The Good Ship RE:International Acclaim
Personally I have always been a bit envious of Britain’s ability to have religious education as a subjectDebby Espinor, George Fox University, Oregon, USA
An Australian ExampleTeaching children
how to respectfully disagree (p. 26)
No particular religious perspective is privileged or pariah-ed (p.19). Agnostic neutrality (p. 259)
Two Questions?
What do we mean by the “secular principle”? (Maximally inclusive or adopting a particular framework?)
Is there an enemy? (Conservative religion and confessional education?)
Integrative Religious Education in Europe (2007)
by Wanda AlbertsFramed as the impartial,
unbiased, academic study of religion acceptable to all parents and pupil
Taught as a secular subject in non-separative schools
Distinguish educational and religious interests – no privileging of the religious and no middle way between them (see p.374).
Integrative REThe responsibility for RE ultimately has to
be with study-of-religions trained RE professionals who are not dependent on the benevolence of any religious interest group (p. 293 – see also p. 366)
(Of Norway) One may hope that politicians will follow academic insight rather than religious lobbying and take the necessary steps to transform this kind of integrative RE into a truly impartial approach (p. 328)
Diversity/Inclusivity
There is probably no issue of any greater concern around the world than the rise of religious fundamentalism. Nothing is more dangerous than the radicalised mind …..I am not advocating any measure of proselytising within our schools, but I am saying that knowledge of the substance and practice of religion must be part of any rounded education.
Rt. Rev John Chalmers
What is “beyond the pail” in the RE classroom?
Jesus is the only way to God
No one should be allowed to blaspheme the Prophet
There are thousands of gods. They are, self-evidently, products of the human imagination…..Faith is dehumanising.
Gay marriage is ethically wrong
God created the world literally as it says in the Bible
Pedagogical Framework
Pedagogy is the act of teaching together with its attendant discourse of educational theories, values, evidence and justifications. It is what one needs to know and the skills one needs to command, in order to make and justify the many kinds of decision of which teaching is constituted.
Robin Alexander
RE and Virtue
What sort of person do we aspire will emerge from the experience of learning in RE and does religion itself have a role in contributing to that?
Why are we doing this?
Their experiences of what they are doing and their sense of self in doing it are rather different. This difference is a function of imagination. As a result, they may be learning very different things from the same activity. (Etienne Wenger, 1998, p.176)
Making a Difference
The exercise required of pupils is of theological enquiry discovering through activity and question how experience of and reflection on the life of Christ shapes lives and transforms societies
Diversity and Inclusivity:Reframing the debate
Respectful Christian witness which accommodates differences and unresolved debate.
Pedagogy in REA key question
Focus on academic objectivity, treating religious commitment as a personal and private matter. (Faith-blind)
Religion as a problem to be challenged by education?
Focus on the shaping nature of religious commitment in public life with an emphasis on dialogue and shared action. (Faith-nurturing).
Religion as a resource to be nurtured in education?
Some Of My Questions About Our Guild?
1. Would “habitus” be more helpful to us than neutrality in constructing our pedagogical framework?
2. Is our fundamental aim fostering virtue formation – learning to drink tea whilst negotiating diversity?
3. Should our pupils become critical realists rather than relativists or positivists?
4. Does hermeneutics offer a better academic framework than studies of religion?
5. Do we need to respond differently to conservative religion?