A culture of dialogue. vision, pedagogy and dialogic skills for the RE classroom

ABSTRACT

The Catholic Church has recently issued a call for “educating to fraternal humanism” that envisions a pluralist society in which all voices are to be heard. This contrasts with previously held positions of outright rejection of pluralist society (Augustinian Thomism) or Christianisation (Whig Thomism). This paper advances a Dominican Thomist vision of a post-secular society comprising three realms, namely sacred, secular and profane. Dominican Thomism is founded upon human reasoning whereby Catholic and liberal thinkers collaborate to build this society with a fortified secular realm that is a buffer against the other two realms. In such a secular realm the public sphere is pluralist and open to all voices. A socially productive pedagogy is the starting point and this paper points to a dialogic RE intervention in the classroom that offers much promise.

KEYWORDS:

• Dominican thomism
• pedagogy
• dialogue
• curriculum theory

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges with thanks the financial support provided by both the Hockerill Foundation and St Luke’s College Foundation for this PhD study at the University of Glasgow.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2016/may/documents/papa-francesco_20160506_premio-carlo-magno.html [retrieved 21 August 2018].

2. The Courtyard of the Gentiles held its inaugural meeting in Paris (2011) and since then has held meetings in the Italian cities of Florence, Palermo, Rome, Bologna and Assisi; the European capital cities of Tirana, Stockholm, Barcelona, Berlin, Prague, Budapest and Bucharest; and across the Atlantic in Argentina, Uruguay and the US.

3. Likewise, Glendinning (2017, 23) holds that secularisation ‘…is a mutation… an alteration within an event that we can call the Christianisation of the world’.

4. Support for this being a secular age is underpinned by a wealth of scholarship e.g.see Calhoun et al (2011), Mendieta and van Antwerpen (2011), Moreland (2012), Parker and Reader (2016), Schuller (2006) and Williams (2012).

5. As envisaged by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (2009) there is a ‘…positive spirit of secularism which makes it possible to promote a constructive civil coexistence, based on reciprocal respect and loyal dialogue…’.

6. as from Late Latin radicalis i.e. 'of or having roots.'

7. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/pedagogy [accessed 06 March, 2019].

8. e.g. the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE. 2007. [Online] Toledo Guiding Principles on Teaching about Religions and Beliefs in Public Schools.Available from: http://www.osce.org/odihr/29154?download=true [Accessed 18 May 2018]; and even the CIA – Liam Gearon, MasterClass in Religious Education. Transforming Teaching and Learning.(London: Bloomsbury, 2013).

9. Religious education in the UK has a rich history of differing pedagogies e.g. World Religions approach as mooted by the Chichester Project; Curriculum Development approach ad advanced by the Westhill Project; the Spiritual Experientialist approach as envisaged by the Religious Experience and Education Project; Critical Pedagogies born from the Children and Worldviews Project; Christian Pedagogy advocated by the Stapleford Project; Humanist Pedagogy as outlined in Grimmitt’s classic RE and Human Development; Philosophical Pedagogy as supported by the Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education (Luby 2010); and Confessional Pedagogy as outlined by SCES (2011).

10. e.g. Blaylock, Six Schools of Thought in RE. REsource: Professional Reflection on Theory and Practice in Religious Education. 27(1) 13-16, Autumn, 2004; Gearon, MasterClass in Religious Education; and Grimmitt, Pedagogies of Religious Education.

11. Pope Francis. 2013. Encyclical Letter. Lumen Fidei.29 June 2013. 34. Available from:http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20130629_enciclica-lumen-fidei_en.html [accessed 18 May 2018].

12. Pope Saint John Paul II. Encyclical Letter. Redemptoris Missio.On the permanent validity of the Church’s missionary mandate. 07 December1990, 56. Available from: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_07121990_redemptoris-missio_en.html [accessed 18 May 2018].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Antony Luby

Antony Luby is a chartered teacher and has spent a career lifetime teaching religious education in state, independent and Catholic schools. He has attained Masters’ degrees in curricular studies, theology and pedagogy from the Universities of Strathclyde, Aberdeen and Oxford respectively. The author of many papers in academic and education journals this paper derives from recent PhD studies at the University of Glasgow.