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As we start a new academic year RE:ONLINE are launching a new blog series called ‘Inspired by…’

Perhaps over the summer you have been inspired by a book? One of the books that has inspired me is Inspirational Leadership: Timeless lessons for leaders from Shakespeare’s Henry V by Richard Olivier. One of the key messages for me in the book is about the importance of stories as storehouses of wisdom (p.10); stories are ways in which we pass on wisdom, they teach us and fire the imagination.

Perhaps you have been inspired by a colleague? I have too many colleagues to name here who have both inspired and influenced me. However, Dr Bill Gent who sadly passed away earlier in the summer was a true inspiration to me as I started out in my teaching career. Bill encouraged me to engage with curriculum development, to read widely including research, and supported my Farmington Fellowship.

Perhaps you have been inspired by some recent professional development? In July, Culham St Gabriel’s hosted a seminar with Professor Rob Freathy. He unpacked his excellent joint paper Worldviews and Big ideas: A Way Forward for Religious Education. The four big ideas expounded by Rob helped me to understand and better articulate to others the object of knowing (the ‘what’), the knower as subject, (ourselves) the process of knowing (methods) and the why of knowing (aims/purpose). I have also really enjoyed our own blog series over the summer ‘Opening Up Conversations about religion and worldviews’.

Perhaps you have been inspired by visiting a new place? In 2017 we visited Borneo as a family. It was one of those ‘once in a lifetime’ trips. As part of our visit we wanted to engage with local life so we stayed with a family in a traditional longhouse. As a result of this I began to consider more deeply how we engage with the lived reality of different worldviews in RE. How do we engage with the insider perspective? How do we hear the voices from within religion and worldviews? I’m delighted to say that RE:ONLINE is launching a new set of resources on this theme.

Or maybe your inspiration is from your pupils? When I first started teaching I worked in a secondary school where inclusion was highly valued and an essential part of its vision. In light of this, the school welcomed pupils with complex additional needs. Pupil N, as I will call her, was autistic and unable to communicate verbally. She inspired me to think creatively, to consider non-verbal responses and to think very differently about outcomes.

I have shared very briefly five different ways in which I have been inspired. We hope our new blog series will open up endless possibilities for you to tell us about what you are inspired by whether it’s a book, blog, conference, colleague, the creative or visual arts, your pupils, a family member, a magazine or journal article, visiting somewhere new or a holiday destination, a TV programme or a YouTube influencer…..

If you would like to contribute a blog to our new series please email contact@reonline.org.uk

Olivier, R., 2013. Inspirational Leadership: Timeless lessons for leaders from Shakespeare’s Henry V. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing

NATRE statement about Dr Bill Gent: https://www.natre.org.uk/news/latest-news/dr-bill-gent/

Access to Rob Freathy and Helen John’s paper is available here: http://kau.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1386095/FULLTEXT01.pdf

https://www.reonline.org.uk/blog/

My 10-year-old daughter was asked to teach a song to her French classmates recently so she belted out her current favourite “Take me to Ch-”. She was stopped at this point of the chorus, due to the act of saying the word “Church” in the classroom breaking the principle of Laicite or Secularism which runs through the State of France. I asked her if she told the teacher that its not a religious song but was written to highlight the problems of the Catholic church and its stance on homosexuality and was even influenced by the writings of the atheist Christopher Hitchens, but seeing as her French was still fairly minimal at this point, she said she just stopped singing and returned to her seat.

I’m a Religious Studies teacher currently on sabbatical in France and the principle of Laicite fascinates me. I’m not teaching RE whilst I’m here, I couldn’t if I wanted to due to the Laicite- and so I’m intrigued as to how and when the teenagers of France get to have those heated debates in the classroom around the existence of God and all the various belief systems humanity has developed around it. A typical day for me as a London RE teacher involved debates around homosexuality and religious views, discussions of predestination and free will and singing the Lord’s Prayer Anglican style to unsuspecting and slightly alarmed kids, when we got to that bit of a handout on Christian practices- how could they not get a weekly lesson of this here?

I wonder if not discussing religion in French state classrooms leaves anything missing from those student’s lives? Bumping into ex-students of mine years later on the highstreets of East London and hearing them say that they remembered our lessons- “Oh! The debates we had Miss!”- shows me the importance of the space given in RE for evaluating views that are different to our own, and how much teenagers love to argue. As RE teachers we relish the chance to play ‘Devil’s advocate’- role-playing the questions and challenges in the classroom that our students may be asked, or may even ask of themselves later in life.

If the discussion of religion is contained in the private sphere- then how can a teacher role-model intelligent and respectful discussions around the tricky material that religions can give us? Students would often say to me that they could talk about things in my classroom they never would at home, or at least could try out their views and hear people’s reactions before discussing it with family and friends.

And whilst I have on occasion, had to inform my students that I do not have a hotline to The Almighty, when they are alarmed by world events– “Miss is that hurricane a sign of the end of the world?” I know that my classroom was a space for them to discuss world events, including the role that religions and religious followers may have had in them.

When I worked as a volunteer teacher in Nablus, the West Bank , I lived in a house full of other volunteers from around the world, at one point a few from France and the USA me to give them RE lessons in the evening so they could understand Islam better, and so understand the children we worked with more (Both are countries that have this separation of Church and State). When I told my adult English class of Palestinian peace-workers there what I taught in the UK, they asked me for lessons on the key similarities between Islam and Judaism so that they could understand the Israeli’s over the border a few miles away, better.

And here in France? I find myself in the same position, English conversation sessions have turned into me explaining what the Baha’i religion is, and dinner table small talk has ended up as a debate around interpretations of Hijab or the Veil within Islam. I’ve met so many people here fascinated by religion and spirituality that I take any opportunity to discuss it. I might have stopped teaching RE to come and live here, but I will always be an RE teacher.

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I didn’t complete my PhD. It’s something that is a source of deep regret – I had thrived on carrying out research and writing, but life intervened and it was the right decision in the circumstances. Luckily for me, in order to supplement my PhD funding I had begun working as a secondary teacher of Religious Studies and Philosophy and I found that I loved teaching. I spent several happy years working in a large secondary school in North London taking every opportunity for professional development and research – you won’t teach well if you’re not prepared to be a learner. As I had during my PhD, I sought out collaborative partnerships using social media (particularly Twitter), actively pursued opportunities for writing (I blogged often – because I wasn’t busy enough already…!) and carried out a diverse range of professional conversations with other teachers, researchers and advisers.

I moved from secondary teaching to work as an RE adviser in greater Lincolnshire. This was a huge learning curve for me, but it also provided a myriad of opportunities to carry out new and exciting research and, as ever, I wanted to write and write and write. I was very lucky in this regard: I connected with a number of people who opened doors for me and provided me with opportunities to realise this ambition. I began to work collaboratively with Kathryn Wright, Olivia Seymour and Jane Chipperton; together, we wrote and published our thinking online. This, coupled with a careful use of social media to help direct people towards our writing, enabled us to establish an audience for our thinking. Throughout, we were keen to emphasise that our writing was being offered as a form of professional conversation, noting that we, as learners, developed our thinking in relation with others.

In 2016, I was asked to co-author a chapter in We Need to Talk about Religious Education (ed. Mike Castelli and Mark Chater, Jessica Kingsley Publications, 2017). Whilst I had found writing for my PhD a very isolating experience, this was a much more creative and exciting process because it was carried out collaboratively. We produced many drafts of the chapter before it was signed-off for publication, listening carefully and responding to the editorial advice provided. Working with a trusted colleague gave me more confidence to write and allowed me to see how my writing ‘voice’ was distinctive from theirs. This was very important as it gave me a greater sense of confidence in developing my own voice and style. I went on to write an article for Impact, the journal of the Chartered College of Teaching, and a Grove Booklet on religious literacy in schools. In both these cases, the final piece was edited and peer reviewed to ensure that the publications fulfilled the stated briefs. By this stage, I felt more comfortable with my written style and so was able to see more clearly where the editorial advice would enhance the writing and, at times, where it would impact negatively on the content and ideas expressed. I became more confident in being able to say no to suggested changes, where I had clear reasons for doing so. Most recently, I have co-authored a chapter that was published in Reforming RE (ed. Mark Chater, John Catt, 2020).

Receiving a copy of a book or journal in which your writing has been published is a wonderful feeling. It feels strange to see your name in print and it can be quite disconcerting to re-read what you had written often many months previously. One thing I have learned, however, is that re-reading your work is very important. This is not simply a case of reminding yourself of the professional journey you have been on over those months; it is also about checking that what you actually wrote is what has been published.

On at least one occasion, I have found that writing I have signed-off for publication has been altered after this point. Now, it is perfectly reasonable for copy editors to slightly adjust your text for the purposes of clarity and accuracy; however, it is not ok for the substance of one’s ideas to be altered without your permission as author. This is what had happened in my most recent published contribution, although there was no malicious intention at all. It had significant repercussions: readers purchased the book, read what I had written and quite fairly assumed that this was what I had intended to write. It was not, however, and this meant that a significant number of readers were misunderstanding and potentially misrepresenting my thinking. One thing you quickly learn as a published author is that others will respond to your writing, sometimes positively and sometimes negatively. This is ok – it’s all part of the conversation that helps ideas flourish and develop. However, in this instance, people were preparing critiques based on words I had not written. This raised several problems: firstly, whether I could tell them that their critique was mistaken because it was not based on my actual thinking and secondly, whether I had any right to challenge the editor for having changed my writing after I had signed-off the agreed copy. I had to investigate copyright and intellectual property law to see what I was entitled to. This led to a challenging conversation with the editor, and the agreement that, amongst other things, I could write about this incident as part of a blog post about starting out as a published author. I am grateful that the editor and publisher have also agreed to revert to the original in the second print-run, which will soon be available.

So what have I learned?

That everyone has a voice that is worth hearing, that writing is one form of expressing that voice, and that writing takes practice.

That writing collaboratively is one of the most exciting and worthwhile things I have done in my professional life.

That working with editors and publishers is a learning curve and that it is always worth listening to their advice.

That it is ok as an author to say no sometimes when you have good reason to do so.

That you should always, always read what you have written after it has been published!

We are delighted to be launching a new summer blog series called ‘Opening up conversations about religion and worldviews’. This blog series is being run in collaboration with the RE Policy Unit, a partnership between NATRE, the RE Council and RE Today. It will include contributions from a wide range of teachers, those working in initial teacher education and researchers in this field.

Some questions don’t seem to get asked in religious education as much as others. Here are three examples designed to pose questions about the relationship between questions and curriculum and what we think an education in religion and worldviews might be for.

Question One

Explain how a common response to poverty can be reached from people who hold different religious and non-religious worldviews.

In your answer show:

how a point of consensus can be reached from different theological and or philosophical principles, and
refer to hypothetical or actual case studies.

Two observations about question one: We tend to prefer questions that are about difference leading to disagreement, rather than difference leading to overlapping consensus. Should RE consider having structured questions designed to test out the possible range of areas where difference might still lead to cooperation or consensus? We don’t explicitly ask for case studies (although students can use them in their reasoning). As case studies are interesting way of thinking about communities in context, might this be a useful tool for RE?

Question Two (designed to follow from a longer sacred text extract)

Read the extract from a sacred text. Identify and explain different ways this text is engaged within religious traditions. In your answer refer to each of:

communal ritual or private prayer/meditation/reflection
scholarly debate or public moral discussion
communities / individuals living in contrasting contexts (poverty and wealth or peace and war)

This question is designed to show diverse ways of ‘knowing’ and ‘engaging’ in religions and worldviews. It is also about the importance of context in textual interpretation and in the way religious life develops. This goes further in explicitly acknowledging different kinds of dialogue that the subject should entertain: scholarly and public.

Question Three

Should voluntary assisted dying be permitted?

Explore this question and two different settings in which it might be answered. First consider a political debate in the media. Second consider a hospital chaplain asked to counsel a family faced with a request from a terminally ill relative. Identify any differences or similarities in the way the question might be engaged.

This question illuminates the kind of classroom experience we want to have happening and the sort of argumentation there might be. Should RE help students win arguments? Should it help them be good listeners and pastoral helpers of others in times of personal crisis?

A few things might jump out from these questions. First, the question structure will ‘beg’ for different kinds of content shaped in different kinds of ways in any curriculum that prepares the students for this question. Second, distinct social aims are apparent. Question one requires the idea of consensus being reached from different starting points to be structured into the exploration of the content. Question two requires blocks of texts to have been explored through multiple types of engagement and multiple contexts (it is multidimensional and contextual in character). Question three requires an explicit treatment of different settings for discussion: one that speaks to a pastoral context, the other that speaks to a more traditional debating context. I think all of these are interesting, and all of them should have space in a religion and worldviews classroom.

Now it is possible that my suggestions are not the ‘right questions to ask’. Indeed, some of these might not work very well in practice – they could surely be improved. However, they do reveal the relationship between question and curriculum, the way knowledge is organised, and the kinds of skills developed in association with that content. They reveal something of the possible character of learning in religion and worldviews classrooms and they focus on the ‘how’ of the subject, as well as the ‘what’, something highlighted by the Commission for RE (2018) report.

Professor Bob Bowie, Canterbury Christ Church University

@bobbowie, bob.bowie@canterbury.ac.uk, www.bobbowie.com,

This blog is linked to a piece of work written by me in a book currently in press. ‘The implicit knowledge structure preferred by questions in English Religious Studies public exams’. The book, edited by Gert Biesta and Pat Hannam is Religion and education: The forgotten dimensions of religious education? Leiden: Brill | Sense. It also links to the Texts and Teachers research project (www.nicer.org.uk).

OK. I admit it. I’ll come clean: I think religion is inherently interesting.

Personally, I am intrigued by some of the ways people carry out their deeply held beliefs. I am impressed by the way that many people find comfort in doing seemingly strange things or by having faith in apparently unfathomable beliefs. I love the stories that they tell – and those they ignore – and the different ways people interpret, reinterpret, and misinterpret their own sources of wisdom and authority. I enjoy doing what’s called reception criticism, studying the way that these texts have been interpreted by popular culture in different times and how popular culture has reciprocally influenced the perceived understanding of the texts. I’m interested in how people who don’t want to belong (to a religion) do have beliefs, and how some people do want to belong to groups with which they share very little beliefs. So, for example what many Roman Catholics believe is often different to what the Catholic Church teaches, but that doesn’t seem to affect many people’s ‘being Catholic’. And I’m fascinated by the fact we use language like ‘belonging’, ‘being’ and ‘believing’…. What do these really mean? I’m amused (not in a funny way) that asking a person, ‘Are you religious?’, ‘Do you have a faith?’ ‘Are you a member of a religion?’, ‘Do you have a religion?’ or ‘Do you belong to a religion?’ might result in very different answers.

I’m not very interested in shopping, although I seem to do quite a lot of it. One of the arguments for a new vision for RE is that the study of religions is no longer relevant to young people as most of them don’t belong to a religion. I don’t really buy that argument (do you see what I did there… shopping… buy! Oh, never mind…). I don’t think the majority of (young) people are ethical vegans, or Humanists, or liberal Anglicans, or Buddhists, or Muslims. And even if they were, I don’t think we should be teaching just what most people think they are (that was possibly a mistake of the RE of the latter decades of the last century). I think that the majority of people in the west have a consumerist capitalist worldview underpinned by a sort of selfish rationalism. For many of us the purpose of life is to accrue apparently attractive property and wealth in order to ‘feel good’ in a quasi-hedonistic way. And that’s fair enough. If I were more interested in studying that, I would be a sociologist, and I’m not. In RE we should probably be teaching what is most interesting, or most useful in helping people make sense of the world, what is most … relevant.

So, I have no desire to study shopping, and I’m not a sociologist. I’m not much of a historian or a theologian, either, although I understand that these disciplinary lenses can be useful in pursuing our aims. Ah! – but what are these aims? …Well, John Hall in the Foreword to the CoRE report suggests, “The subject should explore the role that religious and non-religious worldviews play in all human life.” Which is lovely, but possibly a little vague. (As an aside, I’ve been wondering recently why the phrase “religious and non-religious” has been adopted. I dislike defining something by what it is not. Wouldn’t “secular and sacred worldviews” be a better phraseology?). The CoRE report, has another stab at the aims of the subject, tucked away in Appendix 1: “It is about understanding the human quest for meaning, being prepared for life in a diverse world and having space to reflect on one’s own worldview” (CoRE: 73)

Now that’s something that does interest me, what the best RE teachers have been doing for years, and a vision I think I can get behind: pupils should study the ways secular and sacred worldviews have used narrative, questions, symbols and praxis [1] to try to make sense of the world, both through history and in contemporary society. If pupils understand the ways that these secular and sacred worldviews relate and inform the fluid worldviews of individuals in society, causing people to believe or behave in certain ways, it will prepare them for the contemporary liquid modernity [2] which they inhabit. And through all this learning, if given space for personal reflection, pupils will have opportunity to engage in epistemic cognition [3] and develop their own emerging personal Weltbild [4]. This is the sort of RE that I have encouraged those beginning RE teachers who have trained with us at Edge Hill to explore. I hope their pupils find it interesting and relevant.

[1] Hella, Elina. 2009. “Developing Students’ Worldview Literacy through Variation: Pedagogical Prospects of Critical Religious Education and the Variation Theory of Learning for Further Education.” Journal of Chaplaincy in Further Education 5 (1): 4–12.

[2] Bauman, Z. 2000, Liquid modernity, Polity, Oxford.

[3] Fetz, R.L. & Reich, K.H. 1989, “World Views and Religions Development”, Journal of Empirical Theology, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 46-60

[4] Weltbild is one of two German words for worldview, this one having the idea of a personal image of the workings of the universe was favoured by Heidegger. Weltanschauung tends have more of the feel of an all encompassing meta-narrative. I am sure this will be much more comprehensively covered in the REC’s forthcoming ‘Worldviews Project’

The Commission for RE final report definition of Worldview, emphasises the way of understanding, what I sometimes call ‘knowing’ meaning the way of making sense of things that goes on in a worldview.

“A worldview is a person’s way of understanding, experiencing and responding to the world. It can be described as a philosophy of life or an approach to life. This includes how a person understands the nature of reality and their own place in the world.” (on page 4 and 26 where it is unpacked and then it is further unpacked on page 72).

On p. 29 the report relates “way of understanding” directly to disciplinarity and it mentions sacred texts scholarship:

“The explicit, academic study of worldviews provides an opportunity to develop a range of specific and general transferable skills. Skills that are intrinsic to the disciplines involved in the study of worldviews include analysing a range of primary and secondary sources, understanding symbolic language, using technical terminology effectively, interpreting meaning and significance, empathy, respectful critique of beliefs and positions, recognizing bias and stereotype, and representing views other than one’s own with accuracy.” (p.29)

And this is central to the understanding of diversity. On p.30, the link between this and making sense of how different communities of interpretation are possible is underscored

“There is now greater recognition that within each major tradition there are different communities of interpretation and different theological and philosophical approaches.” (p.30)

So there is an explicit interest in the way of knowing that goes on in a worldview, not just a list of facts about ‘what they do and what they believe’. An advisor to the Texts and Teachers’ project, Professor Towey, Director of the Aquinas Centre, at St Mary’s University, who was one of the Commissioners, reminded us that the approach to interpreting sacred texts was often key to unlocking the self-understanding and practice of different denominations today. The report continues that in the subject there needs to be significant rebalancing of the ‘how’ of worldview with the ‘what’ of worldview.

“how worldviews work in practice, is as important as knowing the content of particular worldviews.” (p,31)

The proposition of the commission contains within it a hermeneutical turn for the subject. This is how and why hermeneutics is central to worldviews. Religion and Worldviews cannot simply transfer propositional knowledge, without also introducing pupils to the structure of those propositions and in that structuring we see the worldview that has shaped the discipline. Here an observation of Liam Gearon is important. In his book On Holy Ground, he identified how the rise of social sciences were in part a rejection of role of religion in making sense – disciplines are themselves perforated by worldviews. Disciplines are part of a historical and cultural development which is why philosophers like Alasdair MacIntrye and Julian Baggini argue for an understanding of the place (and time) from which an attempt at an objective view may be sought. Philosophy, often loved in our subject, is itself a space of contested worldviews. I recommend Julian Baggini’s book, How the World Thinks, which I know some RE teachers have been reading thanks to #REBookClub. Baggini sheds light on the importance of learning to be able to operate through multiple ways of making meaning.

Religion and worldviews must not be a mish mash of propositional facts, thrown together without rationale. A worldview education means introducing pupils to the way things are organised, the grammar, the ways of knowing practiced from a place, a community, and how meaning is made. I find the analogy of language learning helpful. Our subject is where we teach children to read their own language of meaning making. Everyone, by virtue of actually having a first language has this as language itself, the shaper of our expressions, is soaked in worldview, indicated through the metaphors which our sentences are riddled with. In our subject we must seek for our pupils to recognise their own metaphorical landscape, the worldviews that shape their perception, as well as becoming bilingual in (I suggest) two traditions’ ways of making meaning. To bring about this transformation we have work to do. We need to translate the grammars of knowing found in worldviews into progression structures of the kinds of activities that will tease out concepts and ways of making sense in those traditions. The questions we ask and the things we value in answers given will need to be keyed into these progression structures and the ways of meaning/ grammars of knowing practiced by traditions, rather than bolted on as an afterthought. In this way we might be able to teach pupils how to know, not just what to know.

As I enter my fourth year of teaching, Religious Education continues to be at the forefront of curriculum debates and media coverage, which arguably, more than ever, demonstrates the need for our subject to be rigorous and detailed in its delivery to young people across the UK.

During the last three years after graduating from Edge Hill University in Secondary Religious Education with QTS, I have had the privilege to teach within a rural independent school setting and now a Church of England Academy, with the continued benefit of ‘Religious Studies’ being highly regarded as an academic subject. With this, Religious Studies has also had a pastoral element to nurture young people and their values, which I view as crucial. When reading through the Final Report of the Commission on RE for the first time, the push for entitlement and quality in the teaching of religion and worldviews is what resonated with me the most. I viewed this commission as not concerned with changing RE from the core basis of ‘learning about and learning from religion’[1], but instead as highlighting the need for the statutory entitlement of RE to be enforced in all schools regardless of status, excellent practice through specialist teaching and clarification on the purposes of RE as an academic subject.

As a teacher I have been fortunate enough to train and work in schools where ‘good RE’ was and is being purposed and taught, which was neither over-complicated or ‘diluted’ in the curriculum through the incorporation of other subjects or irregular timetabling. Personally, this has shaped my view on RE to rely heavily on three things to succeed; specialist teaching, reasonable/regular curriculum time and senior leadership support. Through these simple structures, I have seen first-hand how RE can enrich young people to learn not only about the ‘big six’, but also other religious and non-religious worldviews that have and continue to shape the UK and beyond. I think ‘worldviews’ can often be mistaken as ‘more content’, although I believe that it is having the time to first acknowledge (which through no fault of the teacher is often forgotten through curriculum time pressures) and then teach about the varying religious and worldviews in their own right and in application to the ethical/moral issues that feature heavily in various RE curriculums from Key Stages 3-5. In consequence, I believe this can create well-rounded young people who are able to understand each other and the world around them. As an educator, I believe ‘good RE’ not only educates young people on religion, belief and worldviews, but also shapes their outlook to flourish in the diversity we are so fortunate to have. Regardless of the name it is assigned, RE is learning about what people believe and do, which is what makes our subject so unique and diverse. The task we have as RE educators is therefore of paramount importance, as we are the ones teaching young people about their fellow members of society, which in turn will shape views towards one another. This is why a clarified vision, and supporting colleagues across the nation in pushing for the statutory requirement to be enforced without ‘diluting’ RE, for me, is indeed welcomed. I certainly am no expert, I am just passionate about RE being taught and viewed as an academic and rigorous subject, which can offer opportunities for conversations about beliefs and the world, whilst also nurturing young people to be happy and understand each other with a value for Religious Education (directly and/or indirectly!).

[1]Geoff Teece (2010) Is it learning about and from religions, religion or religious education? And is it any wonder some teachers don’t get it?, British Journal of Religious Education, 32:2, 93-103, DOI: 10.1080/01416200903537399

Death knell?

In December 2018 the then Secretary of State for Education, Damian Hinds, wrote to Dr John Hall (Chair of the Commission on RE) expressing significant reservations about the findings of the Commission’s report. In particular Hinds questioned its central focus, which advocates a shift to a worldviews approach, stating that ‘the inclusion of ‘worldviews’ risks diluting the teaching of RE’. For many this sounded the death knell for the report.

Here I explain how I believe that Hinds’ judgement betrayed a significant misreading of the roll worldviews can play in RE. I would argue that, rather than diluting the subject, the inclusion of worldviews enables young people to connect with religion(s) in a much more profound and inclusive way.

New vision

As teachers of RE, our aim is to help pupils explore what people believe and what difference this makes to how they live. Culturally we are witnessing a significant shift in the way individuals express their personal beliefs and values, with fewer people identifying their own worldview as ‘Christian’, a growing number of ‘nones’ and an increasing attraction towards ethical and lifestyle movements such as Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion and veganism.

The Commission report offered a new vision for the subject, identifying the study of worldviews as a ‘critical gateway’ to our understanding of religious and non-religious perspectives (p27). To facilitate this shift the REC’s Worldview Project (to be published and consulted on in the autumn) aims to provide a robust academic underpinning for using a worldviews approach to RE[1].

Dilution?

In their paper Worldviews and Big Ideas[2], Rob Freathy and Helen John set out a number of arguments which refute the claim that a worldviews approach dilutes the subject. They explain that religions are not discrete entities, distant and separate from their surroundings. To understand religions and beliefs fully they need to be studied in the context of other perspectives and life stances. Religious traditions are fluid and porous; they shift and grow through the influence of social and cultural factors; beliefs intersect, cross-fertilise and conflict with other cultural dynamics.

As far back as the 1970s, the late John Hull advocated the inclusion of worldviews into RE (he used the phrase ‘stances for living’[3]), in order to aid our understanding of religion(s). In his view, the study of such alternative perspectives serve a valuable purpose in shedding light onto the subject.

By adding the term worldviews, we are reframing the study to emphasise a more far-reaching programme. Far from watering down or weakening RE, this approach gives added depth and relevance to the subject, helping pupils make vital connections and setting topics in a context which enhances the way they are understood.

Don’t exceptionalise religions

There is a danger that a predominant focus on the ‘Big Six’ religions, can lead to the exceptionalising and essentialising of religion, as if other forms of belief are less coherent or of lesser value. It is important for teachers of RE to represent the fact that religions are themselves worldviews, not fixed and boundaried, but with diverse forms and expressions. If they are studied in separation from other ways of seeing the world, we risk making them stand out as isolated oddities, idealised or objectified, disconnected from everyday experiences and concerns.

Connecting the concepts

From my perspective as a teacher and educator, I find the notion of including worldviews into the subject a powerful teaching tool. For example, by giving pupils a brief introduction into the worldviews of hedonism (do whatever makes you happy) and existentialism (we are free to make our own choices), we equip them much more fully to understand religious concepts like sacredness, duty, commitment and divine guidance.

One of the few moments of direct insight I can clearly remember experiencing at university was in making the realisation that for learning to be truly embedded it has to have context. According to Piaget we form meaning through connecting new ideas to our own experiences and patterns of thinking, assimilating them into existing frames of reference. A worldviews approach enables pupils to explore and gain ownership of their own perspectives, fitting new understanding into their existing mental framework. We learn about religion and beliefs through connecting and contrasting them with our own way of seeing the world. There is no true form of any religion, separated from other competing worldviews. All human beings construct their belief systems through a mixture of personal and institutional perspectives. It’s just that some people identify more closely to established descriptions and designations they like to call ‘religion’, and others do not.

Worldviews: a foundation for classroom practice

Damian Hinds’ response was far from a death knell. Since the report’s publication, nearly two years ago, it has become apparent that in practice, teachers are finding a worldviews approach attractive[4], and work is continuing apace to establish a firm academic foundation, enabling this approach to become embedded into classroom practice.

[1] https://www.religiouseducationcouncil.org.uk/news/coreupdate/

[2] Worldviews and Big Ideas https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/handle/10871/40513

[3] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10567224.1985.11487887?journalCode=urel19

[4] https://www.reonline.org.uk/blog/worldviews-from-a-primary-perspective-self-detectives/

The Commission on RE (2018) was an eagerly awaited report by many in the RE world. One of the highlights of this report was the way in which the commissioners carried out their investigations into RE. My previous school was lucky enough to be a part of this process. Juliet Lyal, one of the commissioners, came to visit us to talk about what the children thought RE was and should be. I remember part of this discussion was about ‘worldviews’. At the time, we had been using language such as ‘non-religious worldview’. Juliet and I talked about how the term ‘worldview’ could be, and was potentially, confusing for our children in school as it could lead them to thinking only about beliefs that were not related to religion. Later that evening, Juliet came to talk to our Plymouth Hub about the commission’s work and, again, we realised that there was some confusion amongst teachers over the use of ‘worldviews’.

Many people have written in the past about the purpose of RE and it seems that there is still confusion about this in the RE community. There have also been many arguments about changing the name of RE to Religion and Worldviews. I have no problem with changing the name of the subject but my concern is that, if we have pupils and teachers who aren’t sure what we mean by the name of the subject or the reasoning behind using ‘worldviews’, how can we ever really move forward as a subject community?

After moving schools eighteen months ago, I was in the very fortunate position of being able to work alongside the rest of the Senior Leadership Team to redesign our RE curriculum. This also coincided with Devon SACRE launching the new Agreed Syllabus, a perfect time to consider change. It was initially tempting to change the name of the subject straight away, especially as I was hearing that many talented colleagues in our subject community had already done this. As a teacher and subject lead, I was eager for the children to take ownership of this journey towards ‘Religion and Worldviews’, so that they really understood the vocabulary that we were using and also the subject that we were teaching.

A few years ago, I attended ‘Strictly RE’ and listened to Stephen Pett (RE Today Services) talk about where we stand when we enter the RE classroom as professionals. Although I had always been aware of this when I was teaching RE, Stephen’s seminar had a huge impact upon my thinking. I have repeatedly thought back to this seminar and the way in which it clearly explained what we do as professionals. This got me thinking not only about where we as professionals stand but also where the children stand when they enter the RE classroom. I felt that this was a clear way to start explaining the term ‘worldview’ with even our youngest children at our school. I started by asking the children questions like, ‘Are there people in the world that influence the way that you think about things (we linked this to celebrities and sports personalities)? Do you have thoughts and ideas about the beyond? Do you talk about what we have studied after our RE lessons and do these discussions change your mind about the things that we have learnt?

We were then able to link these discussions with the Andrew Ricketts’ Spirituality grids (The Diocese of Salisbury 2015). The children used these grids with their class teacher to consider big questions linked to themselves, the world, the beyond and creation. These ideas are all recorded in class that move with the children through the school so we reference these as being the development of understanding their own worldviews.

During our RE lessons we are careful to talk in-depth about diversity within religion and belief even with our very young children. This helps pupils to understand that even within religion there is a diversity within an organised worldview and although two people may follow a belief they can have a different worldview. We have invited visitors into school to discuss their worldviews within our RE lessons and most recently hosted a debate about science and creation with two Christians from different denominations and a Buddhist. This enabled our children to see diversity first-hand between one worldview but also how people with different worldviews talk, share, debate, discuss and learn from each other.

Our next steps are to continue to develop children’s understanding of what ‘worldview’ means and what it means for RE. These next steps will include having some pupil voice discussions about whether we change the name of our subject. As a school, we want to ensure that the children understand the concept of a worldview and also use key vocabulary to share their understanding of this in relation to their study of RE.

In my opinion, changing the name is only right if we know and understand the reasons for doing so. We also need to ensure that the children have ownership and understanding of it; this needs to be a journey because otherwise the children won’t understand what the subject is about. This will result in us coming full circle back to debating the purpose of RE and changing the name of the subject .

I recently attended an online event on ‘Religion and Worldviews’ and was struck by some of the concerns: Can worldviews be included at primary level? Is this not adding more to an already overburdened curriculum?

Yet, examining worldviews can be incredibly helpful. Many trainee teachers are concerned about teaching RE, particularly if they do not personally follow a religion. For some this contributes to the ‘otherness’, or exotic nature, of religion and they struggle to see where to begin with teaching about a religion. Examining personal worldviews can

Bridge the gap
Assist in identifying what new subject knowledge is key
Increase confidence
Help religion(s) seem less ‘exotic’

Identifying

‘Personal worldviews’ are the assumptions and values individuals adhere to that are held consciously and subconsciously (Sire, 2004). Identifying personal worldviews faces challenges, not least in how to make the subconscious conscious. Various methods have been trialled to access these subconsciously held views yet each has flaws. Self-reflective writing is often employed but this may result in reflections that are ‘too big and too vague’ (Korthagen and Wubbels, 1995: 53), or produce over simplifications (Joram, 2007) that have often led to reinforcing bias rather than illuminating understanding. However, one research project employed photographs to elicit teacher-training students’ preconceived ideas (Stockall and Davis, 2011) which proved insightful. Therefore, I decided to employ photographs with my ITE students as part of worldview identification.

Further assistance in identifying personal worldviews is experiencing ‘disorientating dilemmas’ (Mezirow, 2000), a situation where individuals come up against contrast – different views, practices, cultures or norms. For example, a teacher told me how annoyed she was that a pupil she was telling off would not look at her but stared at the ground, which she saw as disrespectful. Yet the pupil was from a cultural background where you show respect by looking down and to make eye contact is disrespectful. Personal worldviews were illuminated, and clashed, in this contrast. These occurrences in life, sometimes lead to conflict, but can be replicated, sensitively, in the classroom by providing opportunities for experiencing difference – examining images, optical illusions, watching video clips, and discussing ethical dilemmas which all challenge assumptions.

Tracing

As aspects of individuals’ personal worldviews appear then we can examine where these have come from; not to judge or dispute but to see the evolutionary process of those views. This can be in a fun and investigative way – as Self-detectives.

Where does my view come from? Tracing these back for self and then in dialogue with peers can assist this process. The aim is not to attempt to decipher the entirety of someone’s worldview but to examine a few aspects to illustrate the existence of personal worldviews and trace the factors that have impacted them.

For example, with a discussion on the word ‘home’ – my husband calls his parents’ house ‘home’ even though he has not lived there for 30 years. For me home is wherever my family happen to be. Why this difference? This can be traced back to life experience. For my husband his parents still live in the house where he was born so he calls that home. My parents moved around during my childhood and, for me, my home is wherever my family are. This is a part of our worldviews of what home is and has evolved from our life experience.

Further practical ideas:

Alongside images, I have employed video clips to disorientate and prompt new reactions. One particularly effective clip was ‘Radi-aid’, a spoof charity video claiming to be raising money to buy radiators for children in Norway, as ‘the cold kills too’. The video written by the Norwegian Students’ & Academics’ International Assistance Fund (SAIH) forms part of their annual campaigns. Their goal is ‘to challenge the perceptions around issues of poverty and development, to change the way fundraising campaigns communicate and to break down dominating stereotypes’ (SAIH,nd).

Another example is from the US Television drama ‘The West Wing’. The light-hearted scene sees Cartographers for Social Justice discuss power and social injustice in the creation of maps of the world. HSBC also ran an advertising campaign concerning different cultural norms, which provides materials that could be used to aid discussions about worldviews.

Further useful tools include Question Cards on worldviews. A range of statements or questions can be written on cards and then discussed in pairs or larger groups. Questions, such as ‘Is it ever OK to lie?’, can assist in revealing differences between individuals, their accepted norms and what they hold as most important: truth, politeness etc.

I see worldviews, not as an add on but, as a starting point to provide a frame for pupils to develop a greater understanding of their personal worldviews and the worldviews of others, whether religious or not.

References:

Joram, E. (2007) ‘Clashing epistemologies: Aspiring teachers’, practising teachers’ and professors’ beliefs about knowledge and research in education’. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23 (2), 123 -135.

Korthagen, F., & Wubbels, T. (1995). Characteristics of reflective practitioners: Towards an operationalization of the concept of reflection. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 1 (1), 51–72.

Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning to think like an adult. In J. Mezirow and Associates (eds.) Learning as Transformation (pp.3-33). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Sire, J. (2004). Naming the Elephant: worldview as a concept. Illinois: Intervarsity Press.

Stockall, N and Davis, S (2011) Uncovering pre-service teacher beliefs about young children: A photographic elicitation methodology. Issues in Educational Research, 21 (2), 192-209

Websites:

https://www.radiaid.com/

The Radi-aid clip can be viewed at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJLqyuxm96k

The West Wing clip on maps of the world with Cartographers for Social Justice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqC3FNNOaI