Learning to Teach Religious Education in the Secondary School: A Companion to School Experience

This second edition of Learning to Teach Religious Education in the Secondary School is set to become, much as the first edition has been, the standard text in the area. Not to diminish the quality of the volume or its predecessor, but the text’s importance may be reasonably asserted because of the dearth of similar publications supporting the education of student secondary teachers of Religious Education (R.E). Other texts, such as Watson and Thompson (2007), do not focus upon the secondary sector or offer the breadth of topics this volume presents, nor does any other book combine both the theoretical and practical aspects of teacher training in quite such a rigorous way. This lack of supporting publications for R.E. teachers in training is somewhat surprising considering the now established popularity of R.E. (since the inception of the half-GCSE course), the continuing rise in student numbers at A-level, and the gradual increase in the supply of R.E. teachers (from a historically low level) to meet this new demand (thanks, in part to the support of the Culham Institute in marketing R.E. teaching as a profession (see http://www.teachre.com/).

This newly revised edition – adding a further editors’ name to the cover, L. Philip Barnes, also from King’s College, London – takes into account some of the changes in the subject, not least the growing popularity at A-level, by adding a further chapter on the practical challenges of teaching Religious Studies in the sixth form (in addition to the existing one on generic R.E. at 16-plus). This new chapter includes sections on choosing a syllabus, appropriate teaching styles and methods at A-level and even getting one’s head around the A-level mark/grade system. Though generally very sound advice is given here (I wish I’d had this to hand before teaching sixth form myself!) the chapter is rather skewed towards a notional smaller-sized class and towards those teaching more able students who have chosen the subject for purely academic reasons – neither of which is generally true of sixth-form classroom reality. My experience tells me that helping a mixed-ability group of students to develop writing skills and study habits is much more of a challenge in the average sixth-form classroom. Unfortunately, also, some of the information about A-level syllabuses is already out-of-date given recent revisions that have taken place across exam boards.

A further chapter new to this volume is on R.E. and Citizenship (the latter subject itself covered in a separate volume in this series by Liam Gearon (2003)). The omission of a chapter in this area from the original volume belies the longstanding close relationship – at times a hostile one – (see Freathy (2007)) between the subjects. The notion of religions as shapers of social and political understandings and of collective moral purposes has taken on new impetus of late, with governmental recognition of the ways that religion can bind people together as well as throw them against one another. Will Citizenship in time overshadow, and perhaps even replace R.E. as a more ‘useful’ subject (I would say unlikely)? Here, in fairly brief outline, assuming fairly strong understanding of both R.E. and Citizenship knowledge on the part of the student, Gearon attempts to build bridges between the two subjects using human rights as the overarching theme.

Further chapters have been revised and rewritten by L. Philip Barnes, one on ‘faith’ schools, the other on moral education. A comparison between the chapters in the first and second edition is worthy of close inspection, demonstrating some of the ways in which, even in the short space of time between the publication of the two editions, the subject has moved on. The omission of a chapter on teaching young people with special needs in this new edition is a mysterious oversight on the editors’ part it seems to me, particularly as this topic is not sufficiently dealt with in other parts of the volume.

Though the authorship of the volume is a good mix of leading academics and practitioners, I wonder if in revising this volume the opportunity to bring together researchers with contrasting views of religion in education to present their pedagogical approaches anew and in a coherent way to students has been missed. Additionally, it might have been good to have an international perspective on the subject too. I wonder if the volume takes into account the increasingly diverse make-up of initial teacher training students, not all of whom have completed a Theology and Religious Studies qualification. ‘What can I practically do to enhance my subject knowledge?’ is something I’ve often been asked by students having to teach a new syllabus/religion for the first time.

All that said, I think this is a very helpful book in-toto for both student teachers and teacher-trainers alike. It is sufficiently broad and practical to be used as both a text to stimulate further thought and be of great use in preparing for classroom endeavour. The use of task and information boxes throughout add to the value of the text as a method of engaging the reader in thought, and the addition of a very useful appendix of addresses means that the volume will still be of worth to the teacher in the early years of their career (especially the useful chapter on professional development). If there were competitor texts on the market, all-in-all this book would prove a worthy adversary.

References:

Freathy, Rob (2007) 'The Triumph of Religious Education for Citizenship in English Schools, 1935-1949 ', History of Education, 37:2, 295 – 316

Gearon, L (2003) Learning to Teach Citizenship in the Secondary School. London: Routledge.

Watson, B and Thompson, P (2007) The Effective Teaching of Religious Education. Harlow: Pearson.