The daunting rapidity with which the global scene is changing
is laying up for the future a range of problems that education
in this country must eventually face. Financial stringency, falling
school rolls and emphasis upon the core curriculum are fostering
distinctly inward looking approaches to the curriculum. Sooner,
or later however it will be necessary to take a long hard look
at the contemporary world, to ensure that our educational provision
is able to match the demands that the world is making. Conventional
syllabuses and conceptual approaches, which have stood the test
of time, will need adjustment even to keep pace with the rapidly
changing results of modern scholarship. Teacher expertise and
the development of adequate resource materials will be at a premium.
For many of the more alert and outward looking schools this has
already been recognised. The African and Asian Resources Centre
at Newman College was established in 1979, to cater for these
needs in the West Midlands by the provision of In-Service courses
and the production of teaching materials by teachers themselves.
These general statements have a ring of the obvious about them
and at first sight have little to do with either R.E. teaching,
or more specifically with the particular approaches to R.E. teaching
encouraged by Shap. The relevance comes from the subjective assertion
that good R.E. teaching has in general undergone a more profound
change in the last decade than any other subject and that the
R.E. department with a critical openness to Christianity and teaching
World Religions is well placed to stimulate curriculum change
in other parts of the school.
There are easily identifiable aspects of the contemporary world
consistently in the media, but usually underemphasised in the
school curriculum. Particularly in those LEA’s which have new
agreed syllabii, the fact of teaching World Religions enables
the RE. department to focus upon these, the inevitable interaction
between the major faiths and upon their cultural contexts in a
shrinking world. A few examples will suffice both to support the
argument and illustrate the potential points of contact in other
school departments.
Africa, with importance both as the starting point for the African
diaspora and for its current geographical significance, makes
a good starting point. Omission or distortion of it in the curriculum
are the salient characteristics of the majority of teaching about
it. In History it is usually seen as an extension of the European
experience. David Killingray has written, “What are students to
make of a Continent that is touched upon in the first year (Ancient
Egypt), briefly sighted in year two (Vasco de Gama rounds the
Cape), robbed of its manpower in year three (the Slave Trade),
and then marched over in years four and five”? The geographers
tend on the other hand to treat Africa as a permanent problem
with poor soils and ineffective agricultural techniques. Too many
social studies schemes start from the survival of the Masai and
the bushmen — equivalent to approaching European history from
the perspective of the Scottish Crofter and the Laplander. In
terms of World Religions, however, the Continent has seen a fascinating
interaction between Islam, indigenous religious beliefs and both
with Christianity. The role of separatist churches under Colonial
rule and the church as a whole in South Africa are vitally important
to understanding Christianity in Africa. In a different context
the retention of African religious traditions in the Caribbean
and in British West Indian revivalist churches has a clear domestic
implication. There are many ideas here, but elaboration of the
last theme may illustrate the point: a useful aspect of interaction
between school departments under the stimulus of R.E. can be achieved
by a coherent approach to the personal and economic links between
West Africa, the Caribbean and this country. History, Georgraphy,
English Literature, using writers such as Braithwaite, Mais, Selvon
and Naipaul, and the interaction of beliefs is an obvious grouping
of slavery, sugar, immigration and personal experience.
A similar case can be made out for India. Very few History syllabuses
for instance will omit Clive and Warren Hastings and India in
the 20th century. The historic relationships between the British
East India Company and the Hindu and Sikh rulers in 18th century
India, are good points of entry. While the Amritsar Massacre in
1920 is a focal issue for the subsequent development of Indian
nationalism. There are very few Geography departments that do
not deal at some stage with the sub-continent of India or South
Asia particularly where development aid is concerned. Here again
the R.E. department has an important role in redressing the image
so frequently portrayed of the Third World as one large over-
populated and incompetent mess. The positive contributions to
religious thinking and human experience from parts of the world
which are temporarily at a relatively low historical ebb is in
need of repeated emphasis.
English departments have increasingly found literature from the
Third World to be of value in raising issues relevant to contemporary
young people. These novels and stories frequently have a closer
link betwen ideas and values than their western counterparts;
they are frequently highly critical of western materialistic values,
for example Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Maphandaya, a beautiful
and poignant story of an Indian family who find themselves in
the path of commercial developers.
Any treatment of South Asia which omitted Islam would of course
be incomplete, and this leads on to the enormous subject of Islam
itself. The historic interaction between Islam and Christendom
is one beset by polemic, distortion and stereotype and this is
still reflected in the curriculum. The majority of children will
leave school having been taught the names of very few Muslims,
possibly only the Prophet Mohammad and Saladin. Since 1973 the
fate of the western world has been determined largely by oil derived
from Muslim countries. The Iranian Revolution meanwhile has transfigured
the geopolitical framework of the whole Gulf area and it has been
cogently argued by Malcolm Yapp at SOAS that the Russian intervention
in Afghanistan was triggered primarily by anxiety over its rapidly
expanding Muslim minority groups. 600 years ago Islam played an
equally active role vis-a-vis Western Europe. The gold that fed
the medieval Italian city states was derived from African kingdoms,
frequently Islamic in nature. It was transported by camels across
the Sahara by a trade that was organised and capitalised by North
African Muslim merchants. It was the same with the Indian Ocean
trading network, which linked China to the Levant. This too was
lubricated by African gold, in this case from Zimbabwe, and it
too was in the hands of Muslim merchants. The great entreports
were the Muslim towns of Ormuz and Malacca at opposite ends of
the Ocean. A Portuguese navigator wrote of Malacca in 1515, “No
trading port as large as Malacca is known nor anywhere do they
deal in such fine and highly priced merchandise. Goods from all
over are found here; goods from all over the world are sold here.
It is at the end of the monsoons, where you find what you want
and sometimes more than you are looking for”. The Portuguese were
catalysed into their navigational exploits by the Italian bankers
monopoly of the gold and luxury goods traded from the Muslim world.
Yet we find these factors are under-emphasised despite the presence
of this topic on the majority of History syllabii. The preferred
emphasis is upon discovery as a feature of European enterprise.
Islam cannot effectively be treated simply from the point of
view of beliefs and practices and divorced from its historic growth.
The interaction between Islam and the diverse cultures of the
parts of the world where it has spread are crucial; social, economic
and legal organisations are clearly interrelated in Islam in a
way that they no longer are in Christendom. To treat this subject
adequately the R.E. department really does need the sympathetic
support of other departments. Here again it does not require restructuring
of an overcrowded syllabus but rather a coherent reassessment
of those areas already being taught, which deal with the interaction
between Islam and the West. The Crusades, the Age of Discovery,
the Indian Mutiny, the Partition of India, Oil, the Arab/Israeli
conflict, already have their niches and supportive teaching resources.
The R.E. department is the natural focus for an approach to Islam
which helps children to see it not only as the major world faith
that it is, but also as a social cement. This is particularly
important at the present time, when media treatment identifies
Islam with extremism, fanaticism and the American hostages.
Although enough has probably been said to indicate the innovative
potential of the R.E. department, one final example does merit
a mention. Japan and China are both areas of considerable contemporary
importance, which are still neglected in many schools. Here again
the study of World Religions can stimulate teaching on at least
one aspect of these two related, yet historically distinct cultures.
Neither of them can be understood without reference to their religious
and social backgrounds. One is an example of signification of
Marxist ideology, the other of rampant industrialisation.
This is only a superficial list of some aspects of the contemporary
world. The understandable pleas of overcrowded curricula and scarce
resources from most school departments do not, unfortunately,
disperse either the pressures from the world outside, or the moral
obligation upon educators to translate this into meaningful teaching
for the children. R.E. teaching does appear to be the key with
the greatest potential for opening windows and ensuring that schools
remain alert to their broader educational obligations.
Postscript
In 1989 the National Curriculum threatens to recreate the worst
features of an Anglo-centric curriculum endorsed by a paraphernalia
of testing. Parental choice, based upon test results, is designed
to determine the amount of money received by a school. R.E. stands
outside this testing structure and consequently carries an even
heavier responsibility for educational values which emphasise
understanding rather than tested content. The “secret garden of
the curriculum” has at least two keys, one of which is knowledge,
another is values; and R.E. must surely involve itself with that.
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