The
possibility of God
Tuesday July
10, 2007
Religious
studies is enjoying a boom. But in a multicultural society,
what is it now for?
Niqabs in the classroom, creationism knocking at the door
of the science lab, the threat of suicide bombers: big
challenges face religious education (RE) in UK classrooms.
A critical report by Ofsted last month demanded that RE
"contributes strongly to pupils' understanding of the
changing role of religion, diversity and community
cohesion". It said children should be taught more about
religion's role in a modern world under the threat of
terrorism - and that they should learn that religion is not
always a force for good.
How timely, then, that Oxford University has appointed its
first professor of religious education for 27 years.
Neither a woolly-jumpered vicar nor a wild-eyed evangelist,
Terence Copley is an enthusiast for the very virtues of
tolerance and reasoned discussion that Ofsted advocates.
"We shouldn't run away from difference in a false and
superficial attempt to create multicultural harmony," he
says.
Copley has been a Quaker for decades, "though I am very
happy to site myself in my family's Methodist tradition".
He taught for 15 years in schools in the Midlands and north
and ran a world-beating department of religious education
at Exeter University from 1997. He believes in God -and in
opening minds.
"I've learned a lot from going to other faiths' places of
worship. I've not just looked on, but felt the ripples of
experience," he says. "That's more challenging; it's real.
But as a Christian I can worship with Jews, Muslim, Hindus,
Sikhs very happily. At the same time, it's important not to
pretend that big differences don't exist." As Ofsted
acknowledges, the political and social significance of
religion is changing. Is RE's potential to help build a
more cohesive society being realised?
Copley is optimistic. The UK's multicultural society is a
wonderful resource. "The big thing about RE, which I want
kids to do, is empathy. We can't pretend to be Hindus but
we can try to see some of what they might feel." He says RE
teachers have to get stuck into teaching religion as the
ways in which humanity searches for truth. "We've got to
teach the possibility of God, and it's up to children to
accept or reject it."
Sticking
point
Copley says he is unapologetic about "the three-letter
word": God. For non-believers - whose children still have
to take RE until they are 16 - this is the obvious sticking
point. "In all my years of teaching, I always made sure God
was in there and talked about. People might find it
embarrassing, but it is the key to engagement."
Ofsted criticised the twin aims prescribed by the
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which straitjacket
RE in schools: learning about religion and learning from
religion. Copley would replace them with "engaging with
religion and other life stances". RE lessons could feature
science teachers talking about Darwin or the local imam
explaining what the experience of Allah means to Muslims.
"You should never directly attack or dissolve any child's
views in the classroom," he says. Or, as Miriam Rosen,
Ofsted's director of education, said: "More needs to be
done if the subject is to develop in students a more
profound understanding of the significance of religious
commitment and diversity and its impact on society."
Copley's recent book, Indoctrination, Education and God:
The Struggle for the Mind, looks at how indoctrination,
secular or religious, stops education, stops questioning
and stops thinking. "RE should introduce children to a big
human debate. What children don't like is having answers
rammed down their throats."
Young people nowadays are fascinated by religion and moral
issues. Ofsted reports RE booming after decades of
indifference. Secondary schools hunt RE teachers; primaries
are crying out for in-service training. Oxford, boasting
the country's largest theology department, has started a
new PGCE in RE. Though student interest is at a peak, to
some RE remains halfway between a hot potato and a big
yawn. Copley is determined to challenge that. "Who wants to
have on their tombstone the worthy but dull words: 'He or
she was a useful RE teacher'?" he asks. "But we can't treat
RE as so potentially divisive that we dare not discuss
anything, either." He agrees with Ofsted that RE teacher
training is due an intellectual upgrade. Terrorism,
creationism, the veil in Islam and global warming should
all be grist to the RE classroom mill. "You need a pinboard
or whiteboard, with The Good, The Bad and The Dotty items
from religion in the news up on it each day."
The practice of palming off RE on the sports teacher who
goes to church must end. "In Britain, we tend to see
religion as a hobby and God like a fire extinguisher, there
for the last resort. But most of the world is not like
that. How can we expect people to understand that some will
die for religion if we portray it as so bland?"
Enthusiasm wells up in the man who got into RE because the
O-level let him escape a music teacher who "hated music,
hated boys". Nottingham University followed, then school
jobs in the Midlands, training teachers in York, and
Exeter, where he ran research on assessment in RE, teaching
religious narrative and school worship.
Climate
change
All in all, he says, "I've had a great time". With more
than 40 books under his belt, including guides to teaching
biblical narrative, biographies of Thomas Arnold of Rugby
and Simon Wiesenthal, and a series of mystery quest novels
for children, he is now working on Inventing an RE for the
22nd Century. This will focus on the spiritual and social
results of climate change. "We'll need to change, to be
more aware of locality, to abandon our feelings of mastery,
which are based on living inside 90% of the time and
controlling our environment; we need to become more
accustomed to living in the weather ... What is our place
in the universe as a whole?"
As for contention over the veil, Copley says: "It's clear
that within a global religion like Islam, practice varies
and culture plays an important part ... The majority of
British Muslim women don't find it necessary to cover their
face ... This is a debate within Islam as well as the wider
UK. RE should note the different Muslim views involved and
the legitimate concerns of non-Muslim members of our
society. But the central aim in teaching Islam in RE
shouldn't get lost in veils. It should be to get children
to explore Islam's experience of the centrality of God.
British culture does not take God very seriously, but Islam
does."
It's all in the great liberal tradition. But still, there
is one sticking point. Respecting difference, demanding
equality, Copley, along with Ofsted, firmly espouses
compulsory RE. "There is no legal, moral, educational right
to exclude RE from children's school experience. I'm
passionate that RE should not have a withdrawal clause. If
it is education not indoctrination, there should be no
right of withdrawal. The withdrawal clause should be
removed from RE or, logically, extended to embrace all
subjects."
Spirit
of the times
1944: The
Education Act legislates for "religious instruction" (the
classroom subject plus school worship). Parents are allowed
to withdraw children. An 1870 clause prohibiting
denominational teaching except in denominational schools
was retained.
1988: Education Reform Act now uses "religious education"
to refer to classroom subject only. World religions must be
taught. RE required "to take into account that the
religious traditions of the UK are in the main Christian".
Withdrawal clause retained. RE is outside the national
curriculum, with locally determined syllabuses, but must be
taught to all children in state schools from entry to 16.
1997: Introduction of short-course GCSE
2004: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority national
framework for RE published
2006: QCA publishes schemes of work for ages 5-14.
2005-06: Entries to short-course RE GCSE: 239,000; GCSE:
145,200 (more than music, equal to PE); A-level: 14,900
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