ON THE EDGE: (AUTO)BIOGRAPHY AND PEDAGOGICAL THEORIES ON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Transcription

1 ON THE EDGE: (AUTO)BIOGRAPHY AND PEDAGOGICAL THEORIES ON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

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3 On the Edge: (Auto)biography and Pedagogical Theories on Religious Education Edited by Ina ter Avest Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands SENSE PUBLISHERS ROTTERDAM / BOSTON / TAIPEI

4 A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN (paperback) ISBN (hardback) ISBN (e-book) Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands Printed on acid-free paper All rights reserved 2012 Sense Publishers No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword John Hull vii 1. On the Edge: A Biographical Approach to Pedagogical Theory Development. The making of Pedagogical Theories on Religious Education and Citizenship Education 1 Ina ter Avest 2. The Real Talks: On the Ambition to Deconstruct and Reconstruct Teachers Identity Claims 11 Cok Bakker 3. The Challenge of Double Reflexivity, Ethnographic Methodology in Intercultural Education 23 Günther Dietz 4. My Personal Contexts: Learning Religion in Context 37 Hans-Günter Heimbrock 5. Religion as a Special World of Meaning Set Apart: On Imagination, Experiences and Practices of the Non-Cognitive 47 Chris Hermans 6. Religious Education and the Arts of Interpretation Revisited 57 Robert Jackson 7. Religion as a Gift: A Pedagogical Approach to RE in St. Petersburg 69 Fedor Kozyrev 8. Innovation of Religious Education: Innovation of RE in Primary Education as a Lifelong Challenge 81 Henk Kuindersma 9. Doing and Undergoing: Learning to Believe as Algorithm and as Heuristic 93 Alma Lanser v

6 TABLE OF CONTENTS 10. Reason and Religion: A Lifetime Curriculum 103 Wilna Meijer 11. Conversation that Matters: Life Transforming Dialogue 115 Mary Elizabeth Moore 12. Jonah Was My Religious Teacher: The Paradoxical Character of the Gospel Challenges a Transformative and Transmission Pedagogical Approach to Go Hand in Hand 127 Bram de Muynck 13. Conflict or Cohesion? A Critical Discourse on Religion in Education (RiE) and Religion and Education (RaE) 137 Cornelia Roux 14. The Best and the Worst That Has Been Said and Done: Teaching Religious Ideals in Religious Education 151 Doret de Ruyter 15. Religious Education, Identity and Faith in (Post-)Modernity: More Than a Biographical Approach? A Personal Attempt at Finding the Red Thread in My Academic Work on Religious Education 163 Friedrich Schweitzer 16. Religious Education among Friends and Strangers: Contributions of Revisionist Educational History to Public Living 175 Jack Seymour 17. In Search of a Religious Education Approach 187 Geir Skeie 18. Responding to Pluralism and Globalization in Religious Education: Implications for Curriculum and Pedagogy 199 Marian de Souza 19. Interreligious Dialogue: Contextual and Mutual Learning 211 Wolfram Weisse vi

7 JOHN HULL FOREWORD I do not like large comfortable armchairs because the front edge of the seat is soft and it is difficult to perch there. I prefer a hard, upright chair so I can squat on the very edge Members of my family sometimes tease me about a curious habit I seem to have developed. I like to sit on the very edge of my chair. I do not like large comfortable armchairs because the front edge of the seat is soft and it is difficult to perch there. I prefer a hard, upright chair so I can squat on the very edge. My family say Why don t you sit back, and just relax? Aren t you uncomfortable? But I prefer to be on the edge. As I read your publications, I realise that you are a bit like this yourself. Your work over several decades includes contributions to the psychology of religion, the sociology of religious belonging, the history and development of religious education, pedagogical and curriculum studies from various points of view, and above all your interest in the lives of your students and colleagues. When I consider this achievement in the light of religious education in Europe as a whole, I see that you are very much a frontier thinker, and always on the edge. In paying tribute to your work, it is not surprising to find that your colleagues have decided to write about the close connection between their own biographies and their professional work. They deal with this from many perspectives, some emphasising the significance of their own childhood and upbringing, often in religious family life, while others concentrate upon the academic influences which have shaped their thinking. But I will not anticipate here in any detail what they have to say. As I introduce this volume, it seems appropriate that I also should follow the lead given by most of the contributors, and say something about the development of my own work, as a religious educator and more recently a theological educator. The institution in which I now work has honoured me with the title Professor of Practical Theology and as I look back upon my life and work, it strikes me that I have never worked in anything else but practical theology. As I understand it, practical theology is concerned with the frontier between the Church and the world, between Christian faith and society. Education as a whole, including religious education, forms a significant aspect of this. My major concern has always been to link contemporary developments in religious education with Christian faith. The urgency and challenge of this task have arisen from the process of development that religious education in England, and indeed in north-western Europe as a whole, has been passing through during the past 50 or 60 years. vii

8 JOHN HULL My first experience of teaching religion was in secondary schools in Melbourne even before I had trained as a teacher. Religious education in state schools was provided by teams of voluntary instructors, since the regular teachers were not allowed to deal with it. The classes I took usually lasted for about half an hour, either at the beginning or the ending of the school day, so as not to interrupt the official curriculum. Armed with a piano accordion and a repertoire of exciting Bible stories, I conducted these classes as evangelistic meetings, doing my best to interest the sceptical teenagers, who viewed me with a mixture of hilarity, fascination and awe, but on the whole more hilarity than awe. I had not distinguished the school classroom from the mission on the beach. To me, the school was just one more opportunity to proclaim the Gospel. I came to England in 1959 to study theology, and after three years, finding to my dismay that the collapse of my evangelical faith prevented me from returning to Australia to enter the Methodist ministry, I resumed my work teaching religious education. I soon discovered that the subject was still in the tradition of Christian piety, although on a much more professional basis, and without the piano accordion. The content, however, was basically stories from the Old Testament in the first year, the life of Jesus in the second year, the journeys of Paul and some missionary heroes in the third year, and so on. Although still seeking to nurture the faith of the students, religious education was already passing from the pietistic strand of the European Enlightenment into a more critical approach to religion. World religions and ethical problems were soon introduced and over the next 30 or 40 years the subject moved from the context of a decaying Christendom through modernity to post-modernity. At every stage this threefold development was greeted with controversy. Whether it was about educational norms replacing Christian nurture or the later full impact of pluralism, lifestyles and changing social attitudes, religious education seemed always to be on the edge. Was it sacred or secular? Was it education or indoctrination? Was it to be related to Church or state? In the sixties the controversies in England surrounded the question of life themes versus Bible teaching, in the seventies the problems of phenomenology took centre stage, and in the eighties the huge conservative reaction required a militant defence of religious education as a critical, descriptive religious discipline making a valuable contribution to student values while remaining faithful to religion itself. From the early 1990s until the present time, the focus of attention has been more upon pedagogy although the task of explaining and defending the distinctions between religious education and religious nurture seems never-ending. The question of the relationship between religion and this kind of pluralistic religious education has been further complicated by the naturalisation of Islam as a European faith. The religious educators of north-western Europe have created something of cultural significance and social value. We have shown how the religions of the world can become a resource to enrich the growing lives of children and young people, challenging their values, and preparing them for intelligent citizenship in the modern world. No other subject does this with such intimate care for children s viii

9 FOREWORD lives, such careful handling of the spiritual traditions and such relevance to community reconciliation. The most significant aspect of my own contribution has been the attempt to show that a self-critical Christian faith can support these trends, enriching them whilst also being enriched. Teachers committed to Christian faith discovered that they could teach world religions not in spite of their faith but because of it. Theology of education can take its place alongside the other aspects of the study of education, dealing not only with the teaching of religion but with the wider questions about educational aims and the values involved in the teaching of other school subjects. I am conscious of the fact that my life has been lived on frontiers in more senses than those related to professional education. Brought up in Australia but spending most of my working life in England, I have always been slightly removed from the social class ethos of these two countries. More significant has been the fact that well into adult life I was a sighted person and for the past 30 years have been totally blind. The problem of being on the frontier between sight and blindness, having been in both states, has been for me the most problematic encounter of my life. Although I have some idea of how this has affected my personal Christian faith, I find it more difficult to say how it has affected my work in education. Of course, the impact upon relationships, particularly with younger children, was immediate and profound. Not being able to see the faces of children when they are listening to a story is a loss that no ingenuity can overcome. In a more general sense, I think that becoming a member of the disabled community, and especially immersed in the curious ambiguities of the blind condition, has sensitised me to the problems of all minority groups and given me a feeling of solidarity with all categories of marginalised people. Perhaps this has made me more sharply aware of the problems of justice, dialogue and inclusion in schools, and it has also made me realise more deeply the close connection between the personal life of the teacher and the content and style of teaching. This brings us back to the purpose and context of this set of essays. Much of the vitality of religious education in Europe springs from the fact that many of its leading figures have experienced personally the challenges of faith in the midst of secular pluralism, and the threat to humanitarian values of a world dominated by money. Reading these pages one is impressed by the transforming impact of contact with poverty, the scarring impact of tension within one s own community of faith, and the stimulating effect of always having to explain and defend one s work to sceptical colleagues. It only remains for me to thank you, Siebren, for your own personal kindness to me and to thank you on behalf of all the contributors to this volume for your own inspirational leadership, helping us to cross many of these boundaries and to remain on the edge without losing our balance. John M. Hull The Queen s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education December 2012 ix

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