For teachers: Theorising Teaching-- as RE teachers

The  material on my students' resource website and this teacher's blog can be theorised using Beverley Bell's framework which sees teaching as a sociocultural practice rather than just imparting of disembodied knowledge. I will use Bell's theories to examine some of the challenges of teaching RE to international students and to explain the reasons for recommending particular language teaching approaches.

The first challenge involves the notion of truth embodied. Bell starts with the premise that “Knowledge may be seen as always being embodied, that is, grounded in bodily existence (Shapiro, 1999), with education starting from lived experiences. Centrality is given to situated knowledge that is inscribed in the flesh, with no abstractions and “separation of mind and body, thought and feeling, creativity and existence as in Western epistemologies and disembodied knowledge (Shapiro, 1999, p. xiii).” This premise aids our thinking around RE as a subject because God is immanent yet transcendent, all encompassing yet relational. As we introduce Christ through the pages of the bible and liturgical practices, students are confronted with the Truth not as a disembodied set of teachings but a person who is completely God and completely man (i.e. God incarnate). Yet for many non-Western cultures, the holistic interaction of the spiritual, divine and human is taken as a given cultural reality and this may jar with the fore mentioned “Western epistemologies” and the notion of “disembodied knowledge". I would contend that perhaps the dichotomous split between body/spirit, individual/ community, belief/ action may not be so clear-cut in the biblical understanding of the world. Hence, I feel that perhaps the greatest danger of teaching RE without examining our own cultural lens is to portray Christianity/ God/ Jesus/ Holy Spirit/ Catholic Church as tied to one culture, the Western culture or in the eyes of international students-- the other that does not include them.

The second involves conflicting descriptors of who our students are. Are they receptacles of the knowledge needed for them to attain credits or targets for conversion? Are they language learners needing to gain language proficiency? Are they potential clients in a competitive educational market with large financial constraints? I think an RE teacher would see these students as individuals made in the Image of God and on a journey of self-discovery with others in their class. Together in class, they encounter the Person of Jesus. Bell uses the word "embodiment" when she describes learners, "Embodiment encompasses an individual person’s biological (somatic), intellectual, emotional, social, gendered, artistic and spiritual experience, within their cultural, historical and geographical location. Embodiment is not a random or arbitrary set of genetic material – it recognises the material conditions of race, gender, sexuality, ability, history and culture. Embodiment therefore indicates a holistic experiencing individual." For me, to understand more about each individual student means taking time in an already busy day to intentionally get to know them. This is some times difficult because of cultural differences and linguistic challenges but going the extra mile "embodies" the message of faith, hope and love that is taught in an RE class.

On the basis of this perception of truth and the nature of learners, I have suggested projects requiring formative interaction and provided writing frames as scaffolding and mediated actions on my students' website.

To help students fully engage with the content of the RE curriculum, I have suggested RE Projects that students co-construct with their teacher. The Ultimate Questions (Year 13) and Mark's Gospel (Year 11) projects suggested on the website are part of a formative interaction process. "Formative interaction (Moreland, Jones & Northover, 2001), is also known as "assessment for formative purposes" (Bell & Cowie, 2001; Gipps, 1999). For formative interaction to occur in the social practice of teaching, "feedback is given to students about their learning with respect to the learning goals", as well as feedforward which is "the subsequent teaching which helps the student close the gap between their existing understanding and actions and the learning goals". "And for the teacher to give feedback and feedforward, students need to disclose what they know and don’t know and this will occur within a trusting and respectful teacher–student relationship (Cowie, 2000)". Doing such projects together is an opportunity for students to talk about their own experience and ask questions around spirituality. Students tap into their own cultural and religious heritage to co-construct projects around these broad themes and ask real questions. The below picture gives an example of how this has been implemented in a Year 7 class.

Teachers have to undertake mediated actions and scaffolding to teach students the essay writing techniques necessary to achieve the standards required to gain credits in RE. "A mediated action is a human action that employs mediational means, such as technical tools (for example, a computer) and psychological tools (for example, language) (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1991). One type of mediated action done during teaching is scaffolding, which refers to the mediated actions of the teacher to support a student to function inside her or his zone of proximal development, which is when a student can achieve or perform a learnt task, only with help by the teacher." The writing frames on the website scaffold for the English expressions needed to write descriptive and analytical essays. Placed on this digital platform, these frames become a ready resource on cellphones for when students need them next. At the end of every writing task, students would have a version of their work that has been corrected for grammatical errors and expression through a teacher-student collaboration on the task. In this way, students have examples of how their own ideas can be expressed in English and this becomes the basis for the use of more complex language structures.

In conclusion, the crafting of the website and blog has in part been an attempt to use current theories of teaching as a social practise to promote learning within a multicultural, multilingual, multi-national group of diverse students of various ages and language ability. They potentially could form a community of learners who support each other through culture shock, language learning and the growing pains of adolescence. The experience of care and mutual support while learning more about who God is together, can be construed as "mustard seed" beginnings.

Ideas taken for Theorising Teaching by Beverley Bell Waikato Journal of Education 15, Issue 2:2010
https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/6155/belltheorisingteaching.pdf?sequence=