David E. Purpel

(Bergin & Garvey, 1989)

In The Moral and Spiritual Crisis in Education, David Purpel approaches the breakdown of contemporary society from a critical perspective that differs from those of Orr, Bowers, Sloan, et al.; he does not treat ecological or epistemological issues as the primary cultural problems of our time but is concerned with a wide range of social pathologies and ideological sources of human suffering: war, terrorism and abuse of human rights, totalitarianism and racism, gross inequality and injustice, poverty and famine, as well as ecological devastation and existential alienation. He does, however, share the view that these problems reflect a “cultural, political and moral crisis” of historic dimensions, and he argues that an “extraordinary chasm,” between this profound crisis and the technical and managerial issues that concern educators and policy makers, amounts to a “trivialization” of education.

Purpel attacks the narrow economic focus of public education and deconstructs the language of contemporary reform movements (“excellence,” “effective schools,” “time on task” and so on). He shows how social values of competition, hierarchy, order, and achievement are antithetical to “educational values of free inquiry, the development of a critical and creative consciousness, and the struggle for meaning” (p. 93). He argues that education should be a moral and spiritual endeavor that holds our social and personal lives up against the highest ideals we can conceive; he calls this the “prophetic voice” and actually compares the role of the educator to the social function of the Biblical prophets. To put it mildly, education so defined “is not reflected in a curriculum focused on diplomas, certificates, and credentials” (p. 8).

Education, says Purpel, must treat each student as a meaning-seeking and meaning-creating individual, enabling the learner to develop a critical, passionate, and nourishing engagement with oneself, one’s culture, and with the natural world. The curriculum should be organized around life’s fundamental questions and the serious moral and existential concerns of young people. Knowledge, institutions, and paradigms are not eternal, especially in this time of cultural instability, and we are responsible for engaging the world with critical intelligence and moral commitment, which a trivial and technique-driven education cannot prepare us to do.

Purpel’s work is unusually powerful because he has integrated two widely separated but complementary streams of inquiry: critical pedagogy (as represented by Dewey, Freire, and Giroux) and the Western religious tradition (represented by Martin Luther King, Jr., Paul Tillich, Jewish scholar Abraham Heschel, and radical Catholic theologian Matthew Fox, among others). Where they meet is in their concern for human dignity: “The prophetic voice speaks most directly to issues of justice and righteousness; it is a voice that not only roars in protest at oppression, inequity, poverty, and hunger but cries out in pain and compassion” (p. 81). The Moral and Spiritual Crisis in Education is a prophetic response to a fragmented culture that has lost its sense of human dignity, meaning, and purpose. Purpel calls upon us to acknowledge that in these times we cannot continue to conduct business as usual in our schools.

The Foundation for Educational Renewal
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