Profiles of Roothbert: Jennifer Mata

“I define spirituality as an innate potential to connect and relate to self, others, and the Other” began Jennifer Mata ‘06. “We as human beings have this ability. Because [spirituality] is a potential, we can decide to develop and grow, or we can decide not to. It also depends on our context and environment.” 

Jennifer is the director of the Sherman Center for Early Learning in Urban Communities as well as an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Jennifer’s primary academic interests are children’s spirituality and bilingual education. 

While pursuing her doctorate at Teachers College of Columbia University, Jennifer enrolled in a class titled “Children’s Spirituality.” “I couldn’t believe it,” commented Jennifer. “A topic I had been interested in all my life appeared as an acceptable line of inquiry and work. It was actually a field of study!” 

Through Jennifer’s program, all the literature reviews, all the pilot studies, all the methodology designs centered on children’s spirituality. Jennifer devoted her dissertation to analyzing the experiences and expressions of children’s spirituality in a kindergarten classroom. 

“When a child is going through a loss at home, when there is a parent separation, when we are not physically present with loved ones anymore, questions come up,” shared Jennifer. “What happens when we die? Does God exist? Is heaven real? As adults, we don’t necessarily have the correct or right answers. We may have an answer, but we don’t know if that’s the Truth.” 

Jennifer believes that providing space for these types of conversations to happen celebrate and cultivate children’s spirituality. In prioritizing conversations that address spiritual themes, “children see that there are different perspectives and understandings.” Especially important, children learn to see these differences not as threats to their own beliefs, but rather as a means of broadening their understanding.

For a teacher to be able to integrate spirituality in their classroom, the distinction between spirituality and religion must be clear. Furthermore, our understanding of the separation of church and state should be revisited. “Separation of church and state tells us we cannot proselytize. We cannot indoctrinate. That is what is forbidden,” clarifies Jennifer. “But we also need to be respectful of everyone’s individual perspectives and beliefs. We cannot negate someone’s faith or belief.” In other words, “you can’t impose on others, but you cannot negate someone else’s faith either.”

“When I was a teacher, I did have incidents where I opened up the spaces for children to talk about spiritual topics and children would say, ‘No no that’s not how it is. My mom says this.’ ‘That’s not what my mom said.’ or, ‘I go to church every Sunday and the priest said this!’ Children can be very concrete in their thinking and if they learn that something is a certain way, that’s the only way.” 

How do you facilitate or mediate spiritual conversations in the classroom? “In those moments,” recalled Jennifer, “it was my role as a teacher to mediate those conversations, to help them see ‘Yes. You understand it this way and that’s true for you, and you understand it that way and that’s true for you. And that’s okay.’ We don’t have the absolute truth here. And that’s another challenge because in education there tends to be a right answer. Students tend to aim to produce that right answer because that right answer is what gives them the good grade.”

Jennifer spoke further to the distinction between religion and spirituality through connections to her upbringing in Caracas, Venezuela. “There’s much more emphasis on religion than spirituality in Venezuela,” commented Jennifer. “Even in public schools, there is a religious component. Venezuela is a predominantly Catholic country, and it trickles down into the culture. It is culturally embedded in our language, holidays, and celebrations. Everything. In places like Venezuela, it’s harder to envision spiritual growth without a religious structure to support it.” 

The integration of spiritual development in the classroom, especially from a young age, holds special importance for Jennifer. “The more we prepare the foundation at an early age, the easier everything gets later on in life.” As a child learns to interpret their world and their relationship to it, a strong set of values and sense of self prove invaluable. “Even if it’s a little bit of time to ponder, [encouraging spiritual development in the classroom] can carry that child into adulthood in a way that would not be possible otherwise.” 

As the director of the Sherman Center, Jennifer continues to devote herself to this work. “I’ve merged my scholarship on children’s spirituality into the Center by creating a program called ‘Breathe 2 Think,’” shared Jennifer. “It supports teachers in practicing meditation and mindfulness for their self-care and personal benefit as well as encourages pre-service teachers to implement a mindfulness project with the students in their internships.” Jennifer’s scholarship allows us to reconsider the role of spirituality in childhood development and how this can not only be possible, but a fundamental component of early childhood education. 

To read more about Jennifer and her work, visit her www.drjenmata.com