5 Teaching Approaches In R.E

In order for Religious Education (RE) teachers to teach their subject effectively, they have to understand the nature of RE and the approaches that involved (Mujdrica, 1995). They have to be requires flexible. As teaching involves communication of one’s emotions, e.g. maintaining eye contact, making gestures and using symbolism to practically demonstrate ideas or concepts that the teacher wants to communicate to the learners. Teaching of Religious Education also requires improvisation and the application of complex knowledge structures across different cases and use of different approaches in order to achieve education goals. It is for this reason that teachers need to use different approaches in teaching RE in order to communicate their ideas effectively to students and for the subject to be relevant to the life experience of learners. It is for this reason that this essay seeks to discuss the different approaches in teaching Religious Education.

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Mudalitsa (2002) defines an approach as a way of dealing with something. It encompasses a set of logical assumptions that could be made for better comprehension of issues. In the context of teaching Religious Education, these are ways and strategies of teaching Religious education in order to achieve the teaching and learning outcomes.

Simuchimba

Simuchimba (2000) describes Religious Education as a subject that is meant to transmit the kind of morals, skills, values and attitudes that pupils or learners need in order to become mature, self-reliant and accepted members of society after school. Therefore in order to acquire these attributes by learners, teaching of Religious education uses different approaches. It is from this background that, attention should be drawn to the fact that many approaches can be used in Religious Education teaching, such as the multi faith approach, Biblical theme approach, life experience approach, Educational approach, confessional approach, neo confession approach, and others.

Teaching of Religious Education has seen Religious Education educators trying to accommodate at least two different sets of educational concerns and techniques: the first set of concerns is an attempt to relate Religious Education to the daily experiences of mankind, and thus enabling learners to interpret and understand such experiences from a theological and a sociological perspective. 

Grimmitt

As Grimmitt (2000) puts it the life experience is an approach under The Life Themes approach which seeks to examine the life issues of learners (students or pupils) and to encourage them to reflect on those issues against the Biblical messages that are presented to them.

Onsongo

Onsongo (2002) describes life experience approach as an approach that examines life issues and allows learners to arrive at a religious understanding of those experiences. In other words, it emphasizes students' day to day experiences as the basis for learning Religious Education. He further identifies four main steps that are involved in the use of the Life experience approach. These are human experience, Biblical experience, explanation, application and response. It is from this point that for instance in Zambia the life experience approach takes on the form of life education where Religious Education is planned to promote pupils' personal, social, and spiritual development that is, it prepares pupils to be able to handle life issues.  

He furthermore explains that the life Experience involves using the experiences of the learner as the basis upon which the religious material would be built. For example, the birth of siblings in the family will be related using a biblical text. The Religious (or Biblical) Experience is introduced to the learner from the Biblical text, e.g. the birth of Jesus Christ. The Explanation involves giving an exposition on the Biblical text. The Application and Response stage involves relating the content to the lives of the learners, and giving them the opportunity to react and respond to the lesson that has been taught (Onsongo, 2002)

The basic principle behind what has become known as the life experience approach to Religious Education teaching is that learners’ best learn when they start from that which is within their own experiences. Many biblical concepts, for example, are difficult for young learners because they are so often developed from experiences far removed from that of a child. The life experience approach is designed to use the learner’s own experience as a jumping-off point for inquiry into the deeper and fuller implications of a particular concept. 

The life experience approach is also a means of ensuring that religious ideas are not separated from other ideas in the mind of the learner. In this approach teacher helps learners clarify their values by having them reflect on issues that affect them in their daily life on social, economic and justice. Then these issues include a religious perspective on them. Examples Life experience themes are in the junior RE syllabus such as “Love and Marriage”, “Justice”, “Freedom”, “Suffering and Pain”. As a way of leading learners to look at appropriately chosen biblical or other material and relating what they find to the business of everyday life the life experience approach is an extremely valuable teaching approach (Thompson, 1988)

Thompson

Thompson (1988:10) identifies multi faith as another approach that is used teaching Religious Education. He further describes a multi-religious approach as “a social/religious order founded upon the principle of harmonious interaction, for common ends, among various distinct religious communities each of which possesses both identity and openness.”  He adds that it is a situation in which organised religious groups with incompatible beliefs and practices are obliged to co-exist within the framework of the same community or society.  He points out that these communities or groups need to have a pluralistic vision in which they can help young people to live, learn, and grow together within a larger community. Therefore, the teaching of RE using this approach is not from the perspective of one religious group showing superiority over the other groups, but it  inculcate mutual respect and co-operation.

In the view of the above description of a multi-religious approach of teaching RE, a good example is the current Zambian Religious Education Multi-religious syllabus for secondary schools in which pupils from all religious groups: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Indigenous Zambian Beliefs attend the same classes and take the same subjects as mandated by the Ministry of Education. In this multi-religious context, RE teachers are required to recognise and accept the rightful existence of different religious groups and view religious diversity as an asset and source of religious enrichment rather than a religious problem.

Cont.

This approach advocates that in Zambian Multi-religious secondary schools all religions should develop an appreciation of the beliefs and practices of one another. Secondly, all religions must strive to enter into dialogue. Through dialogue they will together try to discover what is true, good and workable for all.  It is important to note that this approach requires the RE teachers to be tolerant and accepting of other religions without needing to “shift” from the core beliefs of their own faith (Thompson, 1988).

Thompson (1988) further explains that the intention of this new policy was to help those involved in the teaching ministry, in particular the RE teachers, to reconsider their approach to RE as a subject in the light of the current due to the fact that Zambia as a multi-religious and multicultural setting, RE should be multi-faith in its approach, in order to meet the current needs of all the pupils attending Zambian secondary schools.

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Simuchimba (2005) identifies the educational approach as another approach which used in teaching Religious Education. He clarifies that the approach uses education as a means or vehicle through which religious knowledge is communicated to people, pupils of different religious backgrounds. This approach uses education to preserve religious beliefs, rites, practices and values. These rites, beliefs, practices and values have shaped pupil’s behaviour and attitudes and have provided them with identity and meaning in life. They also become the foundations which give people a view of the world. The educational approach of teaching RE uses education as a tool to invoke learners to be critical thinkers who can make sound decision and in the process will learn to tolerate one another’s religious beliefs and practices.

Simuchimba (2000) affirms that, another aim of the education approach is to produce an adherent learner who is obedient, morally upright, loyal and of good character. This can be demonstrated in African traditional religions where each member is supposed to show loyalty to religious teachings by performing all the necessary rites and following all the taboos which, if contravened, could make one liable to a curse or death (Thorpe 1997:47). In Islam, loyalty is shown by submission to Allah and by defending their faith. In Christianity, it is submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and obeying God’s commandments. In this approach, the role of the teacher is that of a facilitator who gives room for pupils to think for themselves about the religious issues presented to them.

It is from this background that the Education approach views RE together with other subject, as a subject that contributes to the production of learners who are mature, critical, innovative, and problem-solvers. But, on its own, the subject is expected to produce learners who are animated by a personally held set of civic, moral, and spiritual values.

Simuchimba (2000) points at the Biblical approach as another approach that is used in teaching of RE.  The Biblical approach uses Bible themes to help learners relate their life experience to Biblical passages.  Simuchimba though condemns this approach as it is too confessional and dogmatic in nature. He also argues that it is difficult for learners to relate the life experience of Biblical era to the learners’ current life experiences as they are two completely different eras. 

In support of Simuchimba, an example of a Biblical approach is the current high school or senior secondary school RE syllabus 2046 which is too biblical and examination-oriented to be beneficial to learners. Kelly (1999) considers 2046 syllabus to be a product of the 1977 Educational Reforms which he thinks, though well-intentioned, unfortunately resulted in an education system that was content-based, uncritical, and examination-oriented. He further states that it is due to this that Educating Our Future, the current national education policy document, recommends a complete overhaul of the system in order to replace it with one that is skills-based, critical and partly based on continuous assessment

Finally, Simuchimba (2000) considers the confessional approach to be another teaching approach of teaching RE. According to him this approach gives the churches a right to enter the government schools to instruct children in their particular denominations. It is sometimes called “right-of-entry” denominational religious education, where the aim is to initiate children into the particular faith tradition and to promote the development of a spiritual life in the context of that faith tradition life in the context of that faith tradition. A practical example of a confessional approach would be the 2044 and 2046 syllabuses whose monotonous teachings of scriptural (Bible) passages leads to denominational inclination and their confessional outlook tends to influence conversion of pupils to the Christian faith.  Another example was during pre colonial days when missionaries used schools as form of evangelism to indoctrinate pupils to Christianity.  

According to Nicholson (1994:7) a confessional approach is a heritage of mission education in form of Christian education. This approach was encouraged by the missionaries and Christians from the mainstreams of the Catholic, Anglican and Protestant denominations that were in control of teaching of CRE in Zambian schools.

In this piece of study the researcher has discussed on the different approaches to teaching of Religious Education. The following are the approaches: Life Experience approach which helps learners analyse their life experiences and this then becomes a reflection process on the part of the learner. It is also concerned with the whole person (religious, economic, social, national, cultural, etc) with encouraging the personal development of each learner, Multi-faith which is aimed at enabling pupils to appreciate spiritual, moral, and religious values and behaviour based on them. 

This appreciation is drawn from the four main religious traditions in Zambia, namely Christianity, Hinduism, Indigenous Zambian Beliefs, and Islam. Other approaches discussed are Biblical approach, Educational approach, Confessional approach and the neo confessional which has not been discussed. The aims and content of these approaches of teaching religious education have thoroughly been discussed. It is hoped that this piece of work will help the reader in understanding the different approaches in teaching of Religious Education and the nature of RE in general, and its application to the Zambian context which has progressed from a predominantly Christian colonial period to the present multi-religious situation.

REFERENCES

Grimmitt, M. (2000). Pedagogies of religious education. Essex: McCrimmons

Kelly, M. J. 1999. The Origins and Development of Education in Zambia: From Pre-Colonial times to 1996. Lusaka: Image Publishers.

Mudalitsa, J. (2000). Towards A Philosophy of Religious Education. Ndola: Mission Press.

Mujdrica, J. 1995. “An Evaluation of the Zambian Secondary School RE Syllabus”. Unpublished M.Ed. Thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham, Birmingham

Onsongo, J. K. (2002). The life approach method of teaching Christian religious education in secondary schools. Eastern Africa Journal of Humanities & Sciences, 1(1), 1-10.

Simuchimba, M. (2000). “Religious Education in Zambia: Syllabuses Approaches and Contentious Issues”. A Paper Presented at the Conference on the theme, Theological Education in Zambia. Lusaka, Justo Mwale Theological College.

Thompson, H. 1988. Religious Pluralism and Religious Education. Birmingham: RE Press.