APPROACHES AND MODELS TO RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Approach: a way of dealing with something

Model: a representation/ analogy used to better understand a concept

THE THEMATIC APPROACH

- A theme is an underlying or central idea developed through a series of lessons

(recurring)

- Helps pupils to develop a fuller and better understanding as a theme is studied over a

period of time

- The teacher focuses the pupil’s attention on different aspects of the theme at a time

(e.g.: Baptism- What? When? Other religions)

- A theme usually stands on its’ own and should thus never be abandoned

- Thematic approach should support progressive growth and development

- A lesson should build on, expand, deepen or reveal a new aspect linked with the

previous lesson

TYPES OF THEMES IN RE

- RE content can be divided into different themes for the purpose of thematic teaching

- Most common themes are:

(i) Life Themes

- Propounded by Goldman (1964)

- Based on pupil’s real life experiences (RE 2044)

- Relates education to life by emphasising the total unity of experience

- Can take any area of a pupil’s life and explore it at a level of religious thinking of the

learner

- May begin or end with religious emphasis

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 - Scripture used selectively (not systematically) to highlight an idea directly related to

the learner’s experience

- The weakness is that it appears to separate religion from life

- Often ends up as themes about life with only a bit of religion

(ii) Biblical Themes

- Also Systems Approach because it leads to a systematic understanding of the

scripture under study (RE 2046)

- Emphasises scriptural stories and experiences as a starting point to explaining and

guiding pupil experiences

- The weakness is that scripture is old and aimed at different cultures than ours

- Scriptural language is usually metaphorical and figurative

- This leads to different interpretation of scripture, misunderstanding and rejection of

what is taught

(iii) Depth or Human Experience Themes

- Grimmitt (1987)

- Involves a planed educational process which seeks to use the learner’s needs, interests

and experiences as a starting point for certain educational aims

- These aims are to provide the pupil with the opportunity to:

 Practice the skill of reflection at depth

 Develop insight into one’s feelings

 Develop insight into others’ feelings

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  Develop insight into what constitutes a distinctly human relationship between

self and other

(iv) Situation Themes

- Religion and morality are usually interlinked

- Morality is usually based upon and motivated by people’s religious or spiritual beliefs

- These themes touch on the area of morals

- Aim at education for attitudes and values

- The approach’s main aims are:

a. To promote moral insight and development by providing an opportunity

for pupils to:

i. Explore, examine and discuss situations which call for moral choice or

judgement

ii. Learn to assess situations in terms of the consequences of their

attitudes and actions

iii. Introject or adopt values through identifying with characters displaying

moral sensitivity

b. Initiate learners into religion as a unique mode of awareness by giving

them a chance to:

i. Explore and discuss situations in which a religious belief is seen to

provide a rationale underlying a person’s values and actions

ii. Recognise that religious beliefs and attitudes reflect a particular type of

response to certain emotional experiences

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MODELS OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

- 4 approaches will be focused on

The Confessional and Neo-confessional approaches

- Confessional/ dogmatic approach assumes that the aim of RE is intellectual and

indoctrination into faith

- Holds that RE that does not lead to commitment and loyalty is useless

- Common view of many Church, Jewish and Muslim leaders

- Neo-confessional approach attempts to make the confessional approach more

acceptable

- Based on educational research and develops learning materials in line with capacities,

needs and interests of the pupils

- Liberal and open ended; introduces learners to other world religions though they are

regarded as tolerated extras to the officially approved religion

- Zambian RE is Neo Confessional

The Phenomenological or Un-dogmatic approach

- Takes the main aim of RE as the promotion of understanding

- Uses scholarship to dive into an empathic experience of the faith of individuals or

groups (An experience where one understands and shares the feelings of the other)

- Does not promote particular religious view points and goes beyond merely informing

learners about religions

- More educational than the Confessional and Neo-confessional models

- Central to phenomenological approach is the meaning of objectivity and the

conditions needed for its’ attainment in the study of religion

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 - Calls for ways of thinking responsibly about matters of intense personal concern;

objectivity must be about the subjective

- Objectivity is possible because humans are able to participate in the subjectivity of

others

- Phoenix (1965), the capacity for self-transcending awareness is the basis for all

objective scholarship (one should not let one’s convictions to cloud one’s judgement)

- A scholar is expected to do maximum justice to their subject by offering a balanced

treatment of positions other than their own

- The approach to RE should be by way of ‘critical and appreciative inter-subjective

(inter-personal) understanding

- Every fact is set within some framework of interpretation although it is important to

note that objectivity cannot entirely depend on interpretation

Test/ Criteria of Objectivity

(i) - Willingness to admit the possibility of alternative interpretation or openness to

new knowledge

- Unless clear to see, no interpretation is infallible

- Religious beliefs must be accepted or rejected freely and intelligently

(ii) - Apart from openness, criticism is required

- Concepts should be subjected to critical comparisons and appraisal

- Concerned with interpreting interpretations

(iii)- The other pre-condition of objectivity is academic freedom

- The teacher is responsible to the community of scholars rather than any social

body

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Interpretive Approach

- Scholars have argued that the traditional views of the phenomenology of religion are

deficient for understanding religious data

- Scholars from Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit (WRERU) argue that

interpretive anthropology presented by Geertz is a worthwhile technique that can be

applied to studies of religion in the field, adapted and developed as methods for use

in RE

- In their work in ethnography and Religious Education at Warwick, they have

attempted to combine an interpretive approach, dealing with parts and wholes

(individuals in the context of their membership groups in relation to the wider

religious tradition), with polyphonic elements, using plenty of direct quotations from

interviews and involving the ‘insider’ represented in curriculum texts directly in the

editorial process (Jackson 2002)

- Premise that understanding the faith means entering into the people’s way of life. The

responsibility of the RE teacher is then to ensure that the representation of a religion

given to the pupils through textbooks and in other ways is not distorted

- This ethnographic approach leads to the undermining of stereotypes and a greater

empathy for the life and aspirations of other people

- Ethnography undermines secularism and religionism by bringing the pupil into

conversation with the young person in the faith community

- To close the divide between the secular culture of most pupils and the religious world

of the young people in the textbooks, the pupils need to be sensitised to their own

culture and the assumptions this generate which might distort their perceptions of the

life of the young persons in the faith community

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- They also need to become aware of the complex of practices, relationships and beliefs

which constitutes the life lived by that person (the grammar of the young person’s

faith)

- The Teacher should build bridges by identifying concepts which are familiar to the

pupil and concepts that are central to the faith of the young person and to bring them

into line with each other

- Pupils thereby see the relevance of the faith world to their own, often predominantly

secular, world by examining concepts in the two worlds which relate to each other

- Edification (a process of learning something about oneself from the study of someone

else's faith) presupposes that engagement with another's way of life has the potential

to make an impact on one's own thinking and attitudes

- The WREP approach encourages students to relate the material studied to issues

which are of concern to themselves (Robson 1995:4).

- What might appear to be entirely different and 'other' at first glance can end linking

with one's own experience in such a way that new perspectives are created or

unquestioned presuppositions are challenged (Jackson 1997: 130)

- The Warwick team thinks that an encounter with someone else's life of faith should

have an impact on one's own life

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Spiritual Development Model

- Produced by Grimmitt in 1987 who got tired of the Phenomenological Model and

thought there was more to RE that learning about religion

- This model goes beyond the explicit phenomenological model by emphasizing the

relevance of religious traditions to an individual and society

- It proposes that pupils or learners should not only learn about religion but they should

also learn from religion

- The model starts from the spiritual experience or concerns of pupils, but this is broad

religious spirituality rather than Christian, Islamic or Jewish spirituality only

(Grimmitt, 1987)

Religious Literacy and Critical Understanding Model

- The literacy-centred and critical understanding model of RE states that RE should

enable pupils to become religiously literate, i.e., to think critically, act and

communicate intelligently about the ultimate questions that religions ask (Wright,

1993: 64)

- RE should also enable the pupils to develop an understanding of the religious

worldviews of others, their religious language and symbols, and their feelings and

attitudes (Jackson, 2002)

- The subject should further help pupils to mature through exploring religious beliefs

and practices, related human experiences and critical evaluation of their own beliefs

and values (Grimmitt, 1987: 141; Read et al, 1992: 2)

- It focuses on the ability not only to deal with religious issues critically and

intelligently, but also on the ability to interpret, explain or give the meaning of

religious language and symbols appropriate to their educational level

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- The model is critical and interpretive rather than merely descriptive and content-based

and goes beyond the neutral religious knowledge and understanding intentions or

aims of the phenomenological approach

- With its sympathetic treatment of the religious traditions, many religions are also

likely to consider the model as serving their interests better than the neutralist

phenomenological model of RE.

- Like the phenomenological model of RE, the religious literacy and critical

understanding model does not require religious commitment nor strict neutrality.

Teachers can belong to any religious background or none provided they are

professionally trained and have a commitment to an open…and [critical] religious

education (Jackson, 2002)

- The teacher is expected to be a fellow pilgrim and learner (Wright 1993: 103) who is

free to draw upon their own religious or secular commitments as resource material

alongside other resources…[such as] the testimony of pupils and of parents and other

members of religious communities … invited into the school (Jackson, 2002)

- The material or syllabus content used by the teacher should include sensitive and

controversial as well as non-sensitive and controversial beliefs, values or viewpoints

- It should further enable pupils to encounter a diverse range of religious or spiritual

traditions and encourage the emergence of religious literacy

- The teacher has to ensure that pupils have balanced information on each issue or topic

covered as well as use methods and techniques that encourage pupils to critically

examine and evaluate the information

- He or she should help to promote the skills of listening, accepting difference and

otherness, arguing a case, dealing with conflict and distinguishing between fact and

opinion(Wright, 2000: 136)