Dialogue Australasia Network
Teaching Middle School RE
Dr Felicity McCutcheon
2012
Religious Educators as Educators
Starting with Plato
“The mind (soul) must become capable of bearing the
sight of real being and reality at its most bright, which
we’re saying is goodness. That’s what education
should be: the art of orientation.” (Republic 518c)
Religious Educators as Educators
Plato continued
‘Education should devise the simplest and most effective
methods of turning minds around. It shouldn’t be the art of
implanting sight in the organ but should proceed on the
understanding that the organ already has the capacity, but
is improperly aligned and isn’t facing the right way’ (Plato:
Republic, 518c/d)
Adolescence
Loss of childhood binary concepts
and innocent trust of authority
Religious Educators as Educators
Adolescence
“As the roaring of the waves precedes the tempest, so the murmur of
rising passions…warns us of the approaching danger. A change of
temper, frequent outbreaks of anger, a perpetual stirring of the mind,
make the child ungovernable”. (Rousseau, Emile, NY: Dutton, 1955,
first published 1762)
Middle school teachers might be tempted to say: ‘make the child
unteachable’!
Religious Educators as Educators
Adolescence
It is naturally a time of disorientation and re-orientation.
This is what makes middle school teaching so full of
possibility. What matters is that we provide safe passage
for our young people from childish simplistic notions
towards being capable of the complexity and ambiguity of
human (and religious) life.
Religious Educators as Educators
Adolescence
‘To become capable of reality at its most
bright’
To become capable of God
Heidegger: What is called Thinking?
Thinking is not merely having an opinion or an
idea about a state of affairs. Thinking is not
developing a chain of premises that lead to a valid
conclusion…Thinking is not so much an act as a
way of living or dwelling. It is a gathering and
focussing of our whole selves on what lies before
us and a taking to heart and mind these particular
things before us in order to discover in them their
essential nature and truth”.
Thinking
Thinking is the orientation of
beings towards being
‘The Woodcarver’
Heidegger continued
‘Teaching is even more difficult than learning. We
know that; but we rarely think about it. And why is
teaching more difficult than learning? Not because
the teacher must have a larger store of
information and have it always ready. Teaching is
more difficult than learning because what teaching
calls for is this: to let learn’. (p15)
Religious Educators as Educators
Adolescence and relevance
Postman and Weingartner playlet
Religious Educators as Educators
Adolescence and relevance – ‘letting learn’
Postman and Weingartner inquiry method
•Self-confidence in their learning ability
•Pleasure in problem solving
•A keen sense of relevance
•Reliance on their own judgment over other people's or society's
•No fear of being wrong
•No haste in answering
•Flexibility in point of view
•Respect for facts, and the ability to distinguish between fact and opinion
•No need for final answers to all questions, and comfort in not knowing
an answer to difficult questions rather than settling for a simplistic
answer
Education as attending to the essentials
Adolescence and RE
What is relevant? Why?
(5 minute exercise – talk to
neighbour and draw up a list)
Education as attending to the essentials
Adolescence – becoming capable of reality
To be ready to learn is to be ready
to die (Kafka)
Summary: the essentials for Middle School
•Uniqueness and importance of
adolescence – embrace the questioning
•Set high standards – demand of them
intellectual standards (equivalent to other
subjects)
•Orientation – call them up, not so much to
‘beliefs’ but towards truthful being
Good news!
There is no perfect curriculum. There is no
Platonic Form of a Middle School Scope
and Sequence
[Why not?]
The essentials will include:
Religious Education
Biblical/Christian Church Tradition
World Religions
Philosophy
Ethics
Reflective Stillness
Education as attending to the essentials
Remember:
•
•
•
•
Curriculum documents serve our purposes.
We must not become slavish to them
We serve truth, reality and our students
When a planner or scope and sequence chart
becomes our master, we are now worshipping
an idol
Pursuing essentials in RE
Adolescence
‘The aim of this course is to help
clarify
your thinking on matters of profound
importance’
Pursuing essentials in RE
Clarity on matters of profound importance
What are matters of profound importance?
(5 minute exercise)
Pursuing essentials in RE
Clarity on matters of profound importance
How much overlap between this exercise
and the previous one on relevance?
Pursuing essentials in RE
Clarity on matters of profound importance
• What are major matters of profound importance to people?
•Why are these matters of profound importance?
•Is evidence needed to justify matters of profound importance?
•What happens when we die?
•Will we ever know the truth about the beginning of the world?
•Why are we here?
•How can there be so many different religions yet everyone believes that
what they believe is the truth?
•Why are people willing to sacrifice everything for their religion?
•Why do we have differences if we were all made in God’s image?
Should we accept these differences?
•Why is God the way he is?
•If we are supposed to follow laws/rules why do some people choose to
break them?
Pursuing essentials in RE
Clarity on matters of profound importance
•Is risking something small for a bigger picture worth it when it involves
lives? E.g. War. Can it be justified?
•Can one’s actions define them?
•Is there a meaning in living and can it be verified? If not, what makes a
person live on?
•Why do some religions dislike certain people?
•Why did some white people used to dislike black people?
•Is there any proof that heaven or hell exists?
•Is there a lot of room for interpretation in the Quran?
•Are heaven and hell real places which you transcend to when you die or
are they beliefs which guide your actions in life?
[these are the questions my year 10 boys wrote down in 2012]
Education as attending to the essentials
Adolescence – enlarging their world
Spiritual
Theological
Philosophical
Ethical
Intellectual
Are we enlarging and enlightening their world or simply
adding more to It? (The tyranny of information?)
Education as attending to the essentials
Adolescence – enlarging their world
“Infomania retards rather than
accelerates wisdom”.
(Michael Heim, The metaphysics of virtual reality,
OUP 1993, p145)
Education as attending to the essentials
The computer does not enlarge
Claudia Koonz, from Duke University describes
her students thus: “They demand clarity. They
want identifiable good guys and bad guys…their
belief in the simple answer, put together in a visual
way, is, I think, dangerous.”
(Time Magazine 10th April, 2006, ‘The
Multitasking Generation, p 52)
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Aims of Middle School RE
•To help make transition from 2 dimensional thinking towards complexity
and deeper truth
•To enable them to encounter and engage with religious concepts
and language with open hearts and minds
•To address their confusion and distortions about religion and God
•To provide students with sense-making frameworks that encourage
understanding
•To invite further questions whilst making it safe to live within them
To orientate them towards reality – to affirm and feed their desire for it
Purposeful pedagogical tools
1. Spiritual Literacy – Year 9
Spirituality diagram
I – I AM
Metaphor and religious language
Finding your True ‘I’
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Spiritual Literacy – ‘Salvation as…’
•Liberation from bondage
•Reconciliation from Estrangement
•Enlightenment from darkness (‘Amazing Grace’)
•Experiencing the love of God
•Knowing God
•The kingdom of God
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Spiritual Literacy – ‘Salvation’
•God wills our liberation, our exodus from Egypt
•God wills our reconciliation – our return from exile
•God wills our enlightenment – our seeing
•God wills our forgiveness – our release from sin and guilt
•God wills that we see ourselves as God’s beloved
•God wills our resurrection – our passage from death to life
•God wills for us food and drink that satisfy our hunger and thirst
•God wills our wellbeing and the wellbeing of all creation
In short, God wills our salvation, our healing, here on earth by
participating in the divine life
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Spirituality is not the same as psychology
“Much modern therapy trains people to be rigid observers of themselves. They
never sleep on the job. Like heroic cowboys they manage to sleep with one
eye open. It is, then, extremely difficult to let yourself become a whole-hearted
participant in your one, beautiful, unrepeatable life. You are taught to police
yourself. When you watch a policeman walk down a street, he does it
differently. He is alert, his eyes combing everything. He does not miss
anything. When you police yourself, you are on the beat alone…when the
usual suspects surface, you will put them through the full process:
identification, arrest, conviction. You know how to ‘deal’ with them…We need
to rediscover the wise graciousness of spontaneity” (John O’Donohue Eternal
Echoes p.333).
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Spirituality – Neither psychology nor morality
John Carroll: “Redeeming truths are
metaphysical” (Wreck of Western Culture p205).
Neither the trained mind, specialist knowledge nor
morality may transform spirit
Consider the Pharisees who are ‘morally righteous’ but lack love
Consider Mary Magdalene – morally unrighteous yet somehow closer to
redemption. She is aware of her “hamartia’ – ‘missing the mark’ –
salvation through encounter with Jesus’ pneuma
Purposeful pedagogical tools
The Bible is not a morality tale
God doesn’t want ‘right behaviour’ or even
‘right thinking’ (the Pharisee problem).
“We might think that God wanted simple obedience to a
set of rules; whereas he really wants people of a particular
sort” (C S Lewis, Mere Christianity, Bk3 Ch2)
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Neither object, person nor psychological technique can satisfy
spiritual hunger
‘Most of the really powerful forces in contemporary culture work to
seduce human longing along the pathways of false satisfaction. When
our longing becomes numbed, our sense of belonging becomes empty
and cold; this intensifies the sense of isolation and distance that so
many people now feel. Consumerism is the worship of the god of
quantity; advertising it its liturgy. Advertising is schooling in false
desire’ (John O’Donohue Eternal Echoes xxvii)
"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless
until it finds its rest in you." (Augustine Confessions)
Purposeful pedagogical tools
‘Behold, I Am the Ground of thy beseeching’.
Think about it – Science assumes a source but
doesn’t know the source. (Plato’s point!)
Psychology is generalised description
Spirituality is the lived experience of longing and
belonging – unique to each indivdual
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Isn’t Theology a generalised description?
Yes and no; but it is a shared description designed to protect and
preserve the inner truth of the individual story. It is not the type of
‘objective’ explanations of science and psychology that that must
deny
subjectivity or individuality to be valid. Abstract/3rd person vs lived truth
Put simply: spirit cannot be put under a microscope or
understood by research or presented in statistics
C.S.Lewis ‘Don’t go to sea without a map’ (in handout)
Purposeful pedagogical tools
As Soren Kierkegaard put it:
“To be spirit is to be I. God desires to have I’s, for God
desires to be loved. Mankind’s interest consists in alleging
objectivities everywhere; this is the interest of the category
of race. “Christendom” is a society of millions – all in the
third person, no I.” (Journals, 4350)
This is his ‘Attack on Christendom’
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Spirituality is not statistics
Only an individual can hear the divine voice:
“Come here to me, all who labour and are
burdened and I will give you rest”
Kierkegaard’s reflections on Christ’s words in Practice in Christianity
are some of the most beautiful and profound in all Christian writing
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Spiritual Literacy
‘That to which your heart clings or
attaches itself, that is your god.’
Martin Luther
Student question: How does one distinguish between a
true God and idols or substitutes? Why does it matter?
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Spiritual Literacy
Scientists are the Guardian of the Laws of the
Physical Universe
Religions are Guardians of the Laws of the
Spiritual universe
[ask students to identify some of these laws]
Purposeful pedagogical tools
2. Biblical Literacy – ‘What God is…’
How would you deal with the following questions?
1.Why is God the way he is?
2.Why is the God of the New Testament so
different from the God of the Old Testament?
Purposeful pedagogical tools
2. Biblical Literacy – ‘What God is…’ – Multiple metaphors
Political leadership – King, Lord, Warrior, Judge,
Lawgiver
Everyday human life – Builder, gardener, shepherd,
potter, healer, father, mother, lover, wise woman, old man,
friend
Nature and inanimate objects – Eagle, lion, bear, hen,
fire, light, cloud, wind, breath, rock, fortress and shield
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Biblical Literacy – ‘Imaging God’ – Why it matters
King:
Grandeur, majesty, glory
Power and authority
Lawgiver and judge
Justice
Protection
Male
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Biblical Literacy – ‘Imaging God’ – Why it matters
Fire:
Safety, protection, warmth
Danger, destruction, fear
Purifying agent
Light
Mysterious, wild, powerful
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Biblical Literacy – ‘Imaging God’ – Why it matters
Mrs Beaver from Narnia:
‘Aslan is good but not safe’
Purposeful pedagogical tools
2. Biblical Literacy – ‘Gospels as portraits’ – Perspective and
truth
1. What does the word "gospel" mean?
2. Why are the Gospels more like portraits than photographs?
3. Fill out the following table
Gospel
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
Date written
For Whom
Portrait of Jesus
Purposeful pedagogical tools
2. Biblical Literacy – Perspectives and Truth - Suggestions
•Rewrite a story from the Hebrew scriptures from the ‘other’ point of
view (for example, a resident of Jericho who survived or a citizen of
Nineveh when Jonah turns up),
•Examine texts where scholars suggest two traditions of authorship
have been merged (for example, Genesis 1 and 2 or Moses crossing
of the Red Sea) – see handout
•Write an account of your time as a disciple of Jesus (Judas?)
•Try to imagine being Saul, the good Pharisee, who undergoes the
conversion experience on the road to Damascus and becomes Paul
(could relate that back to and explore in terms of one of the ‘salvation’
concepts)
•Visual: Analyse images of Christ across cultures and eras
Purposeful pedagogical tools
3. World Religions and ‘Truth’
How religions begin and what they are:
‘The source, the bore, the well and the brickwork’
exercise
Philosophical approach to ‘truth’ in religion
Relativism, Exclusivism, Non-exclusivism, Pluralism
Acknowledgements
Authors
Mehmet Ozalp
Zuleyha Keskin
Hussam Deeb
© Affinity Intercultural Foundation 2009
Hajj – significant
49
Hajj is Abrahamic
Abraham was an exemplar
model for monotheism and a
mentor for all believers in
One God. His faith and
submission to One God was
equal to the faith of a whole
nation as described in the
Holy Qur’an.
Hajj - Significant
50
Purposeful pedagogical tools
HINDUISM SHORT STORY (Could have any religion as focus)
Write a short story in which at least one character is a Hindu. During
the course of the story, you must display an understanding of at least
10 features of Hinduism. These must be footnoted and explained in the
footnote. For example, “Indira’s grandfather died after a long illness.
She wondered whether he had moved up in the cycle of Samsara or
whether his Karma had not been good enough for this. Indira found the
Hindu belief in reincarnation difficult to understand and yet at times, it
also seemed to make sense.”
Purposeful pedagogical tools
3. World Religions and ‘Truth’
Year 9 (girls) exam question: Short essay
“The soul of religion is one but is encased in a
multitude of forms”. (Gandhi)
Discuss with reference to exclusivism, nonexclusivism and pluralism
Purposeful pedagogical tools
4. Socrates and thinking well
Alain de Botton – Guide to Happiness
Purposeful pedagogical tools
4. Philosophical thinking and reasoning
Arguments for and against the existence of God
•Evidence
•Rational proof
•The problem of evil
•The limits of science
•Faith - ‘seeing is believing’
Purposeful pedagogical tools
4. Philosophical thinking and reasoning
Robert Kirkwood books are an excellent resource
Looking for Proof of God
Looking for Happiness
The Confused Me
If I was God I’d say sorry
Peter Vardy resources too (books, p/pts and dvds)
Purposeful pedagogical tools
4. Philosophical proofs – sample test question
1.The question of God’s existence can arise and be debated
because life’s experiences are ambiguous with regard to whether
or not there is a God.
a)Explain what the word ‘ambiguous’ means in this context.
b)When people ask for evidence of God’s existence, what kind of
evidence do you think they mean?
c)Would any evidence prove one way or another whether there is
a divine being? Explain your answer.
d)Could science ever prove God doesn’t exist? Explain your
answer.
Purposeful pedagogical tools
4. Philosophical proofs (con’t)
2.a) A German philosopher of the 19th century thought he could
prove God didn’t exist. What was his name?
b) Why do human beings ‘project’ the idea of God according to
this argument (you should provide and explain 2 reasons).
c) What kind of God do human beings ‘create’ this way?
d) Has this philosopher proved God doesn’t exist? Explain your
answer.
Purposeful pedagogical tools
5. Church history – People, Beliefs and Events
Remarkably, the existence of all any
Church school depends on (and is
historically connected to) the life of
Jesus
Purposeful pedagogical tools
5. Church history – People, Beliefs and Events
Year 9 webquest – aimed at developing their
understanding of Christian denominations and
also deepening their grasp of history as the
unfolding of a human drama – individuals, actions,
conflicts, resolutions, decisions etc., ‘make history
happen’
Introduction | Task | Process | Resources | Assessment | Conclusion
“…so what’s an ANGLICAN school anyway?”
A WebQuest
Introduction
Melbourne Grammar is an ANGLICAN school. There are more than 200 independent schools in Victoria
from various Christian denominations just like our own and they are attended by about 30 per cent of all
Victorian students. So, …why Christian and …why Anglican?
How could the life and death of an individual who lived more than 2000 years ago be connected to the
existence of some of the major schools in Australia?
In this WebQuest you will identify the major denominations of the Christian Church in Australia and the
people and factors that led to their formation and come to an understanding of some of the forces that
influence the development of any ‘institution’ over time.
Introduction | Task | Process | Resources | Assessment | Conclusion
This is what you will do:
Research in pairs
You will work in cooperative Expert Research Groups of two to explore each of the Major
Denominations in APS schools. The history of the denomination, the key individuals
who had a major influence in its development, etc.
You MUST cooperate to:
1. Read through the WWW files linked to your group plus other relevant
resources ,
2. Create a clear synthesis of what your group has learned in response to the
focus questions
3. You will present it visually using Inspiration, Powerpoint, Videostory etc to
communicate the essential points in answer to your research questions
Schools in the APS are:
Brighton Grammar School, Carey Baptist Grammar School, Caulfield Grammar School, Geelong
Grammar School, Haileybury College, Melbourne Grammar School, Scotch College, St Kevin's College,
Geelong College, Wesley College, Xavier College.
Introduction | Task | Process | Resources | Assessment | Conclusion
Resources
Roman Catholic | Baptist | Uniting Church | Anglican
Roman Catholic: Xavier and St.Kevin’s Colleges
Use the information in these websites and other sources to answer these Focus Questions:
• What Christian denomination does your school belong to?
• What is the specific history of this denomination? Here you must identify the founder and
outline its development – historical events and points of theological significance
• How were they established in Australia?
• Who were the key individuals who had a major influence in its development? (In deciding on
this your presentation must include a justification for your choices)
• Roman Catholic Church http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic
• Christian denominations (wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_denomination
• Xavier College – History http://www.xavier.vic.edu.au/AboutXavier/history.htm
• Society of Jesus (Wipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Jesus
• History of Jesuits http://www.sjweb.info/webguide/cat_list.cfm?SubCatLkUpID=24
• St Kevin's - History http://web.stkevins.vic.edu.au/stkevins/history.php
• Edmund Rice online http://www.edmundrice.org/
• Edmund Ignatius Rice http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13040b.htm
Purposeful pedagogical tools
5. Christianity and Church history
Recommended Resource (especially for year 7
and 8):
All about Faith 1, 2 (and 3)
Anne and Niall Boyle
Publisher: GILL & MACMILLAN DISTRIBUTION
Purposeful pedagogical tools
An (important) aside….
•Choose real resources where possible
(newspaper articles for example)
•Bring the real world into the classroom where
possible (real people and events)
•Any meaningful examination of concepts,
texts or people that concerns what it is to
make sense of experience is fit RE fodder
Purposeful pedagogical tools
For example
•Year 9 – we do Rwanda (read article, watch
film, explore themes)
•In year 10 – we do suicide terrorism. Read
article (arguing national identity not religion is
primary motivator), watch dvd on psychology
of bombers, look at what it means to be
‘economically, politically and socially
disenfranchised’ (Israel/Palestine, South
Africa apartheid)
Purposeful pedagogical tools
Aims
•To understand why it is too simplistic to say ‘he did a
bad thing because he is a bad man’.
•To understand the complexity of forces at work in
human lives in context
•To deepen one’s understanding of what it means to
be human (homo religiosus)
•To promote historical and factual literacy
•To help them grow up, orientated towards the light of
reality (heliotropism)
Purposeful pedagogical tools
In Sum
Not merely heliotropism but phototropism:
Phototropism is directional growth in which the
direction of growth is determined by the direction
of the light source. In other words, it is the growth
and response to a light stimulus (or source).
Purposeful unit planning session
Afternoon session ideas
1.Brain storm ideas. Groups to choose one and work together
2.Pick a topic from the ‘matters of profound importance’ exercise and
construct a unit of work that will produce greater clarity for your
students
3.Work on a scope and sequence for a year level or across levels
4.Take a theological concept (like salvation) and create a unit that
develops an understanding across the 5-strands
5.Work on a unit on biblical literacy.
6.Construct a unit around a film study
7.Art and image – how to incorporate into existing units?
8.Work on a world religions unit
Purposeful unit planning session
Developing resources and expertise
Charles Sturt Graduate Certificate in Religious and Values Education:
http://www.csu.edu.au/courses/postgraduate/values_education/course-overview
The course is being expanded to a full MA, available from 2013, and
details will be available at the end of the year.
Dialogue Australasia Network
www.dialogueaustralasia.org