Learning to Lead in RE: Research as a Travelling Companion (Part 2)

In part 1 of this blog, I described my initial motivations of choosing relevant research linked to my classroom teaching and how these articles helped my thought processes. In part 2 I will continue this story by delving more into the classroom practice of others and how these examples have helped shape what I now do in the classroom.

This leads to the work of Kevin O’Grady and Robert Jackson (2020) with their piece on Year 7 views on RE. They focus on how setting clear ground rules for discussion on religious and ethical issues can improve the learning journey for the learners. This is very closely linked to the enquiry base of P4C and also gives an ownership of the learning process to the learners. Add to this contact with faith representatives and non-religious groups helps the learners construct better modes of motivation and relevancy of RE in their studies. This can hopefully lead to better evaluation and understanding of the worldviews held by believers, and this then leads to the better development of hermeneutical awareness.

If O’Grady and Jackson stress pupil self-awareness, Ruth Flanagan (2021) has shown that the same need applies to teachers. Her article on how teachers need to become conscious of their own worldview has really highlighted to me how we should be wary of just taking our worldview and imposing it in the classroom – even just by the selection of what we teach.

As Flanagan points out, we need to become worldview- conscious, providing scaffolding and support with which to read and evaluate the worldviews of others. Rob Freathy and Helen John echo this in their “Worldviews and Big Ideas” work (2019): the clearest link to make here would be between Flanagan’s worldview consciousness and Freathy and John’s view that the set of Big Ideas needs expansion, to become aware of our own position and to be able to reflect on how our own life has ben shaped by our experiences which culminates in our personal worldviews.

Where is the place of objective criticality in all of this? Jawonyi (2014) expounds the value of critical thinking and evaluation and how it is necessary in our teaching. Certainly in the AQA Religious Studies Specification of 2017, the value of evaluation is 50% of the marks available. It is also a key skill within most syllabuses, where evaluation is asking the learners of how an idea, belief or practice fits into their lived experience and worldview and also into the worldviews of others.

Let me begin to summarise by turning to Martha Shaw and Adam Dinham’s work (2020) about how RE is being reimagined in the classroom. Using examples from five diverse school settings they show that great quality RE is being delivered through a range of different approaches. In these examples, religion and worldviews are interpreted by the learners to show both how they overlap and differ. A common agreement is that we should be worldview conscious and able to challenge our own assumptions, beginning by looking at religion and worldviews from a local perspective and expanding our horizons outwards.

For the past six months or more I have been on a research journey. This blog has not covered everything that I have read but has touched upon those sources that have come out with key ideas and views that I have reflected upon. Each of these articles has helped me look at how I teach and what I teach in the classroom. The ways in which learners are asked to evaluate and interpret texts, beliefs and ideas needs more structure; teachers and learners need better self-awareness of their own positionality and worldviews; that good RE can be taught in different ways, harnessing a range of resources and styles, to produce an effective and enjoyable learning experience. These are important points to consider in what we plan, teach, and develop.

Before I taught what was in front of me, using my own interests as a guide to what I wanted in the grand scheme of things. Now I ask myself “Why? Why do I want to teach that? What is the process that we are going through? How will we build or use that understanding or knowledge?” In my mind this has made me a better practitioner and teacher of RE as I have had to think about the process that I go through, almost to the point that it is now second nature.

References

Flanagan, R (2021) Implementing a Ricoeurian lens to examine the impact of individuals’ worldviews on subject content knowledge in RE in England: a theoretical proposition: British Journal of Religious Education, 43:4, 472-486 Online article can be found here

Freathy, R & John, H.C. (2019) Worldviews and Big Ideas: A way forward for Religious Education? Nordidactica, Journal of Humanities and Social Science Education, 2019:4 Online article can be found here

Jawoniyi, O (2015) Religious Education, Critical Thinking, Rational Autonomy, and the Child’s Right to an Open Future: Religion & Education: Vol 42: 1, 34-53 Online material can be found here

O’Grady, K & Jackson, R (2020) ‘A touchy subject’: teaching and learning about difference in the religious education classroom: Journal of Beliefs & Values: Vol 41:1, 88-1-1 online article can be found here

Shaw, M & Dinham, A (2021) Innovative teaching and learning of religion and worldviews in schools, Innovative RE: Case studies, Goldsmiths, University of London Online material can be found here