Post by Rebecca LoaderThe 1944 Education Act made way for the 1988 Education Reform Act, which has
determined the nature of RE and collective worship since its enactment.
Although RE doe not come within the National Curriculum created by ERA, it
is part of the 'basic curriculum' and must be taught by law. There's been
more proactivity to try to prevent it being sidelined into PSHE, humanities,
etc.
To what extent does the Act say what _must_ take place in RE, and how
much of it there must be? Is there so much freedom of action that you
could do anything at all and claim it was RE? (Watching David Beckham
on video, say).
Is PSHE the thing I last heard of as PSE? It's grown! H=health?
My initial response (my first response to your message) was not intended
to be flippant, in case that wasn't obvious. I can't see anything
wrong with using a silly cat-based scenario as an example, but it
seems to upset some people.
Post by Rebecca LoaderPost by Adam AtkinsonPost by Rebecca LoaderWhat about the fact that some pupils
come from no religious background, not even a confirmed secularist one;
what
Post by Adam AtkinsonPost by Rebecca Loaderis their way in to learning about faith traditions when they're just told
'some Christians do this' and 'some Muslims do this'?
I'm not sure I understand the question.
There's a school of thought that believes that the systematic approach to
teaching RE (where you teach each religion individually, in its own terms,
rather than using 'festivals' or 'the home' as a jumping off point) is
off-putting because most children don't have a 'way in'.
Surely teaching each religion on its own terms has its merits? (Though
what those terms are would appear to be hard to determine. A US
Catholic acquaintance today, with whom I was discussing this thread,
said that according to the current Catholic worldview I am
_definitely_ going to Hell, though it could be one of the relatively
nice bits (though I'm not sure why - not being
baptized? not Catholic? I should check.) Presumably Matthew would say
this is not necessarily true, otherwise he wouldn't have objected to my
comment about not being able to belong to multiple organizations. I am
tempted to seek out some local religious leaders and ask them if it's
fair to say that it doesn't matter which religion I join.)
One thing I would find interesting, though how you present this
without annoying people's parents I don't know, is some idea of which
bits they "don't really mean" (cf conversation with Matthew some
months ago in which he appeared to be saying that I shouldn't imagine
religions mean everything they appear to be saying), or which stuff is the
last to go. e.g. going to church only for weddings, funerals, and perhaps
Christmas and Easter, or only going to synagogue for Yom Kippur. A
presentation of e.g. (some flavour of) Christianity for people who
live in Japan could well have all sorts of stuff in it that no-one
really does or believes (a bit like the chapters about life in Italy
in many Italian textbooks I've seen), so some idea of what the range
of actual adherence / belief is might be useful to have. Do random Sikhs
really go around with the 5 Ks? How would most Christians react if the
second coming actually occurred?
Post by Rebecca LoaderThey and their
families might have some residual religion - church for weddings, siblings'
Christening
My mother (infant school head teacher, now retired) says that people
write "Church of England" in the "religion" box on forms (which forms
ask this?) in the belief that it's equivalent to "none" or "not
applicable". I'm not sure why I'm saying this at this point.
Post by Rebecca LoaderIf the intention is to teach phenomena
then that might not matter, just as it does not really matter that nobody
among your acquaintance is a Tudor;
Sure. I'd quite like to see, say, Parsis and Shintoists included in
something like this, and I would imagine that most parts of the UK
don't have many of those. And even defunct religions, I suppose.
Cathars. Vikings. Whatever.
Post by Rebecca Loaderhowever, it becomes a problem if you
want to give kids something more in the way of understanding of the
motivation of a person from another tradition
One would imagine that within any tradition there could be a range of
motivations. The official ones, a wish to avoid getting in trouble
with grandparents, or even just never having thought about it at all.
(Terry Pratchett's "Good Omens" includes a bit about even people who
grow up as Satanists leading lives of unassuming mediocrity most of
the time, and saying the words at Black Mass without thinking about
what they mean.)
Post by Rebecca Loaderor even something more
experiential (without, I stress, seeking to convert anyone to anything).
One thing I'd like to know would be what it means for an entire
country to have flipped backwards and forwards between being
Protestant and Catholic several times in the course of a century. I
cannot see that what a given person actually believed will have
flipped like this. What they _said_ they thought may have done, I
guess.
Post by Rebecca LoaderPost by Adam AtkinsonPost by Rebecca Loaderand helps them to reflect on 'questions
of meaning' in their own lives?
I don't understand this bit.
It's a bit jargony, perhaps, but part of the stated aim of RE is to
encourage pupils to reflect on what they learn.
The "questions of meaning" makes me think of the Fast Show "Ralph and
Ted" sketch where Ted says something along the lines of "The way I see
it, Sir, you're born, and then you die, and anything in the middle,
well that's a bonus."
Post by Rebecca LoaderIf there's a place to talk
about God and religious matters, then kids can at least have some kind of
open, questioning discussion about, for example, the (non-) existence of a
divine and the implications of that in their own lives.
At least in my school, I fear the "open discussion" part would not
really have gone anywhere. ("Not the Nine O'Clock News" sketch again:
this time, the "Hey, Wow!" kids TV one.) Of course, not all schools
need be like mine.
Post by Rebecca LoaderPost by Adam AtkinsonI think at least some religious parents would rather their children
didn't attend the sort of RE I would regard as worthwhile.
Parents have the legal right to withdraw their children from RE, but
obviously mass withdrawal isn't desirable!
I'd like to imagine that RE can/should include stuff like how
religions get started (which I think Matthew mentioned as well), but
you can see how this could be tricky to do. Would you have to say
"Well, Mormons would tell you this, ... but everyone else would tell
you..." and similar for each religion?
I'd also like to think that RE should perhaps include things like "Why
do people believe (whatever)?" with reference to, say, copper
bracelets, crystal healing, astrology, dowsing, the Loch Ness Monster
(yes, "Not the Nine O'Clock News" again) or even France existing, Carl
Sagan's invisible intangible silent weightless dragon, or my
universe-creating cat. But maybe this is really Philosophy or General
Studies, or listing crystal healing and dowsing along with people's
religions would risk annoying their parents enough to lead to a mass
withdrawal.
And, of course, (a) what does religion X claim will happen to people
who aren't members (whether or not it makes any attempt to convert
people) and are there things that even non-members are or aren't
supposed to do and (b) what does religion X claim will happen to members who
don't do whatever it is they're supposed to do? (e.g. in Judaism the
answer to (b) seems to be "nothing", though I'm told one mitzvah is to
do all the others in the right spirit. But if there are no positive or
negative consequences associated with wearing mixed fabrics, or opening
packets of biscuits on a Saturday, what difference does it make?)
--
Adam Atkinson (***@mistral.co.uk)
Only some kind of a numbskull thinks he knows things about things he
knows nothing about. (Amy Archer)