Eclectic RE or integrated RE? Case studies in learning method and learning practice

1. Eclectic RE or integrated RE? Case studies in learning method and learning practice

2. If pedagogy in RE is about the varied means by which people take learning intentions into action (through planning, teaching, motivating and assessing pupils) then... • Instruction will always be an inadequate default for RE learning; • Good pedagogy will be sensitive to learners’ needs (and therefore can learn from [e.g.] multiple intelligence theory, learning styles research, other disciplines); • Good teaching will be informed by clear aims and objectives - of course! These may be subtly shaded by the pedagogical processes in action. • I will argue here that it is in the connections between the different pedagogical approaches we use in RE that best practice may be discerned. Each approach is incomplete without the gifts of some of the other approaches. • This is the practice of many excellent RE teachers, who are perhaps learning intuitively from their situation of daily work with hundreds of pupils that effective RE is unconfined by one research or practice model • I will further argue that RE’s current needs are to spread good pedagogy more widely and to encourage an integrated vision among good teachers, so that learning without barriers is facilitated

4. In this interesting example, 13 year olds can express their own current ideas about God in the light of their learning about the processes of theology and philosophy at a simple level. Their creative insight is alert to different cultural and social contexts in which religious enquiry occurs.

5. Each school of thought in RE implies some particular learning methods

6. Learning the phenomena of religion In this piece of work the pupil – Holly, 12 – shows simply a piece of learning that comes from study of sacred story in Buddhist tradition. The work then jumps to relate a point about wider Buddhist vision to her ideas about greed – did the teacher want more than facts?

8. In this interesting example, Danny, 9, has explored the practice of the festival of Sukkot. His model of a sukkah and his description of the festivities add up to a good understanding of the meaning of this festival. It’s a wide kind of ‘phenomenological RE’

9. In this piece of work Dan, not a Muslim, collects information about the life of the Prophet that might be significant for Muslim children. This task asks for facts and an editorial judgement. We might recognise AT1 work.

10. To become human: personal development goals through RE Grimmitt gives these accounts of the purposes of RE. To give pupils:  “the opportunity to acquire skills which enable them to use their understanding of religion in the interpretation of their own personal experiences.” (RE and Human Development, page 216, 1987). “pupils should evaluate their understanding of self in religious terms… the evaluative process of learning from religion(s) should be fully integrated into how, within a secular educational context, pupils are learning about religion in the first place.” (Pedagogies, page 15, 2002)

11. “My soul painting depicts a hand stopping aspects of my personality getting through: how I feel sometimes. It feels like I have to stop saying some of the things I do and that I have to hold back what I really think or feel about certain things. So, in a way, the hand represents public opinion or morals. The darkness on the right is to show the aspects of my personality on that side aren’t shown often. The one’s on the left are those I show often are in the light. There is a space in the top right hand corner where the 2 sides mix. It shows that sometimes you cannot hold back emotion.”

12. Spirituality at the heart of RE through experiential learning methods Religious education provides opportunities to promote spiritual development through: • discussing and reflecting on key questions of meaning and truth such as the origins of the universe, life after death, good and evil, beliefs about God and values such as justice, honesty and truth • learning about and reflecting on important concepts, experiences and beliefs that are at the heart of religious and other traditions and practices • considering how beliefs and concepts in religion may be expressed through the creative and expressive arts and related to the human and natural sciences, thereby contributing to personal and communal identity • considering how religions and other world views perceive the value of human beings, and their relationships with one another, with the natural world, and with God • valuing relationships and developing a sense of belonging • developing their own views and ideas on religious and spiritual issues. National Framework, QCA, 2004

13. This piece of work comes from a guided fantasy activity in which learners imagine having an opportunity to ask one question of God / who knows everything. They receive a reply from an ambiguous source in a letter – does it come from ‘who knows everything / God’ They imagine what the reply might say. The activity intends to model the ambiguities of religious or spiritual experience – but in this example, a specific expression of faith emerges from the pupil. Good RE?

14. Religious literacy: modest aims? • Concept cracking: a learning method • Skills of religious literacy: to be ‘religiate’ • Questions focus: evaluating issues of meaning and truth • Increasing capacity to ‘handle truth claims’ (handling is what we do with dogs isn’t it?) • RE’s frontier with philosophy: building close + reasoned connections

15. This interesting example of work from David, 13, makes use of the tools for learning he is acquiring to explore a range of views about questions of origins.

16. Constructing human life: big goals • RE has moved from being ‘owned’ within Christianity to being multi-religiously ‘owned’, and including [e.g.] Humanism • Does the subject now need to take account of the post-modern perspectives of the self that are forming our next generation? • Does that provide a model for RE’s function in constructing the shifting kaleidoscope of worldview or meaning making or self?

17. This interesting piece of work from Nadine, 12, is a wide ranging reflection on her own identity, the product of chosen routes through her learning about Buddhist and Christian responses to questions of identity and belonging.

19. Interpretive skills for all learners Reflexivity: the skills of open hearted, broad minded engagement with the religious views and world views of others in such a way that my own perspective is challenged, affirmed, criticised, evaluated. Edification: the personal gift that the learner acquires through the encounter with other minds and lives (Note how she gets into the process of RE from the content)

21. This work from a pupil in year three is characteristic of a fully rounded interpretive RE; developing the language of RS with 8 year olds and exploring sacred story, teaching and belief, symbolism and forms of expression, the work links

24. Enquiry: all the tools in the pedagogic toolbox of the RE teacher need to prompt and promote enquiry, ‘search and discover’ as a set of processes. What would you ask God?

25. Integrating the learning approaches of RE for higher standards

26. Proposals for better learning in the RE classroom would include:

27. Leila Abdullah, 9: “This is my idea about ‘where is God?’ My family goes to the mosque to pray to God, but Allah is not just at the mosque. In my window, I have made a picture of churches and temples from all the different religions. People search for God in lots of places.”