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Reflexivity as a learning process is a focus needed in all RE classrooms to develop learners who can become critical interpreters of the world. Reflexivity is defined as the “reinterpretation of oneself, having considered the ‘other’, with awareness of one’s own distinctiveness heightened by the encounter of the other” (Freathy and John, 2019). In the conscious active development of self, reflexivity encourages pupils to become active participants of this pluralist modernity which has been called ‘post secular’ by scholars such as Radford (2019) and Boeve (2019).

Having reflexivity as a focus during lesson planning is likely to make the teacher aware of their own biases. It is probably not wise to deem one’s pedagogy as entirely objective, irrespective of how a teacher might be critical in their pedagogy (Cooling, 2020: 411). Striving to create learners who are reflexive will create a learning space which promotes a critical hermeneutic approach to all knowledge including the unconscious moments where teachers share their views.

A teacher seeking to create reflexivity in RE can approach it from different angles including art, where pupils create their interpretation of a knowledge that has been presented to them with the help of prompt questions or a thinking criteria. It can also be done orally, in classroom vocal debates or silent debates. The depth of evaluative essay writing is also a way of promoting reflexive learning. Pupils can at times be told to argue in writing or vocally against the view they personally hold to encourage them to reflect on their own views/ biases and those of others. It is however very important to make the knowledge being studied very relevant to the everyday life of pupils.

For reflexivity to happen the classroom must also be a safe haven where pupils must feel comfortable to allow themselves to be creative and evaluative. There has to be a relationship with pupils. Irrespective of the opposition they might face, there has to be a culture of respect and freedom to speak without being judged. Pupils must know they must respect others if they want to be respected. A mantra that can be a classroom law.

It is important to realise that the process of reflexivity takes time and as a RE teacher it needs to be an intention. Reflexivity will not only fulfil the assessment criteria’s for exam boards such as AQA and Edexcel; but it encourages learners to develop from their learning. It is possible that their personal views will change or become stronger, but yet evolved forming their educated views. Pupils will seek to learn for life long and they will naturally become curious participants of our world. Having it as teaching and learning intention in RE will not only encourage open-mindedness but a deep desire to allow one’s self to thrive and commune with and alongside others who are different because of the education and richness it brings. This skill and attitude reflexivity births is very much needed in our globalised modern 21^st century.

Bibliography

Boeve. L (2019) Faith in dialogue: the Christian voice in the catholic dialogue school, International Studies in Catholic Education, 11:1, 37-50, DOI: 10.1080/19422539.2018.1561132

Cooling. T (2020) Worldview in religious education: autobiographical reflections on The Commission on Religious Education in England final report, British Journal of Religious Education, 42:4, 403-414, DOI: 10.1080/01416200.2020.1764497

Freathy. R & Helen C. John. H C (2019) Religious Education, Big Ideas and the study of religion(s) and worldview(s), British Journal of Religious Education, 41:1, 27-40, DOI: 10.1080/01416200.2018.1500351

Radford. M (2012) Faith and reason in a post secular age, Journal of Beliefs & Values, 33:2, 229-240, DOI: 10.1080/13617672.2012.694065

In spring we had the same meeting that many departments had before the A Level reforms came in to play. Which religion were we going to teach? Should we teach Buddhism- being so close to the London Buddhist Centre and with staff expertise in the area? Should we teach Christianity- which was guaranteed to have a textbook? Or should we teach the religion that the majority of our students adhere to- Islam?

We had some year 13 A Level students in a room nearby working late, so we asked them for their opinion. “Oh no, you can’t do Islam at A Level- It’s too challenging to study your own religion… It makes you think way too hard!” As their Year 13 teacher, I took it as a compliment that my teaching had made them think. Their comments tipped the balance for us to go with Islam.

That summer we got hold of as many sources as possible and went back to studying like undergraduates. We knew it would be tough, but we had until the Spring term the following year to prepare. The summer holidays were spent reading, and the autumn term planning lessons and resources.

As a department we were still getting to grips with the GCSE reforms, there were times I wished we had gone with Christianity- so that I could pull a text-book of the shelf, and use my own subject knowledge to teach it. But having taught the Fundamentalism A2 course, which came with very little guidance and no specific resources, I had already been through something similar. It went from being the scariest thing I taught to my favourite lesson each week, as it was something I knew from the original sources and I had created all my teaching resources from scratch.

By the end of the year, Developments in Islamic Thought was my new favourite- and in that first round of exams it was the unit our students achieved most highly in. It transformed how I taught the subject at GCSE, and whilst I was annoyed initially with the timing so close to the GCSE reforms, I have to admit I’m glad they both came in at a similar time. The year was intense, but I loved having debates on Islamic Theology across the office table at lunch with my colleagues and having mind-blown moments myself when I was expecting only the students to.

If your department is facing a similar choice at the moment, and you’re concerned about not having a textbook for your chosen religion here are my tips and reassurances, having been in that same position myself.

Collaborate with your colleagues– although we taught separate parts of the course, planning with my colleagues was an absolute game changer. If you are teaching and planning it alone- reach out on social media, you will find someone else in the same boat as you to bounce ideas off of. I made a Facebook group for Islam at A Level teachers so that I could find other people to share ideas with.

Teach each other what you are learning– in our fortnightly key stage 5 meetings we taught each other 15 Minute sessions on what we were planning and teaching- this helped us all to see the bigger picture of the unit, and helped our students with making those synoptic links across the religion topics as well as the Philosophy and Ethics units we taught.

Connect with faith members, ex-faith members, representatives and communities– either in person, or online- see how the theory matches up to the lived experience of what you are teaching. This helped me to bring the wordy sources to life as well as give points for debate and evaluation to my students.

Communicate with your exam board– let them know that you are teaching the religion- it will encourage them to offer more training, more resources and more support for others too. We found our exam board really helpful in answering questions and directing us to more clarification for tricky content matters.

Have confidence in your ability as a learner– as teachers we hope to foster a lifelong love of learning in our students, and this was a great opportunity for me to return to learning. Except this time round I learned in a far more focused and fine-tuned way than I ever managed as an undergraduate.

While we endeavour to direct you to helpful, trustworthy resources, RE:ONLINE has no control over the content of external resources.

Many teachers will be able to empathise with me when I begin my ‘Inspired by….’ story with the panic of having arranged an outside speaker to present to the whole of Year 9 who pulled out a few days before!

Our proposed speaker was a Holocaust survivor who I had arranged through the Holocaust Education Trust. We had been very fortunate to host a survivor at my school for several years in a row, including Rudi Oppenheimer, Ruth Barnett and Joanna Millan. It was inevitable that one day the visitor would not be able to attend due to illness. But, I had 200 Year 9 pupils prepared for the talk and numerous colleagues who were looking forward to both listening at the back of the assembly hall and to not teaching Year 9 that day!

Five days before the scheduled date I began phoning all the contacts I had trying to find a replacement who would be able to travel to my school in the West Midlands. A very helpful member of staff at the Holocaust Education Trust gave me the number of Mrs Mindu Hornick. He knew she was a survivor of Auschwitz and she lived in Birmingham, but he did not know if she had spoken of her experiences before, especially to a school group.

Between lessons, I rang the number not knowing who would answer or what I would say.

Mindu answered, “Hello?”

I began, “Good morning, my name is Rebecca, and I teach RE in a local school. We were expecting a Holocaust survivor to come and speak to Year 9 next week, but he has pulled out due to ill health. I wonder if you might be able to come and talk to 200 enthusiastic and interested pupils about your experiences of Auschwitz?”

“I have not visited a school before and I am still trying to get my story into a coherent presentation”.

[So that isn’t a ‘no’. I thought] “My pupils aren’t bothered about a neat presentation, they would just love to meet you.”

“Would I be able to bring two friends from the Synagogue to accompany me?”

Whoop! And so began Mindu’s service to educating pupils about the Holocaust in many schools across the West Midlands, including 5 years visiting my own school.

Mindu Hornick is an incredible woman. She will cause a rowdy group of Year 9 pupils to be awe-struck and show deep respect. Her story of survival is astonishing and pupils fall into a revered silence listening to her voice.

In 2015 I moved into Higher Education, after 20 years in the secondary RE classroom. Mindu was delighted for me and when I asked if she would speak on Holocaust Memorial Day to staff and students at the University of Worcester, she immediately accepted. Once again, she gripped the lecture theatre which was filled, standing room only.

Little did I know at the time that a number of staff in the room were so inspired by Mindu’s far-reaching work within West Midland schools that shortly afterwards she was nominated for an Honorary Doctorate for her work to educate young people about the Holocaust. She received her Doctorate in Worcester Cathedral on 8^th November 2018 and you can read the citation here.

Following this well-deserved achievement, I worked with the Vice Chancellor’s office at the University of Worcester to nominate Mindu for a New Year Honours. In December 2019, Mindu was awarded an MBE for her work on Holocaust education and commemoration. A BBC news report about this is here.

Mindu receives all thanks, praise and admiration with her usual modesty and humility. She makes everyone she meets feel valued and has time to answer questions from pupils. She responds honestly, patiently and positively leaving her audience with a sense of wonder at her survival and also with hope for a brighter future. It is my privilege to call this inspiring woman a friend.

You can find out more about Mindu’s story by watching this episode of HARDtalk, filmed in January 2020, where she is interviewed by Stephen Sackur.

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.

While we endeavour to direct you to helpful, trustworthy resources, RE:ONLINE has no control over the content of external resources.

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