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HELPING STUDENTS TEACHINFANTS R.E.Ann HendersonPublished online: 06 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Ann Henderson (1988) HELPING STUDENTS TEACHINFANTS R.E., Early Years: An International Research Journal, 8:2, 69-78, DOI:10.1080/0957514880080206

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HELPING STUDENTS TEACH INFANTS R.E.

Ann Henderson, Senior Lecturer in Religiousand Theological Studies

Students find a variety of approaches to religious education

in nursery and infant schools. The literature which is

available to them is not extensive. There is little material

produced for nursery and infant religious education at the

moment. It is against this background that students have to

be introduced to different ways of looking at infant

religious education, encouraged to evaluate them and

supported as they begin to develop and refine their own

approaches.

Possible Approaches to R.E. in Nursery and Infant Schools

These approaches can be classified in several ways. The

simplest is perhaps to divide them into:

(i) views which use the child's own world as thelimit for R.E. teaching; and

(ii) views which allow the possibility of extend-ing the child's own world through teachingabout religion(s) explicitly.

(i) The child's own world

Several different views can be identified here. One is

the conviction that good infant education is, in its way,

religious education because it develops a child's confi-

dence, ability to trust and wish to respect others. Another,

related, view insists that the main, if not the only, task

of infant R.E. is to help children to be aware of, and

perhaps cope better with, their own feelings. A third view.

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or emphasis, stresses the incidental nature of good infant

R.E.: the teacher responds to, and makes use of, children's

spontaneous questions about death, God, new life.

These three positions are akin to the idea of "sensi-

tivities" essential for the effective study of religion

which Edwin Cox (1) describes. He suggests that the study of

religion depends on at least six basic awarenesses: a sense

of mystery in life, a sense of continual change, a sense of

our relationship to and dependence on the natural order, a

sense of order in what we experience, a realisation that

there are other persons in the universe, and a sense of

right and wrong. Similarly Carol Mumford, (2) followed by

Ralph Gower, (3) advocates seeing infant R.E. as 'founda-

tional": infant R.E. provides children with experiences

which will help them, in emotion and attitude, understand

religion better later. In all cases, the stress is or should

be on the later, more adequate, understanding of religion

(and not its acceptance). Such work with children can also

be valued in terms of their moral or personal growth and

development, without any necessary reference to a later

understanding of religion. The growing interest in

spirituality, (4) fantasy (5) and story (6) in R.E. can be

interpreted as the use in schools of some of the techniques

of humanistic psychology in the attempt to help children of

all ages to greater self awareness. If this interpretation

is correct, it suggests that the debate about the nature of

"religion" (Is it self awareness? Ultimate questions?

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Concern with the transcendent?) will again become a central

issue, as it was when the main approach to R.E. in infant

schools was to say that religion was implicit in themes such

as "myself", "caring and sharing". The topics, in other

words, may be valuable: but are they religious education?

A fourth approach which starts from within the child's

world provides also a bridge between the two groups of

approaches. Simply, this acknowledges that the actual

institutions of religion may be part of the world which the

children bring to school (or find in school, through their

friendships). A child may go to the gurdwara, celebrate Eid

or attend a wedding. She may hear adults talking of God. In

shops or on TV, she may see the preparations for Christinas.

The teacher may hear the child talking of what she has seen

or done, or even see her "playing" at religion. Such

material can then be explored and the child helped to

understand it more clearly,

(ii) Religion's world

There are many who feel that religion should be clearly

identified within the curriculum (and some who wish to teach

it as a separate, discrete lesson). Originally biblical

stories were seen as the obvious way of making sure that

children learnt something about religion as the 1944 Act

required. Stories with a moral slant were then added,

followed by stories drawn from different religions and

cultures, as teachers tried to ensure that children were

exposed to religion in a form they could enjoy. Such an

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approach could also be held to be a means of educating

children towards a (later) appreciation of story (or myth)

within religion generally.

A second view stresses the links (or even identity)

between religious and multicultural education at infant

level. Children, it is said, should be introduced, whatever

the composition of the chool and wherever its location, to

the religious diversity which exists within Britain and the

world. Such an introduction should be at the level of

experience of concrete, tangible expressions of the faiths

(festivals, artefacts, stories) rather than abstract state-

ments of beliefs. Typically, such teaching emphasises people

and their ways of life. It has been recently criticised for

not going beyond culture to religion, for staying with

people and not considering the nature of the religion(s)

involved. (7)

A third possibility has been suggested, as the

influence of Piaget and Goldman has waned. A research

project (8) has been set up to try to identify the concepts

which infant children could be expected to acquire. In this

way, the "orthodox" view, that infants, unless they come

from a religious tradition, cannot have any understanding of

religion is questioned and qualified.

Issues in Infant R.E.

Does teaching about religion(s) confuse or indoctrinate

infants? Is there any way in which an infant school can

teach R.E. which will make sense to children, teachers.

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parents and the local community?

The possibility (or even certainty) that children would

be intellectually confused in R.E. was stated by Goldman in

the 1960s. (9) Religions, on this view, are essentially

abstract, systems of beliefs. Religious stories can be fully

understood only by adults. Consequently, if the child is

presented with material which is beyond his comprehension

(in terms of Piaget's stages), he will try, but fail, to

understand it. Such misunderstanding may never be corrected,

and children who are exposed to such materials too soon may

retain an infantile understanding of religion. Goldman's

position has been questioned, partly as a consequence of the

general reassessment of Piaget. Some would now suggest that

young children can have an intuitive, imaginative

understanding of religious stories which is valid in its own

right or which can be refined and developed through

sensitive teaching.

A different kind of confusion has been feared: namely

that children are perplexed, even disturbed, when they are

presented with a diversity of cultures and faiths. People,

it is said, need a strong sense of identity and a knowledge

of their own cultural heritage. Only then can they be

positive about cultural and religious diversity. There seems

to be little evidence to support this claim; or its

opposite.

Other issues centre round the child's own religious

position, and the teacher's role in relation to her pupils'

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commitments. Some children do come to school from religious

families. Is it the job of the school to nurture the child

in the early years in her family's faith? Or is nurture

always, at all levels of schooling, not the job of the

school? Should a Muslim child be made aware of Hindu puja?

Should a Christian child be told of jesus alone? Should

children, that is, be strengthened in their own family's

views, with the teacher becoming as it were a "member* of

that religion? Would this be indoctrination? Or should

children be taught in school about a "general religious

dimension through the medium of different faiths" from the

beginning? And would this, the giving of value to religion,

be seen by some as indoctrinatory? Should children be taught

at all about religion before they have the ability to doubt?

Helping Students

Students arrive at college with their own experiences of

religion, religious education and assemblies. Some have

clarified their thoughts and feelings about the

controversial and disturbing issues which are difficult to

avoid in infant R.E., where children ask questions adults

cannot or will not face; others have not. Further, some have

reached positions which they see as incompatible with some

forms of R.E. "How can I teach what I don't believe?" "I

want to teach children that Christianity is true". "I won't

teach about Hinduism because I'm a Christian". "I don't know

enough to teach R.E.*.

A course in the methodology of teaching R.E. in

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nursery/infant schools must help the students to explore the

different issues and debates, if possible in a non-threaten-

ing environment; while at the same time making it clear that

certain stances are ruled out in this country in the 1990s

as non-educational (e.g. teaching children that religion x

is "silly" or "true"). The actual ideas discussed in the

literature on R.E. in the early years are not difficult to

grasp intellectually but it can take students months to

assimilate and evaluate them, such is the controversial

nature of religion. Often it is "assembly" which focuses the

discussion most clearly for them. Students who had

previously accepted that R.E. is about exploring different

religious traditions without assuming anything about the

children's beliefs, suddenly find that they want assembly to

include hymns and prayers and the words "let us pray". Other

students (or even the same students), who are happy to

celebrate Divali in the classroom, are worried about

celebrating it in assembly in case it seems as though the

children are being asked to worship as Hindus. Some students

will want assemblies to be optional in the sense that

children (or their parents) will choose to which acts of

worship in the school (acts of worship in the traditional

sense of worship according to the beliefs and practices of a

given religion) they will go. Others will opt for an act of

worship which, they think, can unite all the children

irrespective of their religious position;: and this, even if

they had initially rejected the claim that all religions are

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really the same. By discussion, simulations, reading, (10)

and the preparation of possible assemblies, the issues

become clearer and students can be helped to see their task

as one of keeping different options open for children rather

than imposing their beliefs.

Ignorance about different religions/cultures can cause

students great anxiety. There is no easy way to dispel this,

because it is in fact the case that each religion is

complicated; and more importantly, that different families

and different communities practise the "same" religion

differently. Children may not say to a student "We don't do

it like that. Miss", but students have a very real fear of

offending children inadvertently or being unable to follow

what children say accurately. They are also aware of the

dangers of stereotyping. If students can gather, from

primary and secondary sources, information about the

"basics" as they see it, of each tradition, they may also

gain the confidence and interest to go on discovering more

about the religious background of the children they actually

teach and/oe the essential elements in the traditions to

which they introduce the children. Realistically, few

students when they start teaching will have the time or

energy to research different religions and hence a

methodology course needs to include a considerable amount of

"content" in terms of knowledge about different religions.

The tip of the iceberg, the actual classroom work, is

easier to describe and develop in workshops, simulations and

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visits to or from schools. Stories, (both secular and

religious), artefacts, festivals, ceremonies and buildings

can be investigated in ways which emphasise the need to make

links between such material and other areas of the

curriculum. Themes are already familiar to students as ways

of organising large areas of the curriculum by the time they

come to look at topic work and R.E. Their problem here is

that of many teachers: how to integrate R.E. in such a way

that it genuinely contributes to the theme, and the theme to

the child's understanding of religion.

At the end of the course, the perfect student would be

capable of stating her own rationale for R.E. in infant

teaching and have sufficient knowledge and skills to enable

her to enjoy dealing with religious material in an educa-

tional way. She should, with experience, be capable of

answering the head's question "How do I ensure that there is

progression in R.E.?" Parents and governors may stimulate

her to think further about the links between R.E. and the

community. As a practising teacher, she should be revising

and developing her college ideas of what R.E. is and how it

should be taught.

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References

1. Cox, E. (1983) Problems and Possibilities in R.E.,London, Hodder and Stoughton, Chapter 3.

2. Mumford, C. (1979) Young Children and Religion, Leeds.

3. Gower, R. (1982) Religious Education in the InfantYears, Tring: Lion.

4. British Journal of Religions Education, Vol. 7, No. 3.Summer 1985.

5. Ibid., Vol. 10, No. 1, Autumn 1987.

6. Ibid., Vol. 4, No. 3, Summer 1982.

7. Watson, B. (1987) Education and Belief, Oxford,Blackwell.

8. The Religious Education in the Early Years (REEY)Project at the University of Birmingham, see RE Today,Vol. 5, No. 2, Spring 1988, RE Direct section.

9. Goldman, R. (1964) Religious Thinking from Childhood toAdolescence, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. See alsoSlee, N. "Goldman Yet Again", an overview and critiqueof his contribution to Research, British Journal ofReligious Education, Spring, 1986.

10. Hull, J. (1974) School Worship: An Obituary, London:SCM.

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