Educating for Gratitude

On a recent gloomy, cloudy day, when school children were restless and moods seemed a bit low, I watched as a teacher invited her class of young children to express things for which they were thankful. “My grandmother’s pies,” cried out one child immediately. “When my cat curls up next to me and it’s warm and cozy,” said another. “I am thankful for books to read,” another added. The uplifting of moods and energy was almost palpable, as the children identified multiple experiences of gratitude. Gratitude most basically refers to a state of appreciative awareness. It often takes shape in religious expression through words and acts of praise to God. In its conceptual form as a religious or philosophical idea, as well as in its concrete expression through practice, gratitude thus holds a central place in many religious and spiritual traditions. It is pervasive in human religious experience. “Theologically speaking,” writes Nathaniel Warne (2021, 196) from his perspective within Christianity, “there is never a time when we are not indebted to someone or something.” Gratitude is the concomitant human attitudinal response to this indebtedness: knowing one’s self as the beneficiary of gifts, including the gift of life itself, evokes a life of thanks and praise to the Giver. This orientation of appreciation constitutes a central theme across various religious traditions.

In Judaism, for instance, hakarat hatov (הַכָּרַת הַטּוֹב), “recognizing the good,” references an awareness of life’s blessings and benefits that underlies the human response of thanksgiving. The first prayer of the morning upon waking is a prayer of gratitude. Schnall and Schnall, writing of gratitude’s foundational status within Judaism, suggest that it

may characterize the ideal personality more than any other trait. Indeed, the very appellation “Jew” stems from the name of Jacob’s son Judah (see Midrash Genesis Rabbah 98:6), which in turn is derived from the Hebrew word for “thank” or “praise” and was chosen by Judah’s mother Leah, out of gratitude to God (Genesis29:35)…Abraham ibn Ezra contends that gratitude, especially to God, is not merely the theme behind individual commandments…but rather is a fundamental principle underlying all Jewish religious teaching (Schnall and Schnall 2017, 163, 164).

Muslims practice shukr, gratitude to Allah and reflection on blessings, as a basic religious obligation. As Lumbard (2021, 176) writes,

One of the most important aspects of the Qurʾānic presentation of gratitude is that it is considered to be the natural state of the human being and of all existence. From a Qurʾānic perspective, if we look at creation around us, we should understand that everything is a sign of God, as well a gift and blessing from God. Our natural response to these bounties should be shukr, which would be both receptive towards the One Who bestows these benefits and active by sharing these benefits with others.

Lumbard thus stresses an existential aspect to gratitude in Islam: “To exist is itself an expression of gratitude, for we receive existence from God and then manifest existence, even if it be in spite of ourselves” (2021, 177).

Christians likewise hold gratitude in high regard within theology and practice, not only as individuals but also within faith communities. Consider, for example, gratitude’s key place in the ritual life of Christian communities. The Eucharist, literally, “the thanksgiving,” stands at the center of Christian sacramental liturgy. In this practice, the community celebrates a ritual meal together that includes a liturgical prayer known as the “Great Thanksgiving.” It is a prayer expressing gratitude to the Triune God for God’s grace and love made known in the breaking of the bread and sharing of the cup. As Christine D. Pohl (2012, 23) writes, “communities flourish when we regularly tell stories of God’s faithfulness and goodness and when we find opportunities to express gratitude and celebrate the gifts we have received.” Such practices are not so much about “counting one’s blessings,” or a demand to find silver linings in all things including experiences of suffering, as they are a sense of confident hope in God even when human experience obscures such hope from view (see Vicens 2022).

These illustrations of thanksgiving practices from Judaism, Islam, and Christianity underscore the importance of gratitude in religious life, and therefore its significance for religious education. Educating within religious traditions must include teaching the traditions’ spiritual practices of gratitude, attention to its theological meanings, and formation in attitudes of thanksgiving as a way of life. Educating about religious traditions similarly should give attention to how the centrality of grateful thanksgiving within a faith heritage shapes its worldview, as well as to how such a worldview issues in particular practices that can only be understood through the lens of gratitude.

The wisdom concerning gratitude’s important place in human life, as carried by religious traditions, finds an echo in contemporary psychology that bears significance for religious education. More than two decades ago, Robert Emmons’ “positive psychology” research on gratitude opened the way to a deeper understanding of its important role in human flourishing. Emmons and colleagues asserted that while gratitude may be understood as both an emotion and a philosophical virtue, it also should be recognized for its role in everyday life as “source of human strength…with implications for personal and relational well-being” (Emmons and Crumpler 2000, 57). Put simply, living with an everyday orientation of thankfulness helps people deal with life’s difficulties and maximize its joys.

Apparently, gratitude’s benefits impact the cognitive dimension of life as well. Wilson (2016) extends the work of Emmons and colleagues in the direction of education to consider the impacts of practicing gratitude on learning. Her study involves college students who were encouraged to engage in some type of gratitude-related practice such as journaling about experiences for which they were thankful. Results of the study show that when students participated in such practices three or more times a week, they reported greater perseverance in the face of learning difficulties and a more pronounced ability to manage the stressors within learning environments. Wilson writes that “cognitively, it appears, grateful people are more alert, focused, creative in problem-solving, and appreciative of learning” (Wilson 2016, 2).

While implications that educators might inculcate gratitude practices among their students for the explicit purpose of improving learning are a bit too utilitarian for my tastes, it does seem worthwhile for religious educators to take note of such “secondary educational effects” that may result from encouraging gratitude as a spiritual practice. In the midst of the existential anxieties and harms generated by current realities such as militarized conflicts, climate change, and racialized oppression, the teaching of spiritual practices that support capacities of people and communities to relate across differences, regulate emotions, maintain some level of resilience, engage in adaptive change, and cope more effectively with adversity surely constitute an important aspect of religious education.

With every new issue of Religious Education I experience deep gratitude for the contributions authors make to the field of religious education and to my/our knowledge. In this second issue for the 2024 volume year, former REA president Harold D. (Bud) Horell, along with co-authors Jennifer Fresy Porielly Wowor, Eric Olaf Olsen, and Shaina E. Turner-Franklin, take a wide-angled lens to the field as they advance their thesis that taking an historical approach to religious education offers unifying dividends. They suggest “standing in solidarity with one another at the crossroads of religion and education and research and practices” as a guiding image for the field today. Maitumeleng Nthontho invites us to consider the two-sided potential of religion as engendering both unity and conflict. Nthontho therefore argues for the importance of careful teaching of religion in schools in the South African educational context. And Michael Ryan together with coauthors Hannah Evans, Cara Hoekstra. David Jung, Kevin Dougherty, Perry Glanzer, and Sarah Schnitker present their research on how religion as well as race shape a sense of belonging at a Christian university. Book reviews by Yen Do and Natalie Hill close out the issue. I am grateful to all of these authors for sharing the fruits of their labor with us.

Joyce Ann Mercer, EditorYale University Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
[email protected]://orcid.org/0000-0002-8537-3679