
come to faith.
10 HOW CHI LDREN' S FAI TH DEVELOPS
Lest you think that Edward is f r om a middle-class family, his parents
woul d be described in socioeconomic terms as working-class. His
parents do not take The Way, or have access to any journals whi ch
might explore Christian experience in a postmodern society. They ar e
people who consciously try to live out their Christian faith in the
market-place; t hey love and cherish both their children and hope to
enable t hem to live according to gospel values. Both in their mid-
thirties, his parents are people who are consciously travelling along on
that faith journey. Are they unusual?
The recent survey on European values Io woul d suggest that they are.
Young people are shunning forms of institutionalized religion, as their
parents have done already. Such evidence has serious repercussions for
what happens in Catholic schools, for these in turn have the potential to
become the only context in whi ch most children, and their families,
belong to and maintain their tenuous relationship with the Church. But
schools cannot develop faith whi ch is not already present - what t hey
can do is facilitate the child' s j ourney towards faith. 11
Back to Edward: strategies for enabling spiritual development
Is it possible to enable children to appreciate and grow in their
awareness of the spiritual dimension of life? In my own research,
where I studied teachers' perceptions of what t hey were doing and their
classes' experiences of what was being done to them, there was a
consistent inconsistency bet ween the intention behind the ' delivered'
curriculum and its reception. Where teachers explicitly stated that their
aim, not only in religious education, but through the total curriculum,
was to enable the children to grow in their knowl edge and love of God,
puPils did not know that this was what their teachers intended. Pupils
often spoke of respecting what their teachers believed, and preached,
but were unaware of any growth in their own faith or any increase in
their knowl edge about Jesus or God. There were, of course, regular
exceptions: these were teachers who had expressed their awareness of
the spiritual dimension of their own lives. There is a direct correlation
between children' s levels of awareness of the spiritual and teachers
who share an awareness of the spiritual. One respondent wrote of her
very t i me-consumi ng and full i nvol vement with the local church, and
also of her inability to r emember a single spiritual experience. This
was mirrored in her class' s response to the questionnaire.
Thus, ff t he possibility of raising children' s awareness of spirituality
is dependent upon the teacher' s awareness, what can be done for all the
Edwards and the Edwinas who fill our classrooms? My thesis is that
HOW CHI LDREN' S FAITH DEVELOPS 11
what is needed is a bal anced curriculum building in certain life skills
whi ch promot e and enhance every child' s capacity for reflection. It is
onl y a capacity f o r critical reflection that will lead to a capacity for
theological reflection and then, in turn, a capacity for faith develop-
ment. All this assumes space and time and patience:
. . . every mode of learning is a mode of waiting, of hope and
expect ancy. . , the pause is important in speech, the incubation period
in creative work. The various modes of learning are grounded in the
possibility of a different future.12
In the course of a typical school day, most children have little
opportunity for quiet and stillness. Teacher-talk pervades the atmos-
phere: pupils are rarely left in peace, and i f t hey are, do not know how
to use silence. Periods of silence and reflection must be constructed
into each day when children are not ' left' to be quiet, but are actually
taught how to use silence - how to reflect. I f there is one hope I hol d for
every child, it i s this: that as Catholic educators we gift, in fact
empower, children wi t h a capacity for reflection upon their own lived
experience.
There is a model for reflection whi ch already exists within Ignatian
spirituality 13 - the consci ousness e x ame n. This is a t ool for discern-
ment whi ch can devel op in an individual a growing sensitivity to the
movement s of the Spirit and awareness of the ways in whi ch that Spirit
is leading or beckoni ng that individual. The e x ame n usually takes place
within the contexts of faith and prayer. I have already stated that young
children do not have faith, but this model for discerning provides an
effective framework within whi ch young peopl e can learn how t o
reflect, in a structured way, upon their lives. It can be used as a
framework for pre-faith reflection.
I have used this model with young children and wi t h adolescents.
Does it work? It works for t hem in so far as it teaches t hem basi c life
skills whi ch enable t hem to reflect on the positive aspects of their lives,
and also to name the less positive forces in their lives. It also gifts t hem
with the willingness to want to change. How do I know? Si mpl y
because t hey have shared their hopes and desires with me. I have been
moved by the simplicity of unchurched and disaffected adolescents
who have shared their struggles to live in more authentic ways in the
midst of a culture where their presence is val ued as an economi c
necessi t y rather than for any contributions t hey might make to society.
In the present circumstances, the threat of unempl oyment and conse-
quent alienation are never far away. In a culture whi ch discourages
12 HOW CHI LDREN' S FAI TH DEVELOPS
thought and reflection upon one' s actions - what I describe as a fast-
forward culture - the use of the examen is in fact a counter-cultural act.
By ' fast-forward' I mean the ways in which society indicates that if life
now is unpleasant, or unfulfilling, then one should move on quicldy to
the next relationship or material commodity or pleasure.
Can it be that I am really advocating an examination of conscience as
a model for critical reflection which in tum might lead to a raising of
awareness of the spiritual dimension of life? The consciousness
examen differs from the traditional expressions of examination of
conscience which concentrated on good or bad acts performed during a
day. The examen is a way of putting individuals in touch with the
movements within their growing consciousness of themselves and also
with the motivations for their choices. It sensitizes individuals to the
gentle nudge of God' s presence in their lives, even if they cannot yet
name God in any ' faithed' sense.
If children come into school with such an appreciation of the
aesthetic dimension of life, then let us, as educators, cherish and
develop that capacity through music and art, dance and literature, and
through structured silence and reflection. When such activities are
integral to what children are offered as curriculum, then even those
teachers who claim no experience of the 'spiritual' may also have the
opportunity to grow in their awareness and, who knows, ultimately
their faith.
In twenty-five years of teaching, of training teachers and working in
partnership with teachers and young people, I am still discovering and
rediscovering the mystery which we describe as spiritual or faith
development. It is harder to be young these days, certainly. Neverthe-
less, it is my conviction that children today are continuing to have the
kind of experience which Hopkins evoked at the opening of The wreck
of the Deutschland:
Thou mastering me
God! giver of breath and bread;
World's strand, sway of the sea;
Lord of living and dead;
Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh,
And after it ~lmost dnmade, What with dread,
Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?
Over again I feel thy finger and find thte.
HOW C HI L DR E N' S F AI TH DE VE L OP S 13
NOTES
x 1 Cor 13: 11.
2 The Education Reform Act (1988) introduced a National Curriculum and dramatic reforms into
English and Welsh schools.
3 David Hay' s research, at Nottingham University Centre for the Study of Human Relations,
consistently draws attention to how people describe their experience and bel i ef in ' t he spiritual'
yet have grown increasingly disaffected from institutional forms of faith or religion.
4 James Fowler, Stages of faith (HarperCollins, 1976). This would be regarded as his seminal
work.
5 I am indebted to The National Society, How f ai t h grows (Church House Publishing). The six
stages of faith development are: Stage 0, Primal Faith; Stage 1, Intnitive-Projective Faith; Stage 2,
Mythic-Literal Faith; Stage 3, Synthetic-Conventional Faith; Stage 4, Individuative-Reflective
Faith; Stage 5, Conjunctive Faith; Stage 6, Universalizing Faith.
6 j . Fowl er and A. Vergote (eds), ' Faith and the structuring of meani ng' in Towards moral and
religious maturity (Silver Burdett, 1980).
7 Ibid.
8 National Society, How f ai t h grows, introduction.
9 Quoted in M. Grimmitt, Religious education and human development (McCrimmon, 1987),
p 79.
1o D. Barker, L. Halman, A. Vl oet (eds), European values study, 1981-1990 (The Gordon Cook
Foundation).
11 In Britain, the level o f church attendance is rapidly decreasing. Cardinal Winning, Archbishop
of Glasgow, whi ch would be considered a conservative church by British standards, stated when
he delivered the Gonzaga Lecture at St Aloysius College, Glasgow, in March 1996, that i f the
decline continues at the present rate, the Catholic community in Scotland will have disintegrated
within t he next twenty-five years.
12 D. E. Huebner, Spirituality and knowing, quoted in Mary Boys, Educating in faith (Sheed and
Ward, 1987), p viii.
13 The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, paragraph 43, translated by Louis J. Puhl SJ (Newman
Press, 1960). George A. Aschenbrenner, ' Consci ousness examen' , Review f or Religious volume
31 no 1 (1972), outlines the distinction bet ween examen of conscience and consciousness
examen. Given that this exercise takes place within a faith context, I propose that, for young
children, the community of the Catholic school provides the faithed context for t he child.