A Subject for our Time: Socio-Emotional Learning in Dialogic RE

The NEU’s Daniel Kebede’s call for philosophy to be embedded in the school curriculum to help pupils engage with difficult topics such as the war in Gaza advocates a dialogic approach. Literature on how to teach challenging material posits discursive pedagogy (Hand & Levinson, 2012; Rudduck, 1986; Solomon, 1990) in which the teacher is a true collaborator and co-convenor, not a status symbol with privileged knowledge. Certainly, RE is conducive to the dialogic approach (Vrikki et al., 2019) that is much addressed at the University of Cambridge; for example, the ‘exploratory talk’ of Mercer and Littleton (2007) and the co-construction of the essential ‘dialogic gap’ (Wegerif, 2011).

In RE, we ignore the socio-emotional dimension of dialogic pedagogy at the peril of our ‘dialogically safe’ (Ucan et al., 2023) classrooms. I suggest a cardinal feature of the pedagogical complexity in addressing conflicting views is the teacher’s navigation of the moral emotion aroused in the room. This requires of its teachers a willingness – and perhaps a professional courage – to receive, acknowledge and make sense of the inevitable emotional biproducts of dialogue on difficult and sometimes controversial topics. The function of the RE teacher here is reflective of Bion’s concept of ‘container-contained’ (1961/1989), that may be understood as a metaphor for the receiving, thinking about and returning in a ‘desaturated’ (Vermote, 2019) or digested state the emotional information we are handed. We see this being applied to the teacher-pupil relationship (Bibby, 2011; Garrett, 2020; Price, 2002; Salzberger-Wittenburg, 1983/2018; Youell, 2006/2018) and it has particular potency for socio-emotional development in a dialogic RE classroom.

The ‘safe spaces’ of RE classrooms will never be devoid of emotion, nor should they be. With our RS PGCE Students, we explore this containing function that allows for thoughts to be turned into thinking (Bion, 1961/1989) and for the group to learn to mirror this function for its members. This is contributive to the learners’ development, allowing exploration of the deeper questions of identity (Waddell, 2018) which are part of the day-to-day of RE teaching and learning. The teacher acts as a container for the moral emotion and hands it back to the pupil in a thought-about state, the process often needing repeating several times. This might be, for example, an emotionally laden statement in an ethics lesson, or perhaps a visceral silence or reluctance to dialogue due to fearfulness, anxiety or even moral certitude.

RE teachers are in a prime position to address the lack of confidence Kebede refers to among teachers addressing difficult topics. Our pedagogy can provide a containing space, attentive to the emotional biproducts of dialogic work: sometimes fearfulness or anger at social injustice that need making sense of, and sometimes compassion, hope and desire for action that need harnessing. This is fertile ground for the deeper learning the subject must require of our pupils.

References

Bion, W. (1989). Experiences in Groups. East Sussex: Routledge. (Original work published 1961)
Hand, M. & Levinson, R. (2012). Discussing Controversial issues in the Classroom. Education Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 44, No. 6, pp.614-629
Mercer, N. & Littleton, K. (2007). Dialogue and the Development of Children’s Thinking: A Sociocultural approach. Routledge.
Solomon, J. (1990). Discussion of Social issues in the Science Classroom. Studies in Science Education, Vol. 18 (1), p.105-126
Ucan, S., Kılıç Özme.n Z., & Taşkın Serbest, M. (2023). Understanding the cognitive and socio-emotional dimensions of dialogic teaching and learning approach. International Journal of Curriculum and Instructional Studies, 13(1), 158-175. https://doi.org/10.31704/ijocis.2023.007
Vermote, R. (2019) Reading Bion. Routledge
Vrikki et al. (2019). Exploring dialogic space: a case study of a religious education classroom. Language and education, 2019-09, Vol. 33 (5), p.469-485
Waddell, M. (2018). On Adolescence. Routledge
Weale, S. (2024). Philosophy could help pupils discuss hard topics such as Gaza war, says NEU. The Guardian.
Wegerif, R. (2011). Towards a dialogic theory of how children learn to think. Thinking skills and creativity, 2011-2012 Vol 6 (3), p.179-190