Spiritual Education of Children: Training for Parents and Educators

As part of the 2025 Year of the Family, a “Training of Trainers Programme on Children’s Spiritual Education: Parent and Educator Training” will be organised as a social responsibility project. The programme, prepared by Prof. Dr. Tuba Işık from the faculty of Humboldt University of Berlin, consists of four sessions. Hosted by the Institute for Sufi Studies at Üsküdar University, the programme is intended for parents and educators who wish to support children’s religious and spiritual development on a scientific basis.

The programme will take place on 11, 18, and 25 December 2025 and 8 January 2026, on Thursdays, between 20:00–21:30 Türkiye time and 18:00–19:30 Germany time. During the first week, the relationship between children's concepts of God and the Prophet and parent–child interactions will be discussed. In the second and third weeks, topics such as developmentally appropriate story, symbol, and worship instruction based on a developmental psychology approach to religious education, the effects of parental attitudes, and the cultivation of values/virtues will be addressed. In the fourth and final week, participants will present and evaluate the practices carried out throughout the programme.

Participants who successfully complete the programme will receive a Certificate of Participation issued by Üsküdar University. Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. CLICK HERE to register.

We sincerely invite all interested educators, parents, and field specialists to this intensive academic gathering.

Prof. Dr. Tuba Işık

She serves as a professor of Islamic Education and Practical Theology at the Institute for Islamic Theology at Humboldt University of Berlin. Her research areas include religious education and pedagogy, virtue ethics, Muslim women, and comparative theology. Işık holds a master’s degree in international public law and pedagogy from the University of Göttingen (Georg-August-Universität) and a PhD from the University of Paderborn. She received training in Catholic Theology in Paderborn and Rome. In addition, she completed advanced studies in Islamic Education at Osnabrück University and at the Faculties of Theology in Bursa and Ankara. Işık is the co-editor of the first German-language textbook on the didactics of Islamic Religious Education (2022). Her monograph on character formation was published in 2022. In her most recent edited volume, Islamic-Aesthetic Education, various authors explore different dimensions of learning through aesthetic experience. Prof. Dr. Işık is also the principal investigator of the “Mesnevi Children’s International Project: Moral Education Project with Selected Stories from the Mesnevi,” launched in December 2023 within the framework of the bilateral collaboration between the Institute for Islamic Theology at Humboldt University of Berlin and the Institute for Sufi Studies at Üsküdar University.