An education in Religion and Worldviews matters…but why?
22 January, 2021, Dr Kathryn Wright
At Culham St Gabriel’s we are really interested in why an education in Religion and Worldviews matters. This is why we have recently launched a new pupil blog competition with this theme.
I’m biased of course! Working for a charity which is all about advocating for a high-quality education in Religion and Worldviews clearly means I think it matters! However, young people can give us unexpected answers to this question and that’s why our competition is so exciting. Here are two examples…
We will begin with Nutan. During the late 1990s I was involved with a research project about the implementation of agreed syllabuses. As part of this project my pupils were interviewed about the difference that RE made to them and why they thought it was important. Nutan announced that it was the skills she had learnt in RE that had enabled her to write better evaluative and analytical essays for English. She also felt the knowledge she gained helped her to understand some of the religious references in GCSE English set texts. She could see the transferable nature of her studies and the benefits of the subject in terms of broadening her understanding and cultural development. As a young teacher I confess I was a bit surprised!
Secondly, here is an example from closer to home:
This blog is from my youngest son Ben. He wrote it for my personal blog site in 2016. He is now 15 and I have asked his permission to use it here! I was intrigued by Ben’s response at the time because he used the term wise, and also because he connected studying religions with learning about human rights. I asked him today if he wished to update his thinking… he said that the most important reason for studying Religion and Worldviews is to understand others. He stressed the importance of learning about the diversity of different religious and non-religious worldviews. He also felt that it would help him get on well with others and enable him to identify prejudice or bias in society.
So why does an education in Religion and Worldviews matter? Why not ask some children or young people you know and see what they think?!
Details of our blog competition can be found here: