Viewing archives for Religion and Worldviews

As Head of Department in a Secondary School, I had heard the idea of ‘worldviews’ and disciplinary knowledge and was keen to understand more. From talking to others and attending conferences it soon became apparent that while this move is potentially very positive for our curriculum, it is not straightforward. Mentioning ‘worldviews’ occasionally would not be sufficient.

I started with Making Every RE Lesson Count by Louise Hutton and Dawn Cox. This offers a clear summary of the concept of worldviews and disciplinary knowledge, which gave me confidence in understanding the shift in thinking in the RE world. I also gained some idea of how this could be implemented in the classroom.

I am lucky to have the opportunity to work with Jennifer Jenkins on the REC’s Curriculum Handbook; a project to bring to life religion and worldviews curriculum frameworks. I also benefitted from a Farmington Scholarship which hugely expanded my understanding. My contribution has been to connect worldviews thinking and disciplinary knowledge, in order to support teachers across the Key Stages, in their understanding and practical approaches.

Two ‘stand out’ moments had a big influence on my thinking. Firstly, encountering Tim Hutchings and Celine Benoit’s research with teachers and worldviews opened my eyes. Their research shows that a grasp of ‘worldviews’ is varied and inconsistent in the RE world. This led me to ask how teachers can reach a consensus on what is meant by worldviews?

The second ‘stand out’ moment was aligning the Warwickshire Agreed Syllabus and worldviews thinking with Jennifer Jenkins and Alice Thomas. We imagined a curriculum where progression and connections in knowledge were embedded throughout. We realised we were talking about a complete change of approach and vision, not just the addition of some worldviews to what we already had. This was an exciting, and scary, realisation!

This journey started over two years ago. My thinking is certainly in a very different place. Although I feel more secure in my understanding of the religion and worldviews approach, I would not claim expertise, as we are all still learning. I think one of the most important aspects of my work was to network and talk to many different people about the changes. The aim of the work is to support teachers with the new approach. There are a wealth of CPD opportunities out there for RE teachers, I feel that supporting others to access guidance and support has been a key part of my contribution.

When I look back to the start of this journey, I can see my understanding has grown and changed. A religion and worldviews approach does not describe stand-alone lessons at the start of each year, where pupils reflect on their own worldview. For the new approach to be effective and meaningful it must be embedded through single lessons, medium and long-term plans, with careful consideration of progression and sequencing. It is important for pupils to encounter a wide range of different worldviews, covering individual, community and global worldviews. This endows the breadth and depth of understanding needed if pupils are to reflect on and explore their own worldviews. Disciplinary questions used to frame the subject knowledge helps to ensure a breadth and depth of exploration. This could be achieved by analysing data, personal stories or art to offer a rich and connected understanding of worldviews in all their forms. When I look back at my experiences, learning and understanding, it is clear there is a way to go, but I feel positive and hopeful as to the value of this shift within the subject.

Dawn Cox and Louise Hutton (2021) Making Every RE Lesson Count: Six Principles to Support Religious Education Teaching, Crown House Publishing

Consistently high quality RE is a dream for many of us in the RE community. Consistency often seems to need a significant degree of centralised control. And yet don’t we want teachers to be curricular producers in their own right? (Teachers of RE are like Hollywood Producers a bit). The tension between consistency and teacher creativity is at the heart of debates around a national standard for RE content. It is in this context that the RE Council’s National Content Standard for RE has been called a significant landmark in the RE world (The RE Podcast: The One About the National Content Standard).

Many teachers understand that a conversation about RE content is needed because, as Ofsted has again confirmed, the scope of RE is vast, often leading to a curriculum that characterised as superficially broad and lacking depth (Deep and Meaningful? The Religious Education Subject Report ).  Many teachers also know that their often superhuman, sometimes breathless, efforts to engage with the deep and meaningful questions of RE are valued but perhaps only within relatively narrow contexts: the children and wider school community in which they work. RE does work in many places.

Lewis Young (Humanists UK) recently pointed out that, ‘[w]hen taught well, an education in religion and worldviews education can equip pupils with a good understanding of the world around them and develop their critical thinking skills. Disappointingly, Ofsted’s deep-dive into RE shows once again that … the problems faced by the subject continue.” (OfstedReport into Religious Education Shows Long Overdue Need for Reform says Humanists UK). That is precisely the point. RE is sometimes taught really well, other times not. It seems to suffer from a lack of quality control. The local determination of content has its virtues, but consistency is probably not one of them.

Uniformity of curricular content is one path. That uniformity could be imposed in strict terms by an authority (who would that be?!) stipulating very specific content that every classroom should adhere to. This could ensure consistency, but the price would be too high. Teaching would be reduced to a functionalist process of transmission that takes little account of local contexts and interests and would almost certainly erode student engagement. So, how do we maintain some measure of consistency while also allowing teachers to bring material to life in their own ways?

One aspect of the AfterRE project is developing what is known as the exemplary way: an approach which develops exemplary forms rather than specified content. Those exemplary forms elaborate in rich detail (the depth that Ofsted in after) quite specific episodes of interest to RE. The specificity means that any given episode is likely to only work in certain contexts (age range; student dynamics; local cultural makeup etc). But the exemplary structure is there to be adapted and applied to the local context. The exemplary way tries to bring into focus the learning goals and suggests that many different examples might be used to achieve those goals. Here are some examples from our project that readers might want to adapt. (https://www.afterre.org/framework)

So rather than think of RE in terms of specified content, we emphasise the idea of exemplary content which can be taken up and adapted. Teachers are best placed to know which examples, cases, and narratives to use, though the exemplary way offers some guiding questions to help keep in view the overall educational goals of RE (which are nicely summarised by a German pedagogue, Wolfgang Klafki: https://www.afterre.org/framework).

The exemplary way resonates with the proposals for a National Content Standard as well as the recently released Religion and Worldviews Approach to RE toolkit so I hope that the RE community can embrace this ideas in the spirit with which they are offered: as a template to thinking about how to develop high quality RE for all.

Each year in November the Interfaith Network for the UK (IFN) convenes and coordinates Interfaith Week. For IFN, Interfaith Week is an opportunity to raise awareness about the UK’s different and distinct faith communities, and to celebrate the contribution which their members make to their neighbourhoods and wider society. In doing so, Interfaith Week creates opportunities to increase understanding between people of different religious and non-religious beliefs. However, for this to occur, IFN notes that there needs to be a foundation of understanding, awareness and respect.

To many people in the Religious Education world, these themes will be extremely familiar. Many educators will recognise that when supporting learning about complex and sensitive issues such as those relating to religion and belief, that there is a need to establish safe and nurturing learning environments which promote respect. Moreover, and with that open and inclusive learning environment established, religion and worldviews classrooms by definition must explore different and distinct religion and belief communities.

Religious Literacy: A tool for better interfaith relations

IFN talks about these kinds of activities as promoting greater religious literacy. Religious literacy is understood as a suite of skills for interpretation and interaction grounded in an understanding of one’s own faith or belief, and the faith or belief of those with whom they are interacting. For IFN this literacy is vital in a diverse society; it is one important factor which increases the likelihood of positive and respectful coexistence. Indeed, this aligns with findings from Culham’s 2022 Religion and Worldviews Parent survey which found that 66% of parents believe that religious education lessons prepare their children effectively for life in multi-religious, multi-secular Britain.

Interfaith Week: A tool for enhancing the teaching of religions in schools

There are many ways in which teachers can use Interfaith Week as an opportunity to dig into issues which align with many religious education syllabuses. For instance, IFN have seen how some schools use Interfaith Week as an opportunity to explore aspects of living together well in religiously diverse societies and the values that underpin them. Other schools have used Interfaith Week to deliver lessons focussing on a particular religion or religious festivals (particularly those which happen around the time of Interfaith Week). In these cases, schools often reach out to their local Interfaith Forum, or local places of worship, to explore how they can add greater richness to the planned activities such as sourcing speakers for assemblies. Where there are schools with different religious ethos’ physically close to one another, Interfaith Week has been an opportunity to do linking activities, which have brought children of different faith traditions together to learn from one another. Where distance might prevent this, some schools have found that they can use video-conferencing to facilitate exchanges between schools.

If you are interested in using Interfaith Week as a way into creative religious education learning opportunities, this report by IFN is a great place to start. Many local interfaith groups will be particularly active during Interfaith Week and receptive to enquiries and requests for help. For that reason, it is a great opportunity for schools to build up links with local faith communities and interfaith activists.

Moving to Lincolnshire from a diverse area, things seemed much more monocultural than what I was used to. However, I came to appreciate that diversity is there, just not as visibly. I also came to see that this impression of lack of diversity was having a negative impact on RE teaching. Teachers felt worried about teaching religious worldviews because of strongly negative feeling within the local community. Our REConnecting Lincolnshire project was a response; seeking to bring people together through sharing stories from Christianity and Islam.

You can find out about REConnecting Lincolnshire here.

The Empowering Voices project is a development of this wider work, particularly in aiming to represent lived, authentic worldviews.

We decided on podcasts as the medium for Empowering Voices inspired by Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Explorations in Theology (1961). He notes the significance of hearing to build understanding of the world. We cannot but hear what is spoken, even if it places us in a space of discomfort. This struck me quite deeply: our evaluation of the initial phase of REConnecting Lincolnshire had shown that although we had had a significant impact on challenging misconceptions and prejudice, there were some who chose not to engage and whose misconceptions consequently remained unchallenged. We were inspired by von Balthasar to pursue an audio medium for this piece of work to see if this widened engagement and therefore increased impact.

We were lucky enough to work with a fabulous team of creative professionals; David Lambert (Cultural Solutions UK) and Leanne Taylor (Taylor Made Arts) and Emily Bignell (Artistic Director of Shooting Fish Theatre Company). It was a fantastic opportunity for pupils involved to develop creative and digital skills.

We began by considering what worldviews might alight tensions in local communities if they were included in the Primary or Secondary curriculum. We started with people: we went to local communities to find inspiration for the stories at the heart of each podcast. Through education packs we support teachers to move from the particular to a bigger, often global, picture.

Finding time to bring people together in a busy school day was tricky. However, a bigger challenge was taking the time to ensure that everyone felt that their voices and concerns were heard. Just as challenging was the need to unpick some assumptions and misconceptions we encountered.

However, it was a real joy to watch new relationships forming and flourishing. We know that several schools have connected through this process and now regularly working together. It has been brilliant to find the ‘hidden voices’ in worldview communities and provide a platform for them.

Explore the full Empowering Voices resource here, and see what topics and voices are coming up.

Reference
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Explorations in Theology II: Spouse of the Word (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, first edition, 1961, this edition 1991), 475-6

The overall aim of Discovering Muslims in Britain is to support teachers to embed sociological perspectives in the classroom.

The project was inspired by my own research, discussions about the RE/ RVE curriculum in Wales, and the expertise of the Islam-UK Centre at Cardiff University. The project was a response to an emerging desire to represent local, ‘lived’ expressions of religious traditions in the classroom. The sociological approach to the study of Islam and Muslims in the UK that the Islam-UK Centre specialises in lends itself to this kind of analysis, so it seemed like a great opportunity to try and bring this expertise into the RE classroom.

I’ve always thought it odd that there is a lot of research out there that tells teachers what to do, yet distinctly less that attempts to implement ideas for the classroom. Yet there is always a clamour on various RE forums for resources, especially quality resources from a reputable source. Feedback from focus groups showed the need for resources that were practical and accessible for the ‘average’ school and teacher.

We developed both teaching resources and CPD training in an attempt to put research into practice. This is the principle at the core of Discovering Muslims in Britain.

We came across some unexpected surprises. Firstly, we found much wider institutional support than we had expected, from both schools and Cardiff University. This shows us that there is a desire to support projects like this. Secondly we found that creating ‘classroom ready’ resources really means resources that are easily adaptable, we cannot predict each classroom context, teacher, school type and level of expertise. We felt this was a productive solution.

The most crucial question we grappled with is what constitutes ‘legitimate’ knowledge about Islam. There were some anxieties from teachers where accounts of Muslims in the resource seemed to contrast with the “textbook answer”. Such anxieties reflect longstanding tensions between representing “official” and “lived” accounts of religion in the classroom, as well as with scholarship itself. Unpicking these tensions may be a fruitful avenue for further research, and improve the RE curriculum.

After creating the resource, our top tip is to treat the accounts of people, in this case Muslims, as a source of knowledge and evidence about a religious tradition alongside that of the traditional sources of knowledge and wisdom. By comparing and contrasting these sources, and trying to unpick the differences, we can begin to get at differences in context, and how abstract teachings or historical narratives are “made real” today.

In the course of this research we came across some good sources of information about Islam. One that stands out is the Muslim Museum Initiative. The work of the scholars at the Islam-UK Centre is also really useful – check out the Public Seminar Series.

The process has given me valuable insights into teaching about religion generally. Something that really struck us when trying to conceptualise the course is negotiating the tension between teaching about the “core” of Islam, or constructing a kind of fixed framework of concepts to begin to understand what Islam was, and then presenting “lived” Islam as enshrined in the perspectives of Muslim communities. Importantly, shifting the focus from understanding Islam to understanding Muslims also afforded us more room to lead with the idea of Islam as understood and lived by Muslims, and more room to achieve the latter. We hope teachers continue to use and benefit from this resource.

Find the Discovering Muslims in Britain Resource here

I always feel sympathy for non-religious children sullenly slumped in RE lessons, declaring ‘I’m not religious, I don’t need to know this’. In this blog, I will articulate three reasons why many non-religious pupils struggle to engage with RE following a World Religions paradigm, and how these problems are overcome by following a Worldviews paradigm. While my experience is as a Primary teacher, I am hopeful that this reasoning applies just as much to those in Secondary schools.

Pupils feel invalidated

The World Religions paradigm asks teachers to choose religions for study, meaning non-religious worldviews might be overlooked in an already overcrowded curriculum. For non-religious pupils who know that their teacher has deliberately excluded their worldview, they must question whether the lesson is worth their attention.

How a worldviews paradigm can help

A Worldviews paradigm begins and ends with people: all people. In a Worldviews classroom religious and non-religious pupils are equally worthy of study. No pupil needs to get the impression that their view on a subject is not welcome or important, simply because it is not drawn from a traditionally religious perspective. When pupils engage with Religion and Worldviews, they may discover that their own worldview shares ways of seeing with other established worldviews. This way of thinking gives children the freedom to interact on a completely different level. It is no longer a case of either believing or not believing; pupils can engage in a much more nuanced way, sharing and adapting their beliefs and values as they travel through the curriculum.

Pupils feel disadvantaged

Following the World Religions paradigm means some pupils are automatically disadvantaged. A pupil may find themselves next to someone in a lesson on Christianity who already has considerable knowledge derived from their parents and out of school activities. However, it is unlikely that the same pupil will find themselves in a History lesson sitting next to, for example, a Roman. With natural disadvantages like this, it is no wonder that some pupils feel that RE is not worth the effort of giving their all.

How a worldviews paradigm can help

While there will undoubtedly remain a need for children to gain substantive knowledge regarding major world religions and other worldviews, the focus of a Religion and Worldviews approach shifts from gaining knowledge to interacting with knowledge. Non-religious pupils will no longer be disadvantaged through a lack of experience of religion, as their own, unique worldview created by their own experiences and beliefs is now the driving force for their understanding in RE.
With a curriculum that is not restricted by the need to focus exclusively on world religions, one approach teachers may take would be to introduce Big Questions at the start of a topic: for example, ‘Is there an afterlife?’. This topic could then begin and end with the children articulating their own understanding and belief, with several different religious and non-religious interpretations explored. While some children may have prior knowledge of a particular taught worldview, this will not be a significant advantage over time as all pupils will engage with rich and complex information in order to address the big questions.

Pupils feel alienated

Many non-religious pupils come from non-religious families, they may even have exclusively non-religious friends. In these cases, religion is not only irrelevant to them, but it may seem irrelevant to everyone that they know. Pupils who find themselves in this situation will inevitably struggle to find purpose and meaning in RE lessons, and therefore are unlikely to commit fully to their studies.

How a worldviews paradigm can help

As stated, a worldviews paradigm begins and ends with people. A worldviews curriculum would, among other things, highlight the diversity within and across religions, and to do this pupils have to interact with individuals. We are no longer asking our non-religious pupils to engage with the huge, alien concept of ‘religion’. We are introducing them to individuals; individuals who may subscribe to a particular worldview, but real individuals with unique thoughts and feelings that our pupils will be able to relate to. When pupils find a topic relatable they are much more likely to engage with it positively, and therefore by having a people-focused curriculum rather than a religion-focused curriculum, non-religious pupils are much more likely to connect with the teaching.

I taught RE for a number of years, and am now the RE PGCE course leader and senior lecturer at Edge Hill University. This role allows me to be active in school education, but also to take a strategic approach to research around Religion and Worldviews. The best part of my job is working with beginner RE teachers, who are not only learning a to navigate the complex technical, emotional and intellectual terrain of the classroom, they are finding themselves as teachers in relation to their school contexts and wider society. In this blog I will present my work on ethical veganism in the curriculum, and suggest that the Religion and Worldviews paradigm has much to offer teachers as they explore the urgent questions of our world today with their pupils.

As an ethical vegan myself, my doctoral research concerns the experiences of vegan children in schools and how far the ‘omnivore norm’ can be challenged through the Religion and Worldviews curriculum. As you can imagine, this takes me to the heart of all sorts of fascinating, and sometimes challenging, ideas. The experience of vegan children in schools is an example of a school’s ‘hidden framework’ (Giroux 2001), the dominant school culture which reflects the dominant culture and power relations of wider society.

There is much rich content that can be brought into the curriculum to make sense of values around the food we eat. Vegetarianism in the Dharmic traditions is encouraged in scripture and modelled by centuries of religious leaders. We can explore the environmental impacts of meat production and the compelling ethical questions raised by our globalised intensive meat industries. Moreover, ethical veganism is a topic which speaks to the future of the planet; sustainability, the climate emergency and human exploitation. These types of questions can be found in religious and non-religious worldviews, which further allows pupils to explore the overlapping, complex and interconnected nature of worldviews in our less Christian but more religiously diverse contemporary society. Western perspectives often draw a clear distinction between humans and non-human animals, while many Eastern religions traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, view all life as interconnected and believe in the principle of ahimsa, which requires avoiding harm to all creatures. An environmental worldview can be inspired by religious or non-religious values, or an eclectic mixture of ancient, contemporary, spiritual and practical concerns.

As Religious Education shifts towards a Religion and Worldviews paradigm, such an examination of ethical veganism is an example of how the curriculum can explore the relationship between religion and worldviews in the contemporary world. Ethical veganism is a rapidly growing philosophical belief rooted in practice and protected under the Equality Act (2010) and European law. It can be perceived as a secular worldview yet for many it is closely intertwined with religious belief and practice. From vegan food served in shops and restaurants to discussions about animal treatment, environmental responsibility, human health, social justice, and of course, religion and beliefs, this topic opens up a wealth of pertinent questions. Just like other religions and worldviews taught in RE, veganism is a dynamic and multi-layered subject of study, fostering lively debates and discussions, critical thinking, and thought-provoking questions. My research shows me children’s strong interest in the animal kingdom and their eager engagement in conversations about animal welfare, ethics, and their treatment. The potential to explore such an urgent and engaging set of topics is an example of how the shift towards a Religion and Worldviews approach could be of great benefit to RE.

For any teachers interested in pursuing these questions with their pupils, the following websites are a good places to start:

Veganism in Education
Animal Interfaith Alliance – Faiths Working Together for Animals
Interfaith Vegan Coalition
NATRE- Veganism as a worldview in RE

Reference:

Giroux, H. (2001). Theory and resistance in education. Westport, Conn: Bergin & Garvey.

I have always seen change as part of growing and developing and this year certainly involves change. I am getting married, turning 30, buying my first house and moving the length of the country. With this move comes a professional change. After eight years in the same school I have taken on the role of Head of RE and Personal Development in a new setting. As well as trepidation there is an overwhelming sense of excitement at the opportunity to drive change.

I will be documenting my successes, failures and lessons learnt as I grow and develop a Religion and Worldviews department in a new setting.

In my previous school we had 6 specialist teachers, compulsory, universal GCSE RS and a pupil attitude that was overwhelmingly positive. In contrast, in my new school, there is one specialist and RE has been taught in conjunction with PSHE and there has been a struggle for GCSE uptake in the subject. Religion and Worldviews is in a position where it needs further identity and drive in its own right. There is however a strong appetite on SLTs part to give the department scope for growing in profile and impact, an essential ingredient.

The key to my new role is vision. What is my vision for Religion and Worldviews in this school? and what vision does the school have for the subject? Without being able to answer these questions I would be setting myself and the department up for failure. While there is a much wider debate about the aims of Religion and Worldviews, the very basic principles that I am working around are:

• Designing a Religion and Worldviews curriculum that is relevant to the pupils I am teaching.
• Planning a curriculum that challenges pupils’ own views and gives them opportunities to explore a wide variety of religious and non-religious worldviews.
• Developing pupil’s religious literacy, critical thinking skills, reading and writing skills.

This role is so exciting due to the autonomy given by the school to drive change in the subject. The school envisions Religion and Worldviews as subject in its own right, detached from PSHE. As of September we will be moving towards this vision with a designated hour for Religion and Worldviews on the timetable. We are an Academy so I have the freedom to bring some creative curriculum design into play, in order to excite, challenge and enthuse pupils.

At this early stage I can see my biggest challenge will be changing pupil’s negative attitudes; the most common comment is that RE is boring and/ or pointless. Therefore as well as high quality teaching and learning, branding and marketing is vital. The name will change to PRE (philosophy, religion and ethics) as part of this essential re-brand.

This term I will be refining and further developing my vision, ready for a September launch. Key factors will be early ‘quick wins’ to generate enthusiasm in the classroom. A test of my curriculum design will be interest in taking the subject for GCSE. However my priority is building relationships with pupils and learning what inspires and drives them.

I would be delighted to hear from and engage with other teachers and leaders as I document my journey.
Contact me on twitter – @AdamHoldsworth1

For some time, I have been interested developing a Religion and Worldviews approach in our curriculum. There is so much that our pupils would respond to, such as the idea of starting with people, not abstract concepts. I know teachers would enjoy looking through different lenses, such as Theology one week, and History another week, and maybe we would introduce children to using the language of ‘disciplinary lenses’ as children love using ‘big words’ and technical vocabulary, alongside age appropriate and more familiar explanations. I am interested in a Religion and Worldviews approach as it offers an authentic view of religious and non-religious lives around the world. Such a curriculum would provide our pupils with the knowledge that the world is a richly diverse community. In this blog I will discuss the elements of our curriculum that can be developed and adapted as we build, slowly, towards a Religion and Worldviews approach.

Pupils have commented that they want to learn about diversity in the world. They have also expressed enthusiasm to make links with other subjects as they learn. A Year 1 pupil showed me how they had linked their learning in RE to Science and History for themselves, and this got me thinking. Perhaps pupils get the impression that RE is stuck in the past. A curriculum approach which starts with people, rather than ancient texts, can embrace contemporary lives and issues.

We already explore diversity, such as the reasons for different baptism traditions, why Orthodox and Reform Jewish groups might have different synagogues and why some Sikhs wear a turban while others do not. Through these differences we explore the idea of diversity generally in human life, including in our school community. Pupils and teachers enjoy these learning experiences so we are starting from a positive point.

We already ask ‘Big Questions’ in every lesson. This established approach means we could ask different sorts of questions about different sorts of knowledge. Where we might ask a rather abstract philosophical question in our current curriculum, following a worldviews approach we could start with people and explore their context, whether geographically or socially, and ask a Big Question about this. We could take a hermeneutical approach and explore different interpretations. Sticking to the Big Questions approach means that although the subject knowledge has changed, the method has not, so teachers will feel secure in their skills. Teachers might find they can explore issues in more depth, make more links and connections and find their own subject knowledge deepening.

The idea of looking through different lenses could also be fruitful. We might use a word like ‘wondering’ to describe thinking philosophically in KS1, to make it accessible for those who find ‘big words’ challenging. At KS2 pupils will enjoy the richer connections to be made when exploring the world through Theology, Philosophy and Social Sciences. The different lenses mean teachers have particular questions to ask, such as about the past, places, people or beliefs, and can take children further into one mode of thinking.

There will no doubt be some anxiety about the change to Religion and Worldviews. Ideas have to be introduced to staff slowly and the reasons for the change made clearly. We can explore together the benefits for pupils’ learning and understanding. Staff need to look at examples, which I will provide. We can trial one unit and feedback, and work together to create quality resources so colleagues do not feel the workload is overwhelming.

I will report back. Watch this space!

Creative Perpetuation

This final blog of the series is a patchwork affair. I want to conclude with a tapestry of the creative ways people have engaged with theological ideas over the centuries.

Recitation features in several religious traditions; where the melody, emphasis and pronunciation of the words combines with meaning to communicate rich, nuanced ideas. This is true of the Qur’an. When Binyamin and Yusuf are reunited in Surah Yusuf (Surah 12), Yusuf says “I am your brother”. The ‘am’ is lengthened to convey the emotion of this reconciliation. In surahs where the mercy and compassion of Allah are extolled, the two words flow into each other to emphasise that Allah is ALL merciful and ALL compassionate. The final surah of the Qur’an contains sibilance, with the articulation of the ‘s’ sound conveying the concept of ‘secrets’ as the Quranic scriptures draw to a close.

Likewise, Sanskrit is designed to be articulated in melody, so that Vedic texts such as the Bhagavad Gita are sung more than spoken. The traditions and teachings of Sanatan Dharma were passed down orally, with the memorisation of verses greatly aided by the melodic pronunciation and recitation.

As well as the recitation and song of oral traditions, dancing has played its part in transmission of beliefs, through sacred stories. More prevalent in the Indic-traditions, I am nevertheless reminded of King David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament, the circling of a Jewish bride and the widdershins processions in the liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the Hindu tradition, carefully learned dances convey the epics of Vedic literature and the ecstatic whirling of the Sufi tradition is practiced as a form of active meditation.

Theatre can provide a forum for encounter with religious truths. In the morality plays of the medieval and early Tudor periods concepts such as virtues, vices, temptation and human nature were personified. Most commonly the plot followed a trajectory of temptation, fall and redemption. The audience reflected on the importance of confession, repentance and salvation, seen through the Christian sacraments, applying the struggles of the protagonist to their own lives.

In the ruins of the old cathedral of St Michael in Coventry outdoor theatre is still performed today. I have seen Shakespeare plays performed by the fabulous theatre group, the Three Inch Fools, in that setting. I often envisage the ‘stage’, a platform of flat stone, being used centuries earlier, with Coventry’s humble folk gathering for a performance of Everyman, where entertainment, morality and a good dose of theology would mingle under the stars.

In this six- part blog series, I have explored ‘ways of knowing in the past’. There is so much more to discover. Through literature, art, oral religion, recitation, song, dance and theatre, we can see that people of the past articulated and explored the theology of their belief systems and worldviews. Better than a textbook? I am inclined to think so. I hope you have discovered something useful (and beautiful) for the RE classroom through the time you have devoted to reading my blog series.