Importance of RE In Britain

On 11th May 2011, I attended the NASACRE AGM, and made a speech to those there about the importance of RE in Britain today. It's been a long time coming, but I'd now like to share this speech with you who couldn't be there. I'm litetrally copying the speech word for word, so I apologise for the references to those at the meeting!

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Good afternoon everybody.

I hope you’ve all had a fantastic day at this NASCRE conference. Before I explain to you why I’m here with you today, I’d like to share with you a quick video about what RE is in today’s classroom:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLBsqaHI-R0&feature=channel_video_title

Now I've had an opportunity to share that with you, I’ll move onto why I’m here today. I’m going to share with you my philosophy on Religious Education, and why it is important to society in Britain, and also across the world.

You see, I think there are a lot of common misconceptions where RE is concerned. There are some people in society – and unfortunately, in Government – who don’t seem to think RE is important enough to be recommended at GCSE. I can’t help but wonder, therefore, what they think RE really is. The mind immediately jumps to a conclusion that they think RE is a lesson where you’re indoctrinated, and will read a holy book – word for word – and are told to believe it. So this is RE, is it? Well, no, actually, it’s not. We have to ensure everyone understands what RE is. In some schools, if you study RE at A Level, it’s called Philosophy and Ethics. This name is appropriate, as you learn about – and draw your own conclusions on – philosophical and ethical issues that face members of society today. So what have I, a 16 year old who’s going to be taking a GCSE RE exam in 6 day’s time, learned about in RE? If you’d be so kind as to listen, I’d love to let you know.

In year 7, I learned about the different philosophies of life; scientific explanations for the existence of the universe; and different beliefs about the six main world religions amongst other topics. In year 8, ideas of Karl Rahner’s “anonymous Christian”; why do people believe in God?; how do I know what is right or wrong?; am I responsible for others? And several other units of work. When I started my GCSE RE course, I learned about so many issues facing humanity: abortion; euthanasia; IVF; is there life after death?; situation ethics; why should I vote?; is there such a thing as a just war? And plenty of other moral and philosophical dilemmas that face the world today. When my RE teacher explained to me why he believes RE to be important, he said one of its benefits is that students “can develop their personality and grow into a fully rounded human being.” So, I suppose these topics aren’t important for the children in our society learn about? Well, actually, yes, they are. 

I’d like to give a direct example of RE’s importance in society. There have been thriving debates over the past couple of years as to whether euthanasia should be legalised in the UK. Out of all of my GCSE courses – including 2 GCSEs in Science - RE has been the only one in which I’ve learned about euthanasia. In RE, we studied religious and non-religious arguments for and against the legislation of euthanasia, the lengths to which some people will go to allow a loved one to have euthanasia and, after careful thought, decided whether or not we personally believed euthanasia should be legalised in Britain. However, if we hadn’t done this in RE, I’m sure that several members of my class wouldn’t ever have made an informed decision regarding their own views on euthanasia. This is what RE offers: free thought. Yes, you do have a specification in GCSE RE, but just look what that specification offers. My own GCSE course has 50% of the paper assessed on questions asking you about your own opinions. If students today aren’t studying these pressing moral issues in RE lessons, when are they going to study them? Don’t get me wrong, of course, you’ll learn about certain issues in other subjects – for example, GCSE students learn about the controversy of Genetic Engineering in Biology as well as RE, but Biology won’t offer the time to reflect upon a student’s own opinion regarding a controversial issue – RE will. Do we want a generation of children who haven’t thought about such pressing issues? As one of the students who has thought about them, I advise you, the answer to that is a resounding no.

Another example I’d like to give is that of Islam. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. With this, unfortunately, comes rising levels of prejudices of the Muslim religion. How, without RE, will young people really learn what Islam is? Chances are, unless they’re from a Muslim background, they’ll learn about Islam through society’s pre-conceptions. Now, these pre-conceptions aren’t always going to be the reality of what Islam actually is. For example, someone may look at extremist actions – such as the 7/7 bombings – and decide that must be what Islam is all about. When in fact, Islam is about peace and submission to God.

According to Michael Gove – Secretary of State for Education – there’s “too much religion in society”. I’ve said before now that surely if there’s so much religion in society that Gove thinks it’s too much, we need good RE to accompany it. In Gove’s constituency of Surrey Heath, the percentage of ethic minority groups is 6.9%, compared with Birmingham’s 33.3%. We can begin to see why Gove doesn’t think RE is necessary. As there’s so little diversity in Surrey Heath, it seems Gove may not see the need to learn about it through RE. However, his constituency is not representative of the UK as a whole. In Birmingham, where today’s conference is taking place, we can see that there is diversity, and we learn about and celebrate this diversity in Religious Education.

Community cohesion is a vital thing that's necessary to achieve in the UK's multi-cultural societies, in places like Birmingham, for example. In areas where there's no sense of cohesion, there could be high levels of support for extreme right-wing parties, like the BNP. I personally don’t want the UK to go on to develop in this way, and I don’t think any of you would, either. RE teaches students to really think about what a person's beliefs mean to them, and how it's their identity. Differences aren't something to be afraid of, but something to be celebrated. What subject celebrates this? What subject will bring this cohesion to a diverse society like the UK? The answer is none other than RE.

Although I constantly campaign for people to realise that RE isn't a dictatorship where you're told to believe the words of a holy book, RE does actually hold significance in the religious-self of a human being. Whether we like it or not, religion is here to stay. It's something that everyone is going to think about in their lives. Why ignore the faith that exists in society? Even atheism itself is a faith, because there’s no solid evidence to prove that there is no God.  RE provides a safe place to develop your ideas, whether you're a modern day Oscar Romero or an advocate of Dawkins, you still have a set of moral beliefs, that you've developed from all of the different experiences you've had, the things you've read, heard and been told; RE brings a binding for all of these different sources, and enables a human to practically apply these morals to ethical dilemmas, such as is there ever such a circumstance in which war could be just, or is it right that we're worrying how we're going to pay for our holiday when there are children a plane journey away who are dying from starvation.  

In some words, I'd like to explain what I think RE is. RE is a subject whereby students can, yes, develop faith and beliefs, however, also have the time to think about reasons why maybe their religious views aren’t right, and other people's ideas are. It's a time to think about the moral and ethical issues that come about in our society today. It's a time to decide what we think is right or wrong. It's an opportunity to change the world we're living in; to make the world a much better and more tolerant place to be. Yes, this is all coming from a future RE teacher, but I'm not the only one with these opinions.

At this point, I’d like to read you an extract from a blog post I wrote in March. Those of you who attended the NASACREs Celebrating RE event in Birmingham on 31^st March would have heard this already, so I do hope you don’t mind hearing it again:

“Never in my 11 and a half years of schooling have I found a subject so captivating; so wide in its content to interest and motivate myself. As long as humans have existed, so has the desire to know and understand the meaning and purpose of life. RE provides the variety of opinions on issues like the meaning of life and God's existence so as we can make informed choices on the thing that most motivates people in their lives. If RE were a poem, it would be Shakespeare's finest works; a painting, the broadest and most mysterious horizon; a personality, the deepest most meaningful being.”

Now, those are just my own opinions, but they’re ones I’m sure a lot of you here today will share.

I’d like to thank you for listening to me today. A final thought I'd like to leave you with: don't ever lose heart in the most important subject for the understanding of society; the subject we call 'RE'.