From storybooks to bullet points: books and the Bible in primary and secondary religious education

Abstract

This article uses research carried out in a variety of English schools to suggest a discontinuity in the handling of the Bible between primary and secondary religious education (RE) classes, the former providing a more positive climate for the development of skills of scriptural reading and interpretation than the latter where students (and teachers) often expressed negativity towards books and the Bible in their RE learning. It employs Ricoeur’s manifestation and proclamation distinction to argue that engagement with religious scriptures in RE is necessary for students to develop a comprehensive understanding of religion and religious meaning, and it uses his model of the interpretive act of reading to analyse the practice and attitudes revealed by the research. The article argues that while the subjectivities of reader and text currently obstruct Biblical learning in the secondary classes, this is less the case in the primary schools. Here, the greater scope given to narrative, and its power to provoke new understanding, provides a foundation on which secondary RE teachers could usefully build if their students are to come to appreciate and rise to the challenges of close engagement with religious scriptures.

Keywords:

• religious education
• proclamation
• narrative
• books
• Bible

Notes

1. Among those expressing concern are author Claire Tomalin speaking at Charles Dickens’ bicentenary ‘Children lack ability for Dickens, says biographer Tomalin ‘ BBC News February 5, 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16896661 (accessed February 5, 2012); and Mary Bousted of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers: English ‘losing out’ to literacy’ April 9, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7992662.stm (accessed January 24, 2012).

2. Practitioner publications speak of the increasing popularity of Philosophy and Ethics and a ‘dramatic fall’ in numbers of teenagers studying Biblical texts for public examinations in RE (Mayled 2010).

3. Michael Grimmitt popularised the distinction between implicit RE linked to children’s own situation and experience and explicit RE using materials from religious traditions (Grimmitt 1973).

4. An interest that has persisted despite recent trends towards extracts rather than whole books in primary school Literacy education see former Children’s laureate, Michael Rosen who campaigns for the return of ‘whole books’ to the classroom http://www.teachfind.com/teachers-tv/michael-rosen-literacy accessed February 2, 2012.

5. RE syllabuses are produced at a local authority level rather than nationally though there are national guidelines to inform them.

6. From a political perspective Melissa Lane argues that an RE that encourages students to make judgements on the truth or falsity of religious claims is ‘anachronistic, parochial and dangerous’ and misconceives both religion and its place in the state’ (Lane 2010).