In REonline Dave Francis [2013] makes a case that Religious Education should adapt to meet the changing needs of the people it serves. RE has a problem. And it’s not just an image problem: the name religious education no longer does what it says on the tin.
Since Ninian Smart in the mid 1970s, those who saw ‘RE’ as a subject that aimed to develop children’s ‘religiousness’ have 'suffered a dramatic and irreversible decline', says Francis.
Now, the development of children’s ‘faith’ or 'belief' is the role of the family, the specific community or for children to decide for themselves their choice of worldview. The subject should be about helping children and young people to learn from the wisdom of the world’s religious and philosophical traditions so that they can make the best of their lives and find the resilience to cope with life’s tragedies and disappointments.
He argues that it is both desirable and feasible that RE should become a discipline, like Geography, History or the sciences. However this will only be possible if RE changes its name and its aims and content.
Francis says RE already makes use of several subject disciplines – theology, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, sociology and history included – in pursuit of its aims. At times, an understanding of the scientific method, mathematics, geography, art and several ancient languages is required.
Alternative names suggested for RE have included ‘Philosophy and Ethics’ (as suggested by National Secular Society) or ‘Beliefs and Values’. But such titles, as well as omitting the ‘R’ word, are clumsy and often misleading. They are difficult to abbreviate for the timetable and confusing for pupils, parents and colleagues, says Francis.
Francis suggests we call the subject ‘wisdom studies’. The subject would sustain a ‘discipline' of its own, and he suggests the combination of the Greek terms ‘Sophia’ (wisdom) and ‘Logos’ (study). The name of the new subject would be ‘Sophology’.
Sophological study would include most of the world religions. Equally important Sophology would include philosophies of life, including Humanism, which must be recognised by all syllabuses as a philosophical tradition and non-religious worldview, worthy of study, says Francis.
Sophology, he says, would be a Humanities interdisciplinary subject, dealing with an ever-changing and diverse human world. Sophology will be in a better place to do this than ‘RE’ because it will be a better fit for the critical interpretive approaches aka critical thinking, that lie at the heart of the Humanities.
Francis quotes a number of sources to support his case including the 2004 non-statutory National Framework for RE (nsNFRE), Brian Gate, Terence Copley, Jim Conroy and the 2013 review of RE by the Religious Education Council and the accompanying ‘national curriculum for RE’.
Sophologists would study a disciplined, rigorous subject. This will be in contrast to RE which is so often mistaken as an attempt to make the inhabitants of this world, ‘religious’, says Francis.
Christopher G Street BSc (Hons) DMS CDipAF MBA
3rd January 2014
3rd January 2014
I have reproduced below, unedited, the 2380 word, 'Think Piece' in REonline on 16th December 2013 by Dave Francis.
