Primary pupils can! A richer encounter with parables

A research spotlight for Primary Focus Week

In this short film Dr Ryan Parker, RE Adviser and previously a teacher of primary age pupils, explores whether 9 and 10 year olds can engage with deep questions about meaning and interpretation of parables. He used a series of practical strategies in his sample lessons, all the resources he used in his lessons, based on the parable of the Good Samaritan are available to download at the bottom of this piece. I was struck by his initial questions for pupils after reading the parables:

What stands out for me in this parable?
Are there any parts that don’t add up or make sense? Why not?
What information might help us to understand this text more?

Ryan’s work will be of interest to all but certainly builds on the work in this area by Pett et al. In ‘Understanding Christianity’.

As you watch and read consider;

Are too many encounters with texts in RE too narrow and predetermined? How can we enable reflective, knowledge-rich encounters with sacred texts?
How can we help primary pupils reason through why different people, including themselves, read a text the way they do?
What do you think is the value of more open pedagogies, which enable pupils to use their volition and voice as interpreters, in enriching pupils’ religious literacy?

An emerging question from the chalkface

As a primary practitioner, I was – and still am – struck by how often curriculum resources on the parables do not invite pupils to reflect upon diverse interpretations. Too often, students are directed to a single, incontestable meaning. ‘Success’ in these lessons is determined upon whether or not they can parrot back that particular meaning on the lesson plan. With pupils essentially told how to read these texts, opportunities for them the share their own ideas and questions are stymied. This sits uneasily with me. As parables stimulate different readings, surely pupils should encounter and reason across/through diverse interpretations in religious education (RE)? Furthermore, wouldn’t pupils’ religious literacy be enriched if they also engaged with deeper questions around why different people (including themselves) interpret a parable differently? Sadly, there remains a view in RE (entrenched since the 1960s) that primary-aged pupils are not cognitively ready to engage meaningfully with the parables of Jesus; better to communicate one meaning or simply present as stories to enjoy until the secondary phase.

I wished to challenge this assumption. Through part-time doctoral research (University of Birmingham), I designed and trialled two lessons with pupils aged 9-11 to develop their hermeneutical awareness and construct informed responses to the enquiry question, ‘Why do different people interpret a parable differently?’. The parable used was The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37). Such an enquiry was designed to contribute meaningfully to pupils’ substantive, disciplinary and personal knowledge (Ofsted, 2021).

Aspects underpinning the lessons

Three key aspects emerged from my engagement with literature which informed the envisioning, exemplification and evaluation of these lessons: pupil agency, dialogic learning and reception history of the parables.

Pupil agency. Pupils are not passive recipients of content; they are agentive hermeneutics who construct meaning and pursue lines of enquiry through engaging with subject matter and others. Through the lessons, I employed a slow, open pedagogy to provide a range of opportunities for pupils to use their volition and voice to reason through different aspects linked to the enquiry question.

Dialogic learning. According to Gadamer (2004) and Ricoeur (1992), it is through encountering views which are new to, of differ from one’s own, that we understand others and ourselves better. I therefore provided numerous opportunities for pupils to encounter diverse views within a shared enquiry, both presented within the subject matter and emerging from students themselves. This included reasoning through a range of interpretations and hermeneutical issues constellating around the parable to help them more efficaciously understand why different people, including themselves, interpret a parable differently.

Reception history. The hermeneutical issues mentioned above were sourced from parabolic scholarship. Such scholarship includes a vast array of views on the parables, with various ideas about the original context within which the parable was first spoken and read, as well as questions around the positionality of readers in encountering these texts.

Also valuable was the field of reception history (e.g. Lyons, 2010; Beal, 2011). I considered it purposeful to enable pupils to engage with a range of authentic interpretations and their interpreters, from different times and places. This would, I hoped, help pupils recognise that interpretation of texts is often a dynamic, ongoing, contextual conversation, one which they are also contributors.

Conclusions

‘It’s quite interesting to see how [other interpreters] think…It just made me really think about the different times, the different cultures, the different backgrounds and experiences that lead up to similarities, differences…and unique people thinking different things’ (Pupil CA)

This research demonstrated compellingly that primary-aged pupils are able to reason meaningfully through why different people interpret a parable differently; this has not been revealed before in formal research. Some key conclusions are:

With appropriate support, space, pedagogies and resources, pupils aged 9-11 can ably engage in rich reasoning pertaining to why a parable is interpreted differently by different people. In considering a range of questions taken from parabolic scholarship, pupils’ substantive, disciplinary and personal knowledge developed;
In encountering a range of ideas and interpretations (from their peers and interpreters across different times and places), pupils stood self-consciously in front of a parable. In other words, they recognised that their own positionality informed how they engaged with this text. They were also able to appreciate how others arrived at the interpretations they did; and
this deep thinking empowered pupils to express their views, questions and developing thinking within an open enquiry. They used their volition and voice to explore interpretive issues. This was valued by pupils – they and their perspectives were ‘heard’ (Pupil BD) in a way not always granted in textual enquiry.

The full thesis and all lesson plans and resources can be found here.

Dr Ryan Parker, RE and Christian Ethos Adviser, Diocese of St Albans

Reference List

Beal, T. (2011) ‘Reception History and Beyond: Toward the Cultural History of Scriptures’, Biblical Interpretation, 19 (4): 357-372.

Gadamer, H-G. (2004) Truth and Method. London: Continuum.

Lyons, W. J. (2010) ‘Hope for a Troubled Discipline? Contributions to New Testament Studies from Reception History’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 33 (2): 207-220.

Ofsted. (2021) Research review series: religious education. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/research-review-series-religious- education/research-review-series-religious-education

Pett et al (2016) ‘Understanding Christianity: Text Impact Connections’ Birmingham: RE Today.
Ricoeur, P. (1992) Oneself as Another. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

You may be interested in...

Previous research spotlights

Catch up on them all here