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The Commission on RE is to be congratulated for such a wide-ranging report. I write my comments fully aware that it is much easier to criticise than it is create such a document.

The Commission articulates the need for RE to allow students ‘to reflect on their own worldview and consider the worldviews of those with different opinions’ and to give ‘a nuanced understanding of key social and political issues’ (1). This is not to be done through the presentation of religion in an essentialised manner (5), and the text emphasizes the need to consider how ‘communities maintain continuity in different times and contexts as the surrounding culture changes’ (8b).

However, I am wary that many teachers and students seem to interpret this as a study of the relationship between (religious) communities, as part of the wider promotion of cohesion. Students emphasise that RE discourages bullying of those who are different, because it generates empathy with other worldviews, and generates tolerance in a pluralistic environment (27). One teacher described how RE played a role in ‘celebrating diversity’ (73). And Ernst and Young stressed the role of RE in making students into effective members of diverse workplaces (28).

All three of these ideas are indeed social goods, but I worry that they correspond too closely to an instrumentalised view of RE as something that promotes cohesion by emphasizing the positive side of religion. In teaching CPD for Islam, I wonder whether teachers’ reluctance to teach anything that might be seen as negative may also impede their ability to historicise religious developments or to examine the social consequences of the behaviours mandated by religions. The need to contest Islamophobia is, of course, very understandable, but I argue that this is better done by differentiating between the unfair stereotyping of Muslims as a population and the possibility of critiquing Islam as a worldview.

After reviewing textbooks for Islam in RE for a forthcoming publication, I was struck by the failure to present the diversity of Islamic belief and practice. This was not just a matter of group divisions (eg. Sunni and Shia), but also issues like the wearing of the veil, of male and female circumcision, the creation of human images or the consumption of alcohol. As Shahab Ahmed has recently argued, this diversity of practice (in the past and the present) is often sacrificed to a single normative vision, created by those recognised as spokesmen for a majority.

This majoritarian bias can silence the voices of others, and RE needs to ensure that teaching recognises that a diversity of texts and precedents that are used to authorise behaviour. This censorship has real effects in the classroom. For instance, the sociologist Kathryn Spellman reflects on how Muslim students may seek to present themselves as real Muslims (by wearing the hijab, for instance) and cause other students to categorise anyone who does not do the same as non-Muslim.

My review also highlighted the absence of any discussion of the social consequences of ideas. RE tends to concentrate on how practices are justified and embedded into a worldview. But I think its remit should also include how communities are created and policed through these practices. One textbook I read (Steve Clarke, Religions to Inspire for KS 3. Islam, 57ff.) describes a Muslim girl meeting non-Muslim classmates for the first time and explaining that her father would never allow her to wear revealing Western clothes. She tells them that she prefers not to socialise with non-Muslims and that she can only eat halal food. One of the students in this teaching example observes ‘isn’t that a bit racist’, to which she says, ‘It’s not like that…it’s just that people from western backgrounds have different values’.

This textbook should be applauded at one level for discussing the social reality of differences in religious practice, and allowing students to reflect on what such encounters might feel like. But the learning objective here seems limited to an observation of the differences that exist between religious communities. I think this is exactly the kind of area where there needs to be an examination of how ‘communities maintain continuity in different times and contexts.’ Religious worldviews in diaspora contexts can act to preserve migrant social networks from contacts with outsiders, partly because of the wish to marry second-generation migrants with spouses from the homeland. And this in turn means that social contact (and therefore interpersonal trust) with members of other groups is discouraged. It is precisely these sorts of social consequences that I think ought to be considered in RE, and the sociology of religion and the sociology of migration provide rigorous academic contexts for doing so.

Several commentators quoted in the Commission stressed the lack of RE teachers’ subject knowledge (eg. 105, 251), and this compounds an inability to engage with material that has political and social significance. But I would be wary of giving religious authorities themselves a monopoly on the provision of CPD to enhance subject knowledge. Though they will have important theological knowledge and be able to discuss their ‘community’s’ presence in British society, it is necessary to combine their observations with the perspectives of sociologists of religion. We can, with theologians, ask how a discourse functions within a worldview, but, as sociologists and historians of religion, we also need to consider how discourses function etically, how traditions preserve communal boundaries and the vested interests that benefit from these boundaries. To my mind, this would be an example of ‘understand[ing] how worldviews work and their impact on individuals, communities and society’ (119e).

I was impressed by the Commission’s willingness to consider Communism or nationalism as worldviews alongside ‘religion’ (20). To mind, this is crucial to our ability to acknowledge that worldviews have a political and social impact. This in turn is a key reason to engage with the worldviews of others: they are our co-citizens and the sum of our worldviews will constitute the society that we share. However, we need to be cautious about accepting all claims that adherents make about what the social and political impacts of their ideas are. Precisely because we are accustomed to think about politics as a matter of choice, I think that including ideologies like Communism alongside ‘religions’ carries the implication that all worldviews should be chosen by informed citizens rather than inherited by bearers of tradition. Furthermore, an understanding that different worldviews have different social and political consequences is as much a part of assessing their validity as their moral or theological claims about themselves.

It was a particularly drab morning, not unlike the one I am writing this on, when I arrived to work. Cold and wet, the lights in my classroom flickered on slowly (I couldn’t blame them, I had felt the same that morning) but the harsh darkness form outside still seemed to penetrate and the room didn’t feel much brighter as a result.

I slumped into my chair and the computer slowly churned into action, I looked around the room and realised that I felt pretty uninspired. Not by the job, I love teaching more than anything and it wasn’t because of the school, a place more welcoming and vibrant that any place I had ever worked. But the four walls that surrounded me, they didn’t inspire me and if they didn’t inspire me, then how could I expect the environment to inspire the pupils I am teaching?

Now, I would like to think that I teach lessons which engage pupils and that pupils feel at least a little inspired by my lessons. Even if they didn’t, it’d be a little strange for me to admit it here. But there was just something about the room that wasn’t doing it for me and I knew that I needed to change that.

As I sat there pondering for a good ten or fifteen minutes, the computer gradually dragging itself towards the log-in screen the whole while, wondering what I could do with my display boards so that pupils could get the most out of them it struck me. Why was I so worried about the display boards, which while they may be excellent records of outstanding pupil work and ever-obvious displays of key terms and words, they were ultimately fairly passive. Pupils might look at them, but they weren’t interacting and having to engage with them.

What I needed to focus on was all the space between, the space covered in the lurid and off-putting shade of green that had been there for longer than I’d care to image (although it may be comparable to the computer boot time). I needed to turn the room into a learning environment, one where pupils are the active participants in the creation and sharing of content, not one where I’d laboured for hours to create a display that I’d be terrified of pupils getting too close to.

The idea may have come to me in a dream one night, but it seems more likely that it was something I’d seen online, but never really registered at the time. Something which lurked, my subconscious recognising that I would need it at some point, but that it would let me reach that conclusion myself rather than prompting me to it. I dread to think how often it is doing that for me. On that cold dreary morning, my subconscious finally gave up the secret it had held on to for some time.

Chalkboard paint. I needed to paint my walls with chalkboard paint.

It was so painfully obviously that I was a little embarrassed at how long it had taken me to realise, but I’m blaming that cold, dreary morning and maybe the lack of coffee that morning.

As grand plans go, this one was pretty easy and far less time consuming than I had first envisaged (aided in part to a certain online retailer’s guarantee of next day delivery). What I was surprised at was how tiny the pot of paint was. I began to make plans of how to scale down my project, ‘start small and build up’ I thought to myself. I was also kindly aided by the site team who did a base coat of black paint for me (although it works great without one as well). As soon as I’d started painting I had to upscale my plans, to way bigger than I had originally planned and before I knew it a large part of my classroom was decidedly darker than it had been half an hour before.

I was actually quite impressed with the job that I’d done, I’d never really thought of myself as handy, but I like to feel I’d done a good job. There wasn’t much time to rest on my laurels, it was 6pm, the caretaker was wanting to lock up, I quickly took a photo so that I could show everyone I knew that I was quite the painter and decorator, in case they were looking for anyone, packed my stuff up and headed out into the driving rain to plan how I was going to use my new walls the next day.

The next day came, Year 8 were lined up outside the door and I was armed with my box of chalk (something I had initially forgotten I would need as part of this project). As they calmly and quietly (poetic licence) entered the classroom hushed whispers quickly spread, ‘why are the walls black?’ or ‘maybe sir is a goth’ were heard several times. As they sat down, eyes focussed on the wall more than they were me one finally decided to ask.

As I explained and told them that they would need a piece of chalk, one nervous hand slowly appeared from the back of the room, ‘this isn’t a test is it sir? Like, if we write on it then you’re actually going to give us a detention for vandalism.’ If anything the opposite, I would have been annoyed if they hadn’t ‘vandalised’ my room, provided that it was ‘educational vandalism’.

At first, they were cautious, but then the ideas and discussions started to flow – I was pushing them with medical ethics. They were having the difficult job of explaining their views on genetic engineering and applying some of the key words (like Sanctity of life) that they had learned over the past few lessons. Before I knew it, a whole wealth of knowledge was covering my walls and the clear, colourful lines linking ideas made it all stand out. A bright a brilliant display of the knowledge they had, which went way beyond what I could have expected from them, as they explored the ethical ideas (religious and secular).

The very public venue for their ideas meant that they were there for all to see, not hidden away in their exercise books. Pupils were able to discuss and debate with others attacking and defending points of view. They could also build on other points, the colours of the chalk making it clear who thought what.

Was this just a fluke? I had after all started with one of my most engaged classes. So I tried it out with others, Year 12 started to dissect Situation Ethics and whilst Fletcher was in for a pretty tough time, it led to the class having a much deeper sense of how to build on and evaluate the ideas of others. Year 11 used the space to compare Sunni and Shi’a perspectives on Core Beliefs, after 40 minutes of focussed and frenzied work I had one of the best comparisons of the Six Articles of Faith and the Five Roots of Usul ad-Din that I had ever seen.

Now it would be bold, if not straight up crazy, to assume that it was the chalk and the walls that suddenly gave pupils this knowledge. They had it all along, but there was something about the way in which they were doing it which unlocked something, maybe it was just the sheer enjoyment of doing something that was so engrained in them as something that was wrong to do (it does seem a bit like vandalism), or maybe it was the public way it was done and they were showing pride in their work. There’s no way this could become too regular – otherwise the ‘novelty’ factor would certainly diminish, but it has become an essential tool in my teaching arsenal. One which pupils are regularly asking if they can do.

For a while I was content that I was using my walls more effectively. No longer were they dead space on which display boards were fixed. They had become an essential part of the living environment. So, I started to wonder where I could take it next.

I was soon noticing all of the ‘dead’ areas of a classroom, the things which had a functional purpose in the structure of a room suddenly I could see their potential as objects to be written on. It was at this point that I realised that I had either unleashed a treasure-trove of ideas, or I had finally lost it.
I quickly invested in some chalkboard pens (that large online retailer was making good business out of me) and before I knew it the windows and tables were soon adorned with the musings of Aristotle, Boethius and Kant.

A watershed moment for me recently was when an Assistant Head came into my classroom, as he looked around the room I felt a little nervous, what if he thought I was just encouraging pupils to commit vandalism? His eyes stopped scanning the room and rested back on me, I gulped. ‘I love what you’ve done with the room, it is really bringing the learning to life.’ I breathed a sigh of relief.

I know that the thought of this seems like chaos to some, but learning is messy. It shouldn’t just have to take place in exercise books with underlined titles and neat handwriting. I want pupils to explore some of the greatest ideas in the history of humankind, that’s a messy process and this looks like it as well. However, I can assure you that the learning environment that it creates is engaging, pupils remember what they’ve done and they take pride in the ideas that they have written on my tables, windows and walls.

There are only two downsides that I’ve experienced so far. One, eventually you will have to clean (though it is pretty quick) the walls, tables and windows every now and again and stop claiming that they are just always building on ideas that have come before. Two, pupils always keep asking when they are going to do it again, which I guess isn’t really a problem at all.

One of the biggest challenges facing religious educators is developing a language sophisticated, yet accessible enough, to convey the complexity of religious believing and belonging.

So often religion is misrepresented as a static, rigid set of rules to be followed, or as an indelible trait indistinguishable from someone´s ethnicity or nationality. You can either believe it or not; or you can either be it or not. One of the corollaries of this view of religion is that you may even not get a choice of whether other people think you are ‘it’ or not.

Perhaps the group most misrepresented in both the classroom and outside of it in these respects are those who we would call ‘Muslims´. Muslims are easily identified: they have five pillars of their faith. They believe in God. They pray five times a day. They don’t eat pork or drink alcohol. Women wear headscarves. And they come from the Middle East.

This is all textbook. But these facts will either be a gross reduction of something much deeper in real people’s lives, or only partially match up with a given person’s take on things. Someone who does not do any one of those things may call themselves ‘Muslim’ or find themselves being called ‘Muslim’. Conversely, plenty of other people who are not Muslims may pray five times a day, not drink alcohol, or wear a headscarf.

The problem is religion quite often ‘sticks’ once someone ascribes it to someone. Along with this can come all kinds of baggage. What does being a Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness mean, for example? We might speculate or gossip.

The power of cultural representations is key here. People sort other people into categories using the material they have around them. If there weren’t a representation of what a Muslim is, we wouldn’t be able to label someone with it. RE helps do that sometimes.

The scholar Stuart Hall, who first asked the question ‘Who needs identity?’, developed this powerful concept for understanding issues of race. In so doing he inaugurated a whole new tradition of social analysis, known as cultural studies. On this view, race is a socially constructed category through which embedded power structures reinforce ongoing inequality.

But what is different now from when Hall first formulated identity theory, is that religion has become racialized in a similar way. This is particularly true of Islam. The powerful system of cultural representations and their associated stigmas and controversies is everywhere. What is ‘Muslim’ is beamed to us on TV, posted to us on social media and also told to us in RE. There is little one can do to change how one is represented or recognised in the face of these social forces. That is the power of identity.

A recent collection of research papers focusing on RE, published in the Oxford Review of Education, explores the implications of this for Muslims in schooling. In France, for example, the war against terror begins in primary school. Britain, it could be argued, fares little better, with its programme of ‘British’ values. In Sweden, secular norms make believing difficult, but also make one being recognised as Muslim problematic also.

One of the questions that interests me most about religious education is what students make of the curriculum representations of traditions that they have some connection with, and then what they do about those representations. How does it feel, for example, to be in a lesson about Islam, when you come from a ‘Muslim’ home? What do you do when someone teaches about 9/11 and the teacher asks you for your opinion, as though that is particularly relevant for you?

One possible response is what could be called disidentification. That is undermining the baggage of what other people think you are – a kind of disassociation. This is a subtle performance. It can include irony, humour, acceptance and refusal. When you disidentify you can take on others’ assumptions and throw them back at them. One striking form of this is minority groups’ adoption of slurs used to describe themselves. This inverts the power and the representation. You can see this in schools all the time.

The concept of identity is powerful. We need it to understand today’s young people and the complexities of today’s religious education. For we can find identity politics everywhere in RE, from debates about abortion and the existence of God, to the ongoing controversies over the nature and purpose of the curriculum itself. (‘Religious’ is an identity and so is ‘not religious’).

Religious identity is a useful theory for teachers to be familiar with. People can be trapped by harmful representations of identity, even in RE. From bad wallpaper adorning the houses of religious believers in textbooks of the 1980s, to ongoing preoccupation with terrorism, to the staid diktat of hard and fast denominational rules that never map onto your friends’ behaviour.

Yet identifying the nub of this problem reveals its solution. We cannot ignore religious identity. But religious identities have their limits, and when we push them, RE is all the richer.

Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther wrote 95 theses or propositions ‘on the power and efficacy of indulgences’, posting them on the church doors of Wittenberg, an act usually seen as the spark that lit the fire of the European reformation. Church doors, for Luther’s time, were the equivalent of our internet. In Luther’s honour, and with a similar intent of encouraging debate, I offer these 39 propositions on the writing of agreed syllabuses for Religious Education. Neither my subject matter nor my intellect can hope to match Luther’s; I doubt if I shall be tried for heresy or excommunicated; nevertheless, like him, I hope to provoke debate and change.

On quality

1. Agreed syllabuses are not all equal in quality. Some are more teachable and effective than others; some have more integrity than others. Municipal pride is not the same thing as pedagogical clarity.

2. Defenders of the agreed syllabus system make claims for its quality which may or may not be true of the system at its best. They seldom acknowledge the systemic weaknesses, or if they do, blame them on limited funding.

3. The fact that some agreed syllabuses work well does not make the whole system worth keeping. If a school had two good departments while the rest were inadequate, it would still fail its inspection.

4. Defenders of the agreed syllabus system raise the fear of a ‘national syllabus’, warning that it might be inappropriate in content, or poorly designed, or excessively prescriptive. Yet there are some agreed syllabuses which have these faults, and schools are stuck with them, if they follow them.

5. The agreed syllabus system allows RE to have different purposes in different counties or boroughs, and sometimes multiple purposes. This is a ridiculous state of affairs. It disables RE from being clear about its place in the curriculum. It weakens the teachers in their conversation with their head teacher and other decision makers.

6. The agreed syllabus system parochialises RE. In such a honeycombed structure, it is impossible for RE to respond nimbly to policy interventions or research outputs. The long-term consequence is that RE becomes a neglected backwater.

7. For those schools bound into it, the agreed syllabus system imposes layers of pedagogical and planning complexity which confuse, inhibit, confine, and distract the teacher. For example, a syllabus planning might have up to six variant choices the teacher must make before they select content. This level of elaboration is an adviser’s indulgence and a teacher’s nightmare.

8. The existence of multiple agreed syllabuses in training partnerships raises additional difficulties for trainees in RE.

9. Merely the fact that a teacher likes their agreed syllabus does not mean that they are teaching good RE.

10. Merely the fact that a teacher understands their agreed syllabus does not mean that they own a clear pedagogy.

11. Strong secondary RE departments tend to ignore their agreed syllabus. Weaker ones tend to be over-dependent on it.

On curriculum design

12. Curriculum design is rightfully a professional matter for teachers, working within school or Trust priorities and national parameters.

13. Agreed syllabus conferences, structured by stakeholder interests, have an inherent tendency to promote breadth over depth. This makes RE harder to teach, and clear progression virtually impossible to build in.

14. Agreed syllabus conferences have to reach agreement. Agreement is very often at odds with clarity. In this way, the design of clear learning in RE is habitually sacrificed to the reconciling of multiple vested interests.

15. When religion/belief representatives have a hand in writing or approving syllabuses, they want their share of the curriculum and they want their religion/belief shown in a good light. This utterly compromises the design of learning in RE.

16. Religion/belief representatives may be called in as speakers in schools, or as critical friends in the curriculum writing process. But they should not have a vote in curriculum-making.

17. Agreed syllabuses that have a range of six or more religions/beliefs, and a set of up to six pedagogical choices (such as: choose a strand, a concept, an enquiry question, match it with content, a skill, and an attitude) are imposing on teachers a burden of cumbersome methodological elaboration, while often remaining relatively silent about the actual content that should sit at the heart of good teaching.

18. Agreed syllabuses that brand themselves with portentous metaphysical titles are aggrandising themselves and their writers, instead of being a servant to teachers and to learning. The job of a syllabus is to itemise content, sequence, and measures of pupil success. It is not to obfuscate the teacher’s task in thrall to elaborate pedagogical or philosophical castles in the air.

19. Agreed syllabuses that enshrine ‘learning from’ religion as an outcome are presumptuous in assuming that pupils will see anything to learn from. For those who care about the continuance of religion as a recognised public good, ‘learning from’ is a false friend, intrusive and shallow: for religion will only be seen as a public good if it is adequately known and understood. For those who are suspicious of religion, or doubtful of its claimed benefits, ‘learning from’ is their confirmation that RE has a confessional agenda: for RE will only finally shed this lingering confessionalism when it embraces an empirical approach to teaching knowledge and understanding. For both these reasons, RE curriculum-making should focus on clearly sequenced content having accuracy and challenge.

On locality, freedom and inclusiveness

20. ‘Local’ determination is not local. Schools and small trusts are local. The system of so-called local syllabuses is a monopoly, though a shrinking one.

21. The notion that ‘local’ syllabuses can respond to local religion/belief demographics is a mistake, because diversity exists distinctively at community level, not county/borough level.

22. The notion that ‘local’ syllabuses give RE local colour and local priorities is false, because so many copy each other or are bought off the peg.

23. The notion that ‘local’ syllabuses should reflect a local religion/belief presence is wrong, because we want children to grow up with a knowledge and understanding of religion/belief at local, national and global levels.

24. The circle of stakeholders in SACREs and Agreed Syllabus Conferences is too narrow. If these bodies are to continue, they should take freedom seriously by including, by right, universities, parents, employers, museums/galleries, and young people, together with teachers, politicians, and religion/belief communities. All these categories have a legitimate interest in RE, but only teachers should write the curriculum.

25. The astonishing thing about those who claim ‘local’ syllabuses as a form of freedom is that they have no external quality assurance. When exponents of the agreed syllabus system argue that theirs is an accountable system, they are merely seeking to justify their monopoly by dressing it in democratic clothing.

26. Defenders of ‘local determination’ see themselves as heroic underdogs, guarding their freedom from the intrusions of a Leviathan state. In fact, the agreed syllabus system is the Leviathan: it is the enemy of school autonomy, creating unnecessary monopolies and restrictions. Professional freedom is best promoted by determining national parameters and setting schools free to interpret them in a truly local context.

27. For those schools bound into it, the agreed syllabus is often more prescriptive pedagogically than a national curriculum document, not less.

28. When several local authorities share an agreed syllabus, they have tacitly admitted that ‘local determination’ is not necessary.

29. ‘Local determination’ is the wrong phrase for the current system. It is not local enough, and it determines the wrong priorities.

On money

30. The creating of ‘local’ syllabuses is a pre-digital cottage industry, inefficient and wasteful.

31. If anyone wishes to defend the creating of ‘local’ syllabuses, let them first declare whether they earn income or professional esteem from the writing of them.

32. If a syllabus is elaborate or theory-heavy, it needs a paid adviser or consultant to ‘explain’ it to teachers.

33. Writers of syllabuses are experts in religious studies and pedagogy, who can get lost in the game of complexity and nuance.

On moving on

34. The legal requirement that agreed syllabuses ‘reflect the fact that religion in Britain is in the main Christian, while taking account of the teaching and practices of other principal religions’, no longer serves our identity as a nation. The requirement should be updated, and placed on schools, not local authorities.

35. Let us move on from an RE that is structurally marginalised, intellectually compromised, and chained to outmoded monopolies, to an RE that is nationally recognised, has clear pedagogical integrity, and sets schools free to plan and teach.

36. SACREs will be an asset to quality, curriculum design, freedom and inclusiveness, if they widen their range of legal stakeholders, accept that teachers alone should determine the RE curriculum, and offer services to enrich, exemplify and exchange insights for teachers.

37. SACREs will also be an asset to RE if they sever their links to collective worship. In community schools, it is urgent that RE break that chain.

38. It is within the RE community’s grasp to shape its future in this way. Chained to our present raft, we will sink before too long. Freed from it, we will float with new structures that guarantee our future.

39. And therefore, let RE professionals be confident enough to strive for a different and better future, freed from the agreed syllabus system, free to plan and teach with challenge and rigour, in ways appropriate to their own pupils.

Mark Chater is the Director of Culham St Gabriel’s Trust writing in a personal capacity

Last month saw the publication of the much awaited Interim report, Religious Education for All, by the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE). The tentative report might prove to be another milestone in the history of Religious Education (RE).

The Commission, though set up by the Religious Education Council for England and Wales (REC) was totally independent. It had members from a variety of backgrounds and expertise, including the law, academia and teaching. The aim of the Commission was to improve the quality and rigour of the subject and its capacity to prepare pupils for life in modern Britain.

The report has brought to attention some key issues, debates and controversies which have persisted since 1944. In this article, issues related to training teachers and RE are considered. Thereafter the proposals made by the CoRE to address the issues are presented to highlight the key role that ITT should play in moving RE forward.

A national entitlement for RE
The Commissioners have made initial recommendations in four areas. One of which is that there should be a national entitlement statement for RE which sets out clearly the aims and purpose of RE and what pupils should experience in the course of their study of the subject. It proposes that the entitlement should become normative through non-statutory guidance as early as possible, and should ultimately become statutory, either to supplement or to replace current legislation on agreed syllabuses. Importantly, it says that the national entitlement should apply to all state-funded schools including academies, free schools and schools of a religious character. On the other hand, independent schools should consider adopting the entitlement as an undertaking of good practice (CoRe 2017:7).

Lack of confidence
The Commission highlights the lack of confidence among teachers, especially at primary level. It relies on the APPG report RE: The Truth Unmasked, to note that half of all primary teachers did not feel confident in teaching RE. Similarly, the NATRE 2016 primary survey also found that a quarter of teachers that it surveyed did not feel confident to teach RE, but their sample was predominantly subject leaders, who, the report says, would be expected to feel more confident. Interestingly, the Commission adds that many teachers in Church of England primary schools also lacked confidence in teaching RE, and that, as a result, pupils’ learning was superficial (ACED 2014). It reiterates the findings of a survey of over 800 primary teacher trainees conducted by Bishop Grosseteste University in 2013 which revealed that 50% of teachers said they lacked confidence to teach RE.

Decline in subject-specific training
The main causes of lack of confidence were inadequate training and lack of subject knowledge. The Commission highlighted that many RE teachers receive little or no training. Based on the 2016 NATRE survey, it records that more than 1 in 4 respondents received no CPD in RE. 60% received less than one day in the previous year. Over 60% of recently qualified primary teachers who responded to the NATRE survey had 0-3 hours of training at ITE (over a 1-year PGCE or Schools Direct programme), compared to 20% of those who trained more than 11 years ago. The trend in relation to subject-specific training is also reported to be in decline. More recently qualified teachers have received, on average, fewer hours of training than those trained five or more years ago, according to the most recent NATRE primary survey. Furthermore, the oral and written evidence submitted to the Commission also expressed this concern which has led the Commission to state that the lack of subject knowledge leads to a lack of confidence to tackle the contentious issues that are the lifeblood of the subject, and can also reinforce misconceptions about religion.

Relevant qualifications
Another area of concern was that many RE teachers do not have relevant qualifications. In 50% of primary schools that responded to the 2016 primary NATRE survey, some RE was being delivered by a higher level teaching assistant. In 1 in 10 schools, between 25% and 50% of RE is delivered in this way.

Experience in school
The exposure to good quality RE in schools has also been identified as an area which requires addressing. Primary trainees, it reports, are unlikely to see good RE in their school placements, given that RE was less than good in six out of ten schools visited by Ofsted in 2013. Moreover, with so few schools offering good RE, it was difficult to find school placements with high quality RE teaching for all primary trainee teachers.

Disparity in training
There is disparity in the access to training and CPD across the different school types. Teachers and subject leaders in schools without a religious character are far less likely to have received any CPD in the past year than those in schools with a religious character, as shown in research conducted by the APPG in 2013. The NATRE primary and secondary surveys in 2015 and 2016 corroborated this evidence.

The way forward and the role of universities
From the above, it seems that one of the key findings of the Commission is that over the years there has been diminishing access to adequate training and support for teachers and that this was particularly acute at primary level.

In making the case for change, the Commission highlights the impact of training on the quality of teaching and learning. It notes that there was a clear link between access to training – both ITE and CPD – and the overall effectiveness of the subject.

To address some of these issues and to enhance the quality of the provision, their renewed vision for RE states that all teachers should have access to good initial training and CPD. They should engage with research on religions and worldviews in order to keep their subject knowledge up to date.

To improve teaching and learning in RE, the Commission is considering developing a National Plan along the lines of the National Plan for Music Education. Of the nine recommendations, the following are pertinent to teacher training:

• A minimum of 12 hours should be devoted to RE in all primary ITE courses.
• Leading primary schools for RE should be identified and all primary trainees should be given the opportunity to observe RE teaching in such a school.
• Include under the Teachers’ Standards, part 1, section 3 (Demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowledge), the requirement that teachers ‘demonstrate a good understanding of and take responsibility for the sensitive handling of controversial issues, including thoughtful discussion of religious and non-religious worldviews where necessary.’
• Restore funded Subject Knowledge Enhancement (SKE) courses for those applying to teach RE and for serving teachers of RE without a relevant post A-level qualification in the subject.
• Restore parity of bursaries for RE with those for other shortage subjects.
• University performance measures should be updated to credit universities for their engagement with schools, including the provision of continuing professional development (CPD) and resource materials.
• University staff conducting research in areas related to RE should be encouraged to contribute to grassroots networks, lead teacher development days, develop resource materials or become SACRE members. This may provide opportunities for them to demonstrate the impact of their research or increase student recruitment.

The report also notes that there are increasing expectations of teachers to be engaged with research by keeping up to date with published research at minimum, and where possible, by engaging in action research, lesson study and other forms of practitioner research. Indeed it found that teachers valued being able to access university lecturers and researchers in areas relevant to RE. In addition to the above recommendations, the Commission is seeking views on the kinds of research which would be most helpful for RE teachers to engage with, and what mechanisms would support this.

In the context where all schools become academies, the Commission sees universities as possible contributors for the development of programmes of study, should the requirement for local authorities to hold Agreed Syllabus Conferences be removed.

Conclusion
The above representation of RE should not be a distraction from the excellent standard and high quality examples of RE in existence in a large number of schools across the nation. Passionate and committed teachers, within different school types, are at the heart of this provision. Having said this, the RE community in particular is acutely aware of the challenges at various levels that the subject faces, some of which have been highlighted above.

The Commission clearly sees ITE providers as having an important role to play in improving the quality of RE provision. It realises that ITE providers can make positive contributions as conduits between researchers, practitioners and others. There are clear implications for ITE providers in terms of how they operate and with whom. Importantly, there are suggestions to enhance the overall makeup of the models for training future teachers to secure the future of the subject.

An online consultation process will run from mid-October to mid-December 2017 available here.

“Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.”

So quipped Oscar Wilde as part of a series of sarcastic epigrams entitled Phrases And Philosophies For The Use Of The Young.

Juxtaposing science and religion, Wilde contrasts two approaches to knowledge often thought to conflict, and asserts something often presumed of religion in the modern era: that it should rest on faith rather than proof. The thought-provoking statement that science provides a method of recording superseded belief systems suggests that we should consider a scientific approach to explaining them.

Wilde’s irony leaves his view of the value of religion ultimately ambiguous, however, because while suggesting religions are ephemeral in contrast to the stability of science, he simultaneously claims they can also be true and demonstrated as so.

Religious educationists are often at the centre of a similar kind of paradox. We may be accused of teaching dead religions, and we may even be sometimes tempted to think that our approach is incoherent, or our raison d’être anachronistic.

Wilde, writing in the 1890s, was playing with a well-acknowledged cultural tension surrounding Christianity that continues today, and has perhaps reached a crucial turning-point. Researchers of ‘unbelief’ have recently declared that the majority of Britons have no religion, while pressure groups, like the National Secular Society argue that the role of religion in public life and education should be radically rethought.

In addition to a being a sensible interpretation of contemporary sociological data, to posit the death of religion in Britain also rests upon, and is sometimes used to support, a certain view of history. One narrative of Western civilization is the triumph of reason over superstition, the achievements of the scientific method, and of the boons of democratic governance over that of the divine right of kings. According to this view, the record of dead religions is the story of how religion rose and fell giving way to the greater enlightenment, technological superiority and social amelioration of modernity.

To negotiate ongoing debates about religion in the classroom and in their curriculum planning, religious educators need to identify and engage with this implicit view of history. We also need to understand the relevance of history for religions more generally. By this I do not suggest that religious education should become like the curriculum subject History. Rather, I mean any treatment of religion, including that retold to students of all ages and abilities, needs to be understood within its historical context.

In one of the most famous non-fiction books written in English, The Story of Art, E. H. Gombrich makes a startling assertion for an Art Historian: there is no such thing as art. This is because, he argues, despite always being contingent on the art of the past, the word ‘art’ has meant different things at different times. Gombrich’s bold statement provides a useful analogy for religion. For we could say that there is no such thing as religion, or at least, whatever ‘religion’ may be defies precise definition and its meaning has changed over time. Indeed, this is perhaps more true of religions than works of art, for we now use the word ‘religion’ to group together a series of sometimes disparate and unconnected historical movements, which each themselves have created their own interpretation of the past – among other things.

The English sociologist of religion Edward Bailey made the astute observation that what is often thought of as religion in England are those things connected with two dominant movements in Anglicanism: the evangelical movement of the 18th century and the Anglo-Catholic revival of the 19th. To many, extremism aside, the Dibley-esque image of a mannerly person in a dog-collar and the musty smell of old pews are probably what first comes to mind when they hear the word ‘religion’. Common perceptions of religion are often of a mythical past and may have little to do with living religions, or the way religions are lived.

The word ‘religion’ itself belies studying religion through an ahistorical lens. Coming from the Latin verb ‘to bind’, religare, in the middle ages (and still today in Catholicism), to be religious meant to be bound to monastic vows rather than to be a believer (belief becoming much more important in the modern age). This entails the confusing prospect of there being ‘secular’ priests, i.e. those who are not members of religious orders.

Like the story of art, the story of religion begins in antiquity and in the historical movements we commonly call religions, we see continuities from those distant times. However, the narrative of different religions occupying the same psychological/spiritual and social/political space is arguably a relatively new one, particularly in the field of education. Previously in England, ‘religion’ meant Christianity. Further back in time, ‘Christianity’ meant the Established Church. Often religious educators make the assumption that while people may have different religions, they are essentially the same apart from in the content of people’s beliefs. Religions require obligations that are similar: rites of passage, pilgrimage, adherence to authority, ‘following’ scripture etc. But as anyone who has a deep experience of any one particular tradition will concede, each religion actually makes fundamentally different claims, often in conscious opposition to their historical competitors.

In a short book, Why Study the Past?, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, sets out the importance of church history for Christians. Narratives about the past are told to help us understand who we are and why we are like we are. Christianity is a religion that relies on testimonies to historic events, including that God became man. History and theology must therefore engage in dialogue to inform each other.

Returning back to school this September, teachers of religious education face the perennial problem of helping students make sense of religion. This is in no way straight forward. As Wilde’s wit illustrates, religion is not something that rests on ‘scientific’ knowledge yet at the same time it can be studied, somewhat like a science. Furthermore, as I have argued, our understanding of what constitutes our subject matter, religion, is historically contingent. And here lies another problem, for in religious education we need to encounter religions in all their diversity while also negotiating the modern view that religions can somehow be condensed into the category of ‘religion’. Even this category can skew our investigation and make inaccessible the important realization that any view about religion comes hand in hand with a particular view of history and from a specific location in time.

So what can we do as religious educators when faced with such responsibilities, and when such controversies divide opinion (or perhaps worse still, when religious controversies are no longer controversial)?

The great historian of religions, Arnold Toynbee, observed that his own ‘view of history is in itself a tiny piece of history’. Perhaps placing our own religious perspectives before us and recognizing their part in our personal histories is one good place to start. This reflection enables us to engage with the complexities of religion and consider our potential impact on the perspectives of students. One task of religious education is to understand the nuances and radical differences that may exist between those identifying with any given religion. It is in these complexities that we can find the excitement of religious education and its relevance. Religious education dies if we make naïve assumptions about the past. To study religions is to apprehend the complexity of living histories.

Philip Larkin’s Church going is a curriculum staple in English literature. Written, to paraphrase one of the poet’s other famous lines, ‘around the time of the Chatterley ban’, it typifies, perhaps, a distinct attitude to religion held by many of his generation. Walking inside the church with ‘awkward reverence’, Larkin considers the past significance of such a serious building in an age when religious belief has given away to rationalism and lost even the meaning of superstition.

But 60 years after Larkin wrote that poem, a functioning parish church still stands in every community in Britain. In this blog I do not consider the myriad significance of this brute fact – from the role of the church in providing solace during disasters as we have sadly seen recently in West London, to the provision of all kinds of amenities and services that make it a part of the social fabric of British society.

My focus in this blog is not social fabric, but fabric itself: the very materiality of the parish church and what that can mean for religious education. I have written in previous blogs about material religion which is, among other things, the study of religion as material culture. A key text in this movement is Richard Kieckhefer’s Theology in Stone (which inspired the title of this blog). In this book Kieckhefer examines church architecture throughout Christian history in order to establish the relationships between design, belief and use.

The first lesson of the materiality of the parish church is that they are so ubiquitous that you scarcely acknowledge them. And here is the upside and downside. Whether you live in a rural, urban or suburban area, there is likely one very near your school. The downside, perhaps no one has made contact with it. With some organisation, more staffing for an hour or two, and a risk assessment there are ample lessons there. You could say that this would bring religious education to life, but visiting an empty, cold church is unlikely to do that. For art can only make sense with sustained interest and contextual knowledge. Parish churches may not represent the living faith as much as a museum of religious ideas that can be slowly understood by the decoding of symbols.

Parish churches are places of worship, but they are also physical manifestations of the history of Britain. They are architectural and artistic records of the changing theologies of elites, and the persistent beliefs of the people. While every parish church is unique, there are some commonalities among them. Church spotting is a worthwhile hobby for which there are several good books. Sir Nikolaus Pevsner’s Buildings of England remain the series of choice for the discerning visitor, not least because every Parish church is registered in them.

Churches changed over time. Things have been removed and changed and new parts built. Important periods are Saxon (until 1066), Norman (or English Romanesque until the late 12th century), and then the Gothic, which includes the sub/varieties of Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular.

The word ‘Gothic’ was used on the continent as a derogative term for the buildings that came before the renaissance. But, in England, because of the reformation, church building stopped more or less, until the English baroque after the restoration of the monarchy (which saw a period of church building in London by the likes of Sir Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor). During the Victorian era, when romantic interest in the medieval parish church and the funds to renovate them coincided, many churches were rebuilt or refurbished, but in a new Gothic style. This can be confusing. For example, Westminster Abbey is genuine gothic (11th century), but next to it the Victorian Palace of Westminster is neo-Gothic (19th century). Many parish churches will have parts from the Norman, Gothic and Victorian periods.

The symbolism of churches can be overwhelming. I now overview just a few features that represent examples of the kinds of material theology to be found. (Taylor’s How to read a church is one good place for the aspiring symbologist to read further).

Before the church itself, it is worth noting that the church yard is full of meaning. The church is orientated on an East-West axis, with the altar at the East towards the rising sun. As well as tombstones and their inscriptions, the evergreen trees are also symbols of eternal life (because they don’t drop their leaves). Yews are common and the oldest of these (which can be thousands of years old) certainly pre-date church structures in some parishes. They mark the pre-Christian burial sites on which many older churches were built.

Pre-reformation parish churches were originally built for the celebration of the Catholic Mass, and because of the belief that art could do for the illiterate as writing could do for the literate, as expounded by Pope St Gregory the Great and others, churches were adorned with images (Photograph 1).

Photograph 1 shows a reconstructed medieval church as it would have appeared in about 1530. It is quite different from most parish churches today. The rood screen is a wooden structure that separates the altar from the nave. ‘Rood’ comes from the Saxon word for cross. The priest would have celebrated mass behind this screen. During the 1540s, rood screens were cut down and images painted over. (The reformers saw the use of images and statues as a form of idolatry). In many parish churches you can see where the rood screen would have been placed (such as stone stairs, holes or even trimmed-down wood panels), and more rarely traces of paint from medieval frescoes. In some churches rood screens have been replaced entirely, or with a simpler structure.

Whatever changes have taken place, old things are likely to have survived. As infant baptism has remained an aspect of the reformed church (although rejected by Baptist denominations), many fonts pre-date the churches they are found in. Photograph 2 shows a 13th century font in a largely 15th century church.

Architecture reflects the use of the buildings. One feature of interest often visible in medieval churches is the piscina, a basin used to wash sacred vessels. Due to the Catholic teaching of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, consecrated bread and wine were never disposed of. However, water used to wash vessels and hands that had been in contact with the Eucharistic species was returned directly to the ground through the piscina which had a conduit to the church’s foundations. Photograph 3 shows a piscina next to a sedilia, three seats in wall niches for clergy to sit during the Mass.

‘Cause we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl
You know that we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl

Now, in 1984, Madonna wasn’t making a philosophical comment about the physical world that we experience. She in fact claimed that it was an ironic statement about how she was not a materialistic person, even in a world where she can afford anything she could want. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/madonna-looks-back-the-rolling-stone-interview-20091029?page=3

But the question of the relationship between the material (physical) world and the virtual often crops up in Religious Studies. It’s one of those great questions that can open minds, or create existential crisis (which is something Year 9 love first thing on a Monday morning – although three terms later some may still not have recovered).

Too often we find ourselves stuck in the material world, limited by the resources we have, the ones that we can hold; textbooks, artefacts, and photographs amongst others, but why? Sure, they provide us with a valuable window into a world of which we are outsiders, but why would we want to ‘peer in’ when virtual reality can allow us to be surrounded by, and to become a part of that community?

I recently made a small investment into a 360 degree camera. You can easily find these going for £100s, but more likely £1000s, but I managed to get mine for just over £100. It’s not going to win any Oscars, but given this year’s mishaps at the ceremony I’m not ruling that possibility out completely.

A 360 degree camera is one, at the most basic level, which uses two 180 degree fisheye cameras, this means that it can photograph, or film, everything around you. It then stitches the two 180o photos, or recordings, to create one complete picture or film. Even on a basic 360 degree camera the stitch line (the point where the two images are put together) is almost undetectable, meaning that when you view it, it is like you are there in the place where the photograph or video was taken.

So why would I want a piece of kit like this?

The benefits of the virtual world are huge, you can create fully immersive experiences. For example, you might be teaching pupils about Holy Buildings, we all know the benefits of a field trip, how rich that experience can be. Not all of us are near to any of the Holy Buildings that we are studying, or the red-tape that is required to plan and organise a trip is much too burdensome on your time. Virtual reality allows you and your pupils to have that rich experience. You can put the textbooks away, make the small investment into a device like Google Cardboard. For many of you this is just one in a series of products you may have heard of that is pre-fixed with ‘Google’ but that you have very little idea what it is.

Google Cardboard is Google’s attempt to make virtual reality cheap and easily accessible – it’s a pre-cut piece of cardboard with two lenses and a strap to attach to your head. The cardboard itself folds up, allowing you to put a mobile phone inside. The fact that you have a fancy piece of cardboard and no fancy technology like you would in an Oculus Rift or Playstation VR means you can buy them for around £5 online, with some bulk-buying deals pushing the price down to around £2-3 a unit. Given that a class set might set you back £60-90 but realistically you would only need a few and to have the pupils rotate through activities.

Now, to experience virtual reality at this cost you are going to have to rely on a smartphone. That can be a challenge for a variety of reasons in the classroom, whether that be school policy, Wi-Fi quality, pupils not owning smartphones. However, it’s highly likely that the smartphone that you, or your pupils (or at least enough that they may be happy to share) will have will be suitable and in most cases very capable of doing a good job at creating an immersive experience.

You do not have to rely on pre-curated content as there is a huge range of content online Youtube has its own 360 degree section (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzuqhhs6NWbgTzMuM09WKDQ) and in fact the first feature length film to be made using virtual reality was a retelling of the life of Jesus which, although a revolutionary step, reviews have not been favourable.

There are a handful of apps out there and the list of available ones is steadily growing. You will have to dig through those apps however, as the focus of these is more to do with rollercoasters and dinosaurs than anything that might immediately jump out as being relevant to RE – at this point focussing on Apps is not important. As the ‘novelty’ factor disappears and more awareness develops as to the educational potential of virtual reality, then the available apps will become less gimmicky and more purpose-built and curated – as has been seen in some of the virtual reality apps designed for medical education.

Using pre-existing content is the easiest way to get started – I’ve seen a lot of great content that people have made from being on Hajj – it’s quite easy to use, you just play a 360 degree video on the Youtube app, make sure it’s in the headset and it’s job done. It’s a gentle introduction to get that much-needed experience, and once you start feeling more confident you can run them through other apps or websites to really enrich the experience – Google Streetview is a great place to find 360 degree photos from all around the world at a range of stunning locations.

If you are really wanting to enrich the virtual reality experience then ThingLink is essential, although it does come at a cost. They obviously noticed the gap in the market and decided that virtual reality was not interactive enough and allow you (for a slightly higher price) to fully enrich an already interactive experience – you can embed links, add in videos or add in textual descriptions, almost giving the virtual reality a tactile dimension as you can interact with and ‘act’ in that virtual world. Perhaps a tad overkill you might think, but probably a whole lot better than that pile of dusty textbooks you rely on for this kind of thing.

Whilst virtual fieldtrips might be the most obvious way of using virtual reality, it’s by no means the only way that virtual reality can be used in the classroom. Perhaps you want to create a murder mystery – now you could create this in a very engaging way without relying on virtual reality, but you could recreate a very realistic crime scene using either a 360 degree photo or video. Clues could be in the image and pupils are almost interacting directly with that crime scene. This could easily be linked to a topic such as euthanasia or suicide – placing students into the story as they try to ascertain what has happened.

Now, I’ve already alluded to, or given, some of the potential disadvantages (financial) and given the bleak economic outlook that schools are going to be faced with, this could create an even bigger obstacle and it would be totally unreasonable to expect teachers themselves to fork out for this kind of thing. Luckily, something like Google Expeditions – it‘s like going to a museum and having a tour, having your attention drawn to the details that you would miss if left to your own devices.

Expeditions provides a fantastic entry route into the world of virtual reality as the content has already been created. It allows you to choose what you want the pupils to view, and because the pupils must be connected to the same Wi-Fi, you can ensure that they are actually viewing the content that you want them to, not checking in on Facebook or watching unrelated videos on Youtube. There is also something special about the shared experience that really stimulates discussion and pupil interest is certainly peaked. It definitely seems like the knowledge gained sticks better than it might have with a simple textbook and pupils will be talking about it for weeks (maybe months) later.

That said, you do need some basics before you start downloading apps and moving to the virtual world of learning:

Does your school have decent Wi-Fi and do pupils have access to it? If not then you’re falling at the first hurdle – never ask a pupil to use their own data just to access the learning.

Does the school provide devices to pupils, or are pupils allowed their devices out for educational purposes? The difficulty here is that some pupils are without devices, some may have devices that are ‘too old’, or it may not have the relevant software or hardware. The other concern, are you going against school policy?

Do you have a clue what you’re doing? Test run the equipment a few times, there are still things which catch out the most proficient of tech users, but if the idea of technology scares you, then try it out before you use it in the classroom – maybe with a group of teachers who feel the same nervousness. The pupils are not the digital natives that you might imagine, if you’re a few steps ahead it’ll be fine.

Do you have a plan? Sure, EdTech can be cool and flashy, but unless there is a point or purpose, then do you really need to use it? Will it enhance the learning? If yes, go for it, if not steer clear.

There might be other questions to ask, but if you’ve overcome those above, then you’re heading in the right direction. The biggest obstacle is undoubtedly the cost, but this can be limited (if you rely on cheaper kit/pupil devices) but will for the time being have a price tag that reflects its newness and the fact that it’s awesome.

The simplest way is to try out something like Google Expeditions (you may even be able to get Google to come into your school to let you experience it with their fancy kit) which will limit the time and costs that you would have to put in yourself.

Ultimately my advice is to try it out, but don’t get too attached, you may end up liking it more than you do the real world.

The image of the explorer is a well-established trope. Intrepid, half scientist and half swashbuckler, the explorer is always cultivated, rational and technical discovering a world that is, by contrast, uncivilised, fanatical, backward. It is well entrenched in children’s games, books and film – at least in ‘the West’ (a category that arguably only exists because of such imaginaries).

That famous and supposedly humorous scene in Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy is confronted with the exaggerated display of a swordsman in an Egyptian souk –only to casually shoot him dead to the furore of an emotional crowd – serves as a good example. Indy, a university professor, overcomes the barbarian with technological superiority and cool headedness. If there weren’t so many other real-life incidents of this kind of lackadaisical killing replayed on our screens – from barrel bombs to drone strikes – it could be passed off as mere entertainment. The fanatical and backward opposition to Western civilisation by a monolithic religion is one of the fundamental bases of Islamophobia.

As the world moves on, and the balance of wealth shifts from the West to the rest of the world, identifying colonial curriculum representations is important. This isn’t just a problem in Religious Education but also in other curriculum subjects and media. At home many children are more likely to get their idea of Africa from the Lion King or David Attenborough than from anything else. At school, the Band Aid mentality still persists in Geography, which, at its worst, can be seen as an apologetic for the living standards of the UK in comparison to lower income countries. And of course, in History we learn that the British abolished slavery and the Americans had to drop the bomb to save lives.

It is worth noting that even the curriculum subjects themselves originate from the days of empire, like much of Britain’s infrastructure of sewers, railways and housing. One necessity back then was to be able to show which parts of the map were red. Another to teach the basic elements of Christian religious knowledge, scripture.

Religious education, as we know, has changed since then to embrace the religions of the colonised, rather than to just preach the ideology of the colonisers. But here the colonial mind reappears. We often find reified and unreflective representations of ‘world religions’ based on naïve understandings, including the implicit message that less advanced people (or fanatics) even believe in ‘the other’ religions so we had better take them seriously. That is a question of respect. Alongside this, of course, comes the spectacle of the exotic, and the spiritual wisdom of the East that we should all imbibe a little on account of our wellbeing.

Do I exaggerate? If it wasn’t for the influence of real Victorian explorers on the multi-faith movement perhaps you could say I was. I pick two examples in this blog that have featured in my ongoing research about the origins of interfaith dialogue and education. One, Sir Francis Younghusband, founded Britain’s first interfaith organisation, The World Congress of Faiths. The other, Emily Georgiana Kemp, who is less well known, founded the first multi-faith chapel in a British educational institution.

Sir Francis Younghusband is the colonial explorer personified. Patrick French’s excellent biography explains that he did have a pith hat, and he was responsible for the needless slaughter of thousands in the invasion of Tibet at the dizzy heights (or should we say, lows) of British imperialism in 1904. He cut his teeth walking from China to Pakistan as a young soldier and dallying with his Russian counterpart in the Great Game. It was in the mountains of British India that he was to have the first of several spiritual experiences, one significant change coming after falling from his horse and reading Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You. In later life he was reluctant to speak about his invasion of Tibet, but he did enthusiastically and sincerely promote interreligious understanding. (With his friend Robert Bridges, he also promoted Parry’s Jerusalem as part of an interdenominational push for the First World War effort).

Younghusband founded The World Congress of Faiths (so-called because it first met in the centre of the empire, London) and brought together theologians and dignitaries of all faiths. From the fascinating proceedings of these meetings, the first taking place in 1936, we can see the seeds of several future lines of intellectual enquiry and cultural change. The discussion, among notables such as the Japanese Zen master, Dr Suzuki, prefigures issues in interreligious relations that have come to have even more significance. Can we pray together? Can the religions unite to promote peace? How can we promote mutual understanding? Rev. Dr. Marcus Braybrooke is just one interreligious author and leader who has worked with this organisation and others to promote understanding, which in turn has led to new initiatives, such as the Three Faiths Forum. (A good history of the World Congress of Faiths by Braybrooke can be found here). There was also an impact on popular culture. It was at the World Congress of Faiths that Alan Watts developed his interest in Buddhism that was later to be transferred to the Beatniks, for example.

A less well-known friend of Younghusband and member of the World Congress of Faiths was the Baptist, Emily Georgiana Kemp. Kemp wrote several travelogues of her explorations, often as the ‘first’ woman to travel to distant destinations in central Asia and China. Kemp was also an alpinist and author. Her experiences of the religions she encountered on her travels prompted the donation of a chapel to Somerville College, Oxford in 1934.

Somerville College Chapel represents a curious stage in the changing attitudes to non-Christian religions, religion in higher education and the role of women in British society. Kemp had attended Somerville soon after it first opened as an undenominational college for women in Oxford in the 1880s. Surrounded by Anglicans (and men), the college represented a progressive and accepting environment for women of all religions and of none. Kemp’s donation therefore had to please all, and her idea eventually manifested as a kind of non-conformist hall with the remit to be a place of prayer for all religions. The only inscription on the exterior of the building proclaiming above the door in Greek, ‘A house of prayer for all peoples’. The Somervillian author Dorothy L Sayers makes fun of its religiously open symbolism in her detective novel, Gaudy Night but in reality, interfaith spaces in educational institutions and other public spaces have since become the norm. It is not an untenuous link that the Prime Minister who made multi-faith Religious Education statutory in the 1988 Education Act, Margaret Thatcher, attended this ‘house of prayer for all peoples’ as an undergraduate student to hear a talk about the universal nature of God.

The beginnings of multi-faith Religious Education are often ascribed to the Birmingham Agreed Syllabus of 1975 and the philosophy of John Hick. The immigration of people from countries that had formed the British Empire, particularly the Indian sub-continent, contributed to the religious diversity of Britain and this needed to be represented in Religious Education. However, the encounter with religions all over the world by the British colonial and intellectual elites had led to a process of cultural and intellectual change well before then.

Perhaps one way to ensure excellent Religious Education is to keep these historical examples and their related cultural assumptions in mind when making choices about what we do and how we do it. For while with colonialism came horror and killing in the fashion of Indiana Jones, the explorers pioneered new ways of thinking about religion and education. Considered in this way we see the colonial mindset is lacking somewhat. There is not civilisation and the rest of the world. Indeed, there are not civilisations. There is only one diverse and interconnected human culture. Part of our job of educators is to show that – no matter how exotic and different aspects of it may appear in the stereotypes given to us in childhood.

One of the achievements of British religious education has been the creation of an approach, curriculum and workforce that, in principle, does not promote one Christian denomination, or any other particular religious perspective over another. This British compromise has roots in the Victorian era, which arguably tap further back to the emergence of religious tolerance and political liberalism in the 17th century, or even to the Elizabethan religious settlement itself.

During the last decade, in what may be considered in the future a golden age of collaboration with continental Europe, the British model was exported because of its presumed virtue of promoting religious tolerance and respect in a plural democracy. This collaboration was marked by several transnational accords coordinated by secular bodies (such as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe).

Meanwhile at home a well-developed debate about how such a ‘non-confessional’ approach to religious education was possible (or not) gently simmered – providing ample material for various theories and philosophies. The dichotomy of ‘learning about’ religion as opposed to ‘learning from’ is one enduring way non-confessionalism has been conceptualised. Others have argued that education is by definition confessional and therefore non-confessionalism is impossible, or that presenting a balance between perspectives in the classroom is possible, but like walking on a tightrope for the teacher.

The keystone of the British approach in practice is that teachers should not proselytise or urge a religious opinion upon students. This legally-binding mandate raises some practical difficulties as well as conceptual conundrums. For any person has a biography and that will be located within or without a given position about religion – in a general sense or in relation to any particular question about religion(s). The dilemma remains of what a teacher should do with these positions in the classroom, even if they can be hidden. .Small-scale research conducted in England suggests positioning can be challenging for teachers of religious education who are situated in a politically and culturally contested subject area.

Terence Copley argued that there was a need to balance authentic representation of religions with due sensitivity to the perspectives and autonomy of others with self-awareness of a teacher’s own positioning. However, a student’s desire to know what their teacher’s beliefs may be is not only motivated by concerns of fairness, or curiosity about the persona of the teacher. It can stem from a sensible strategy of dealing with existential questions: identifying with the wider-community, role-models and those in positions of authority when presented with difficult choices about what to think.

A useful way of exploring these issues is by applying identity theory from a social constructionist perspective. In short, social constructionism claims that social reality is created through interactions, and so is our and others’ ideas of who we are. Identity construction is the process of understanding oneself to be, or seeking to be recognised, or representing oneself in a particular way in a given social context. Religious identity construction therefore can be considered to be the identification with, rejection of, or partial or full integration, or presentation of elements of a religious tradition (or ties with members of that religious tradition) with an individual’s worldview, lifestyle, beliefs, practices, actions. Research suggests this is an ongoing, dynamic process in secondary schools.

While some professionals talk about being non-confessional, identity construction theory suggests the identity of the teacher may impact strongly on students. Religious identities are formed through processes of cultural identification, identity ascription, and socialisation according to the values and practices of students’ homes and communities. While students are likely to find role models in and outside of school, affinity with adults is fundamental to the identity construction process. Therefore teachers’ actions and perspectives can have an impact on the positions of students, as teachers cannot avoid being potential role models that espouse a particular view, even if that viewpoint is ambivalent.

So where does this leave us? What should the teacher do when asked about their own position on religious questions? Sensitive judgement is perhaps the most important resource here. For while a teacher should be honest, he or she must also be true to their role as religious educator within a particular institutional context.

In the case of British religious education (and legislation), it is not assumed that teachers are the arbiters of the truth claims of religions. Rather they stand between and within the several great religious traditions represented in the British Isles which are, ‘in the main’ Christian. This position, although not religiously neutral, is a broad one that can be conceived as a wider framework in which teachers can act with judicious and impartial care to respect the religious positions of their students and the communities they serve. (It can be argued that this is not possible without adopting a kind of practical agnosticism, however.)

In order to deal appropriately with inevitable identity-dilemmas of teaching religion in diverse contexts, teachers need to be aware of the complexities of religious positions and the social processes that sustain and develop them. This is, of course, a great challenge to teachers in a radically plural society where alongside traditional minorities, many people have dynamic and nuanced relationships to religions – thus multiplying the number of positions that teachers need to negotiate themselves as well as recognise in others.