a] Nord and Haynes state that "a good education should
provide students with perspective, with some sense of what is truly important.
Education should initiate students…into a conversation about what makes life
meaningful." As a starting activity, identify a number of questions or topics which,
gleaned from personal experience or interaction with students, would form part of such a
‘conversation’. In what ways does addressing such issues make education a
‘religious’ activity?
b] "What we find in the ocean of reality depends on the conceptual
net we bring to our investigation." What is the role of ‘teaching about
religion’ in broadening the ‘nets’ with which our students
‘fish’?
c] Consider the authors’ proposal that "religious
studies" be introduced into the high school curriculum. Do you agree or disagree with
the claim that "religion is too important and too complex to be handled adequately by
natural inclusion"? Prepare a list of arguments either for or against the proposal
that you would present to a committee charged with debating the incorporation of
"religious studies" into the curriculum.
d] Explore the role of ‘empathy’ in understanding religion
"from the inside". What connections can be drawn between encouraging
‘empathy’, and initiating students into "a discussion about how different
disciplines, different ways of making sense of the world, relate to one another"? How
does one ‘progress’ from the former to the latter?
e] What do you see as the relationship between ‘pluralism’
and ‘relativism’? Is the latter a necessary consequence of the former? Why has
the response of "many religious folks" to pluralism been a cautious one? Where
does ‘the truth’ reside?
f] Considering the thesis of this chapter, what would be your answer to
the question: If one of Jesus’ statements about Himself was, ‘I am the way and
the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6),
why study religions other than Christianity? For Christian teachers in public schools, is
it enough to "initiate them [students] into a continuing discussion about where the
truth is to be found", but not "draw any official conclusions about such
things"?
g] Analyse the "three correlative reasons" for incorporating
religion into the curriculum. To what degree are you ‘comfortable’ with such
arguments and, perhaps more importantly, the implications that such a course would have
for both schooling and teacher education?