Our social:

Post from category:

What in the Worldview is going on in RE?

Join a conversation with Trevor Cooling hosted by Bob Bowie to explore why worldview actually matters in the RE classroom.

Wed, 24 June 2020 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM BST

NEW TICKETS AVAILABLE

There is now a lively debate about worldview in British Religious Education. There are those who suggest we should change the name of the subject and take it in a new direction. Others see it just as a matter of adding more content. Teachers, RE students, and people interested in the subject are invited to join a free webinar in which Professor Trevor Cooling shares his thinking on the future of the subject, and why worldview matters in the classroom.

Trevor Cooling is Professor of Christian Education. Trevor is also the Chair of the Religious Education Council, a multi-faith forum where national organisations with an interest in supporting and promoting religious education in schools and colleges can share matters of common concern. Bob Bowie is Professor of Religion and Worldviews Education, Director of NICER and Executive Chair of the Association of University Lecturers in Religion and Education.

Book using Eventbrite. Please note that spaces are limited. First come, first served.

The Link:

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/what-in-the-worldview-is-going-on-in-re-tickets-106770802344

Ticket holders will be emailed a link to the webinar page 48 hours before the event.

Webinars for AULRE 2020

I gave my first two webinars for the Association of University Lecturers in Religion and Education (www.aulre.org) 2020 virtual meeting, on Thursday 14th and Friday 15th May last week. It ran on two afternoons with around 60 delegates logging in for two seminars, one from me on the Texts and Teachers project and the other from Paul Hopkins on Learning Technologies. Great to see so many colleagues from the world of RE and also lots of teachers joining the seminar. You can watch a prerecorded version of my seminars here and here and the actual full seminar with additional inputs below. It is a curious thing to be talking a full paper giving setting, on your own in a small room in our house though reassuring to see all the chat and questions from the attendees.

Bob Bowie

Texts and Teachers Part 2: The Findings

Here I explore some of the findings of the Texts and Teachers project, touching on links between institutional and personal worldview, deep conversations in the classroom, criticality and formal examinations structures. It is a prerecorded version of the second half of the session given at the joint AULRE/ CstG event on Thursday 14th and Friday 15th May 2020.

Texts and Teachers and the Worldview project in RE

This is a prerecorded version of the first part of the paper given at the Online AULRE / REOnline event, Thursday 14th May and Friday 15th May 2020. It explores the connection between sacred text scholarship, hermeneutics and worldview education, in the context of the English RE debate.

Worldview in religious education

Professor Trevor Cooling has written about the notion of worldview figures prominently in the recent discourse surrounding Religious Education (RE) in English schools following the publication of the final report of the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE) in 2018. His article reflects on the veracity of this initiative. It begins with an autobiographical reflection on the impact of worldview on the author’s development as a scholar. Then, the work of several critics of CoRE is discussed and a more nuanced understanding of worldview is developed as a result. Finally, the pedagogical implications of the shift to worldview are explored by drawing on the personal development approach of Michael Grimmitt and the responsible hermeneutics approach of Anthony Thiselton.

Follow the link.

A Message Wrapped in Words

This page contains a link to an interview with Dr Margaret Carswell (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer at Australian Catholic University. She was an advisor to the Texts and Teachers project (http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/nicer/hermeneutics).

Carswell takes an academic and disciplinary approach to the study of sacred texts. In her work, she has critiqued a number of RE programs which fall short of the hermeneutical expectations of scholarly study which the Catholic Church has committed to in its statement on the Interpretation of the Bible in the Church.

These studies can be found in her thesis which is available online:

There are two articles which contain her further research on this theme. The abstracts are free online to read and give some idea of her conclusions:

Two other links

  • Teach Scripture is a website designed specifically for teachers in Catholic Primary Schools to enable teachers to teach Scripture – not just use it – using the composite Model. (http://www.teachscripture.com/ )
  • Her section of the 2020 Texts and Teachers Practice Guide (Free to download from here: http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/nicer/hermeneutics) contains an outline of the LAaSMO method, which is one way of taking the scripture scholarship into classroom practice.

Texts and Teachers Research and Practice

To download
Opening the Door to Hermeneutical RE: The Findings Report
and
The Practice Guide: Classroom Tools for Sacred Text Scholarship
click here.

This project, a collaboration between Professor Bob Bowie and Ms Katie Clemmey of the National Institute for Christian Education Research (NICER) and the Centre for Research Evaluation in Muslim Education with Dr. Farid Panjwani at University College London (now renamed the Centre for the Study of Education in Muslim Contexts (CEMC) ), sought to support teachers in seven contrasting secondary schools, teach RE more hermeneutically. It came on the back of research by Bowie and others (for instance see here with Coles, and, by Panjwani and Revell, see here) and that the use of texts in RE classrooms is and has been an ongoing problem for many years that continues with the revised GCSE. It was inspired by the thought that a more hermeneutical approach in the subject might help both the transition to Religion and Worldviews education and also the development of a stronger disciplinary knowledge base. It was grant funded by Culham St Gabriel’s Trust and supported by Bible Society.

Early indications were presented at AULRE 2019 at Newman University. You can download this research poster here:

Opening the Door to Hermeneutical RE: The Findings Report outlines the project, its findings and conclusions.

The Practice Guide: Classroom Tools for Sacred Text Scholarship contains some of the professional development materials developed for the project. It is written to support teachers and curriculum designers teach RE with a focus on Sacred Text Scholarship.

Who is the report for?

The report is for teachers, curriculum leaders, curriculum designers and examination boards.

Summary of Findings

  1. The teachers described a sense of agency that hermeneutical tools gave students in activities around the interpretation of sacred text.
  2. The teachers reported that pupils were positive about engaging with longer extracts of sacred text including students who they had thought would struggle or lack motivation in such activities.
  3. Hermeneutical approaches in these cases led to a deeper quality of conversation in lessons about texts.
  4. Hermeneutics was seen as a valuable dimension in curriculum design allowing for progression through multi-religious study.
  5. Almost all of the teachers developed competent hermeneutical lessons, some with excellent examples of student work.
  6. From their key stage 3 changes, several teachers thought that hermeneutics would lead to better GCSE responses, particularly in explaining differences within religions. They also felt that a better space for hermeneutics could be included in exams.

In conclusion, we thought:

“Sacred text scholarship allows students to investigate the layers of meaning that people find significant. In making the hermeneutical process more explicit teachers help students become conscious of the process of reading sacred texts, and the place of the reader in making sense of a text, as well as the senses held by communities, and those held at different times and places. “

“There is a greater possibility for change and for reform of religious education if the idea of inhabiting the place of a sacred text scholar becomes part of Religion and Worldviews in schools. It offers one pathway to unlocking a disciplinary study of how people find significance and read meaning through worldviews.”

Blog piece written by Professor Bob Bowie and updated 30/3/2020

Questions you wont find on a GCSE Religious Studies question paper

Last year I co-wrote an article with Richard Coles about GCSE Religious Studies about biblical illiteracy https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01416200.2018.1493270  (spot the deliberate mistake in the title of the paper)  but it also referred to what was expected by GCSE Religious Studies exams. In England, perhaps 250 000 or more students do an exam in religious studies and they study two religions. The questions that are asked frame the kinds of answers students write and also how teachers prepare them. Half of the marks of the GCSE paper must go on analysis and evaluation question (the longer questions) but any review of those questions will reveal that most exam boards approach this as a kind of debate where the student should put forward two points of view. School teachers teach their students two views and also how to evidence them (usually using learnt quotes).

Now the topics that are explored are sometimes ethical (war, medical ethics etc) and some times theological (the sacrament of reconciliation) and sometimes focussed of expressions of religious life (prayer and worship) but the structure of writing tends to always be debate style. Weigh up two views and come to a reasoned conclusion about which one wins. This is a binary argument question. If you want to show you know your stuff you need to learn two opposing views and you need to work out a way of showing which you can reasonably say is better. Knowing how views might be similar wont help here.

This requires good use of what philosophers call deductive and inductive reasoning. So philosophy is in the background to Religious Studies, directing the question forms. The GCSE is not a place to get all mystical or spiritual but nor is it necessarily all that good at relationality either. The questions and the organisation of the exam doesn’t lend itself to conflict resolution, consensus finding, or the identification of where there are areas of overlapping consensus.  In the aftermath of the Grenfell fire, groups from quite different religious and cultural backgrounds responded in common ways to help those in need. In this country, we might feel that it is good to encourage a kind of open and plural secularism where it is possible to find consensus on how we can live (differently and tolerantly) with one another.

I wonder what Religious Studies would look like if it focused a little less on the skills of winning arguments, and a little more on the skills of living well with each other.

Dr Robert A Bowie, Director of NICER

Recent video & audio:

Faith in children and the General Synod debate
Places of Worship: An Introduction from Bob Bowie
What If Learning (a sample lesson)
What If Learning – Braunston Church of England Primary School
What if Learning? (The approach)