I chose this title for my website because it sums up my vision for RE.
‘Challenging RE’ is what I am doing. I am challenging RE to face up to the truth about itself and be prepared to change. There are many fine people working in RE in this country, many with a strong Christian faith. But a powerful view has arisen in the profession which says to RE teachers that they may not teach their faith as true (my book spends several chapters telling the story of how this came about). Of course it is right that a teacher should not use the classroom as a platform for her own views and it has been against the Law since 1870 to teach any denominational belief as true. However this has been extended to mean that a teacher should not present any belief as true. This means that RE is always searching for truth but never allowed to find it. Thus the hidden agenda of RE is the privileging of agnosticism. Children learn that nothing can be known for certain about which religion is true or even what aspects of a religion might be true for, they reason, the teacher would surely tell us if she knew. It may well be that the teacher has a faith and can give a reason for the faith that is within her but that faith is not to be allowed to form the base of the teaching (according to current wisdom in RE) lest it thought by the children to be true. So under the guise of neutrality the teacher and her faith are neutered, made safe. As a counterbalance to this another hidden agenda sometimes surfaces. This is that within all religions are certain ‘truths’ which may be mined and learned from in some way. So a new religion is created by the teacher from the basic matter provided by the religions and presented to the children as true and worthy of their acceptance. This at least means that the teacher is not neutered; indeed the teacher is empowered as a creator and judge over religions which must yield up riches at her command. Where agnosticism reigns the pupils must create their own ‘truth’, where essentialism reigns the teacher creates it.
‘Challenging RE’ is what I am working for in the sense that the RE that I am keen to promote presents a challenge for teachers and pupils to engage in. This RE is challenging because it requires teachers to have a thorough grasp of the material they are presenting to children as true. RE taught like this means that a teacher is not merely the conveyor of facts about religions but is required to present the facts in a coherent pattern and to face the inevitable challenges that will come from her pupils. This is far harder than presenting unconnected facts about six religions. I am not suggesting that the latter task, seemingly required of all RE specialists and non-specialist alike, is easy however. It is clearly ludicrous that one teacher should be required to ‘teach’ so many religions. A chapter of my book considers how it was that teachers were persuaded to take on this unenviable task.
The form of RE I am proposing will be based on the acceptance of the truth of a particular religion. This, in the main will be Christianity as indeed it was up until about 1971. Of importance here is that this may be done in an open and self-critical way. Thus the teaching is at all times open to criticism from the pupils; indeed Christian faith grows via being exposed to critical view. The idea is that pupils are invited to explore, not required to accept. My book goes into more detail on what I mean by this. Interested surfers are invited to contact me. I am grateful to the anonymous teacher who signed my guestbook who prompted me to put this point in. I have written a paper which argues that the law still intends this to be the case. The law as it stands at present expects that Christianity will in the main be taught as true, but where pupils come from other faith communities provisions are made for them to receive RE based on their faith. See What the Law really says about RE
I have also written a booklet for teachers which covers the law and sets out my vision for RE
in some detail. It also explains why the RE profession has interpreted the law in quite different fashion.
See Challenging RE: A Guide forTeachers of RE.
Pupils often fail to see the point of RE.
There are many reasons for this. One reason, not often put forward
however, is that they see through us. They see that there is little
point to learning unconnected facts or being initiated into agnosticism.
Challenging RE would have some point and perhaps make pupils sit up and
listen, if only to find holes in the argument!
Challenging RE Penny Thompson’s Web-site
