In this
important booklet, Penny Thompson skilfully dissects current practices in the
teaching of RE to show how it has been reduced to a take-your-pick activity
which abdicates from encouraging commitment to any particular faith system. In
doing so, modern RE has turned away from the purpose for which the subject was
once perceived to exist, namely to give the next generation a faith by which to
live, and a basis for preserving the institutions on which our society has been
built.
But Challenging
RE is not simply concerned to demonstrate that RE has taken a wrong
turning. Its author offer a new way that will enable young people to be taught
the faith systems of the communities to which they belong. There is an appendix
which deals with the issue of indoctrination that arises from such an approach.
Penny
Thompson’s booklet should be compulsory reading for all headteachers and RE
specialists. Not all will agree with the author’s approach, but all need to
consider it whose duty it is to provide RE. Since what a teacher believes has
an influence on what he or she teaches, and on the relationships which provide
the classroom context, the fate of RE is important for the whole profession.
That being so, everyone who dares to practice the infinitely demanding task of
teaching the young should read it.
Peter Dawson OBE has had a distinguished career in education as an RE teacher and headmaster of a London comprehensive school. He was general secretary of the Professional Association of Teachers. He has also served for four years as a member of the economic and social committee of the EC in Brussels. He is a lay member of the employment appeal tribunal, a Methodist minister and leads an OFSTED school inspection team. As an RE specialist, he was involved in the debate about the shift in emphasis in RE teaching at the time when the change began. As an OFSTED inspector today, he sees the results, which were predicted by those who resisted the move away from a biblical basis and Christian emphasis forty years ago.
