Signposts teacher training module E-Book

Jon Harald Bondevik

• Herausgeber: Council of Europe
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 147

Beschreibung

An essential complement to the Signposts publication

As educators, we often find ourselves at a crossroads. We question our education policies while trying to find the best way to meet the needs of a democratic society that is striving for peaceful coexistence in a diverse world.We try to project a better future and give more power to education so that it can contribute to the process of building that future. Signposts has come at the right time. Starting from the need to deal with religious and non-religious world views in intercultural education, it is a model for addressing diversity and controversy, helping policy makers, curriculum developers and teacher trainers to respond effectively to the new situations and challenges with which the world confronts us every day.

Signposts is an important instrument for Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education (EDC/HRE) that helps to create the culture of democracy.

Leseprobe

SIGNPOSTSTEACHER TRAININGMODULE

Teaching about religions andnon-religious world views

in intercultural education

Council of Europe

The opinions expressed in this work are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the Council of Europe.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be translated, reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic (CD-Rom, internet, etc.) or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the Directorate of Communication (F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex or [email protected]).

Cover and layout: Documents and Publications Production Department (SPDP), Council of Europe.

Photos: © Shutterstock, A. Dautaj, W. Anderson.

Council of Europe PublishingF-67075 Strasbourg Cedexhttp://book.coe.int

Paper ISBN 978-92-871-8948-6© Council of Europe, July 2020Printed at the Council of Europe

Authors and contributors

Authors

►Mr Jon Harald Bondevik (Norway)

►Mr Astrit Dautaj (Albania)

►Dr Kevin O´Grady (UK)

►Dr Angelos Vallianatos (Greece)

Project team

►Ms Ana Perona-Fjeldstad, Executive Director, European Wergeland Centre

►Ms Jennie Holck-Clausen, Senior Adviser, European Wergeland Centre

Contents

Foreword

Guidance notes

Chapter 1 – The recommendation: background, issues and challenges

Chapter 2 – Introducing Signposts and its key issues

Chapter 3 – Terminology associated with teaching about religions and beliefs

Chapter 4 – Competence and didactics for understanding religions

Chapter 5 – The classroom as a safe space

Chapter 6 – The representation of religions in the media

Chapter 7 – Non-religious convictions and world views

Chapter 8 – Human rights issues

Foreword

The publication of this teacher training module, related to the book Signposts: policy and practice for teaching about religions and non-religious world viewsin intercultural education, is a milestone in the development of the Council of Europe’s collaborative work with the European Wergeland Centre on religious and world view diversity and education in European schools.

The relatively long history behind the publication of this module dates back to the final decision to include studies of religions in the Council of Europe’s educational programme which was made in September 2002 (Council of Europe 2003). A project on incorporating religious diversity and dialogue into intercultural education was established, with a team of contributors from different European states plus a representative from Canada. The project, entitled The Challenge of Intercultural Education Today: Religious Diversity and Dialogue in Europe, was formally launched by the Committee of Ministers the following year.

One of the first activities of the project was a meeting in Paris in mid-2003, bringing together a working group of specialists in religious education and intercultural education to discuss how the dimension of religion could enhance intercultural education. The group recommended that school students should have education about religions as an integral element of their intercultural education, which should include, for example, strategies for understanding different religious positions; encouraging tolerance for (not agreement with) different religious and secular points of view; education in human rights, citizen­ship and conflict management; and strategies to ­counter racism and religious discrimination in a diverse world. The next major event of the project was a high-level conference on The Religious Dimension of Intercultural Education, held in Oslo in June 2004. A book of papers from the conference was published (Council of Europe 2004). The group then worked together to produce material mainly for teachers and policy makers across Europe and a reference book for schools across Europe was published in 2007 (Keast 2007).

Utilising the material produced by the group, the Committee of Ministers – the foreign ministers of all 47 member states – agreed, in 2008, a policy recommendation on the dimension of religions and non-religious convictions within intercultural education. The recommendation (Council of Europe 2008) was circulated to all member states.

It provides guidance on education about religions and “non-religious convictions” in the context of intercultural education. The recommendation acknowledges diversity at local, regional and international levels, and encourages connections to be made between “local” and “global”, the exploration of issues concerning religion and identity, and the development of positive relations with parents and religious communities, as well as organisations related to non-religious philosophies such as secular humanism. The intention is to introduce young people to a variety of positions in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance, within the “safe space” of the classroom.

At around the same time, the Council of Europe was exploring the possibility of establishing a European resource and teacher training centre which would provide materials and courses for educators across Europe. A feasibility study, conducted by Robert Jackson, recommended the establishment of such a centre, and thus Norway and the Council of Europe established the European Wergeland Centre (EWC), named after the 19th-century poet and human rights activist Henrik Wergeland in Oslo in 2008. Robert Jackson was appointed Senior Adviser at the centre with a brief to assist the staff in establishing studies of religious and world view diversity as part of the EWC’s remit. The team at the European Wergeland Centre was concerned to ensure that the Council of Europe’s 2008 recommendation was being considered in member states. An international joint working group with member­ship from the Council of Europe and the European Wergeland Centre was established to address this issue. The group designed a questionnaire which was sent to the ministries of education of the 47 member states. Respondents were invited to identify difficulties they felt they would have in adapting the Council of Europe recommendation to their own national settings.

An analysis of the questionnaire responses identified issues which were common to many member states. These included:

►ambiguity and lack of clarity in terminology associated with teaching about religions and beliefs;

►a need to understand the component elements of “competence” for understanding religions;

►how to make the classroom a “safe space” for discussion and dialogue by students;

►how to help students to analyse representations of religions in the media;

►how to integrate a study of non-religious convictions and world views with the study of religions;

►how to tackle human rights issues in relation to religion and belief in schools and classrooms;

►and how to link schools to wider communities and organisations, with the goal of increasing students’ knowledge about and understanding of religions and non-religious philosophies, such as secular humanism.

After much deliberation by the joint committee, and after consulting colleagues in France, Québec, Norway and the Russian Federation, it was decided to produce a book, written primarily for policy makers and practitioners, which would explore aspects of the recommendation in relation to the issues identified above. Robert Jackson was given the task of writing the book on behalf of the committee, taking account of its deliberations, and drawing on relevant European and other international research, as well as giving concrete examples of experience of dealing with some of the issues in various education systems. The book, Signposts: policy and practice for teaching about religions and non-religious world views in intercultural education, was published late in 2014 (Jackson 2014). The main body of the text addresses directly the key issues raised by respondents to the questionnaire. In 2018 Signposts was translated into 13 languages and it is used many higher education institutions when preparing future teachers.

In 2017, EWC decided to follow the idea of Angelos Vallianatos ( a teacher trainer who collaborates closely with the EWC) to develop a teacher training module based on Signposts, aiming to turn the theory in the publication into a more practice-oriented tool for teachers. In partnership with the Council of Europe, EWC established a small group of experts for this task.

The project team included colleagues from Albania, Greece, Norway, Sweden and the UK, with the secretariat placed at the EWC. The module is intended for use across the Council of Europe member states and beyond, and it has been written with adaptability to different national and local contexts in mind. Once the materials for this module were developed, they were piloted with teachers in Albania and Greece, with their feedback incorporated in the final text.

You are now holding the result of this work in your hands. The training module targets teachers who work on religious education and/or intercultural education. It aims to improve the intercultural competence of teachers, through introducing intercultural education as a whole-school approach, with particular attention to the religious dimension. It links the issue of religion and world views with competence for democratic culture, as outlined in the Council of Europe Reference framework of competences for democratic culture. The training module also links with the EU-Council of Europe manuals on teaching controversial issues (Kerr and Huddleston 2015) using the example of religion.

The training module has been created for the education professions, helping adult professionals to deepen their knowledge, skills and attitudes towards the world of religion and non-religious beliefs; to develop the competences needed to further understand their own identity; and to present themselves in ways that promote dialogue and coexistence. The module aims to present the elements needed to address relevant issues in the classroom, creating a safe learning environment, respecting diversity, combating xenophobia and radicalisation, and contributing to a whole-school approach that helps students become active democratic citizens in a diverse world.

We congratulate the authors of the module on their fine efforts, and we are delighted that the module is now available for use by practitioners across Europe.

Robert Jackson

Professor of Religions and Education at the University of Warwick, and Professor of Religious Diversity and Education at the European Wergeland Centre, Oslo.

Ana Perona-Fjeldstad

Executive Director of the European Wergeland Centre, Oslo

References

Council of Europe (2003), “Education for intercultural and interfaith dialogue”, Proposal for a new project, Working document prepared by the Secretariat for the Steering Committee For Education (CD-ED), Educational Policies and European Dimension Division, Directorate of School, Out-of-School and Higher Education, Directorate General IV.

Council of Europe (2004), The religious dimension of intercultural education, Council of Europe Publishing, Strasbourg.

Council of Europe (2008), Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)12 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the dimension of religions and non-religious convictions within intercultural education. Available at https://search.coe.int/cm/Pages/result_details.aspx?ObjectID=09000016805d20e8.

Jackson R. (2014), Signposts: policy and practice for teaching about religions and non-religious world views in intercultural education, Council of Europe Publishing, Strasbourg, available at www.theewc.org/Content/Library/COE-Steering-documents/Recommendations/Signposts-Policy-and-practice-for-teaching-about-religions-and-non-religious-world-views-in-intercultural-education, accessed 8 May 2019 (English text of Signposts together with Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Ukrainian translations).

Keast J. (ed.) (2007), Religious diversity and intercultural education: a reference book for schools, Council of Europe Publishing, Strasbourg.

Kerr D. and Huddleston T. (eds) (2015), Living with controversy: teaching controversial issues through education for democratic citizenship and human rights, Council of Europe Publishing, Strasbourg. Training pack offering practical support to school leaders and senior managers on how to proactively manage and react to controversial issues in and beyond the school. Available at http://eng.theewc.org/Content/Library/Teacher-Training/Training-Tools/Living-with-Controversy-Teaching-Controversial-Issues-Through-Education-for-Democratic-Citizenship-and-Human-Rights-EDC-HRE, accessed 8 May 2019.

UNESCO (1996), Learning: the treasure within (The Delors Report), report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century, UNESCO Paris.

Guidance notes

Dear colleague,

In 2002, the Council of Europe decided to include the religious dimension of intercultural education in its work. Six years later, the Committee of Ministers issued Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)12. Another six years later, the book Signposts was published (this story is presented in the book’s Foreword). What you have to hand now is another step forward. It is the transformation of Signposts into a training module.

The fundamental aim of this training module is to offer a safe way to address issues connected to religion and non-religious world views in the framework of intercultural education. This training module has been created for education professionals themselves. It is to be used in teacher training, rather than classroom teaching. It is oriented towards helping adult professionals to deepen their knowledge and skills in relation to the world of religion, to develop positive attitudes and necessary competences. These include reflecting on their own identity; presenting religions and world views in ways that promote dialogue and coexistence; and preparing in other ways to address the relevant issues in an educational context, by creating a safe learning environment, respecting diversity and combating xenophobia and radicalisation. The training module aims to contribute to a whole-school approach that helps different stakeholders to co-operate and students to become active democratic citizens in a diverse society.

In order to use this training module in the most effective way, you need to use Signposts as its theoretical manual, also making use of the references in Signposts to Recommendation CM/ Rec(2008)12 itself (see Signposts, Appendix 1). In that way, as is recommended in Signposts on page 100, you can either use the whole document or focus on individual chapters and specific topics. Thus, each module chapter is linked to a Signposts chapter, and its activities have initial links to the same chapter.

Each chapter has two parts. Firstly, there is a fact sheet that contains ways to approach and decode the relevant Signposts chapter. More information follows below.

Fact sheets

The fact sheets are structured in a way that gives trainers the opportunity to approach the Signposts chapters according to their training time and needs. The chapters are summarised and reconstructed following a training logic. This means that in training, you can either follow the order of Signposts chapters or adapt it to your needs. You can use the fact sheets to find the content and examples that suit your training needs.

Each fact sheet contains:

Key points: here you can find the main issues that are analysed in the relevant Signposts chapter. Bullet-point text gives you an overview of the chapter, underlining the significant elements that can be used in training.

Competences for democratic culture: this part links each Signposts chapter and its training module to the Competences for Democratic Culture (CDC) model of the Council of Europe, giving you the opportunity of connecting the Signposts training module to the CDC model. By using the CDC reference you can enrich your CDC work through the inclusion of issues of religion and non-religious world views. Similarly, you can broaden your Signposts training through reference to CDC.

Controversial issues for teachers to consider: here you have a list of “difficult” issues that arise in each chapter. These controversial issues are associated with the experience of dealing with religion and non-religious world views in education, including the experiences and questions of education professionals.

Four fundamental questions are then addressed. The content of those questions helps trainers to approach the spirit of Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)12, as analysed in Signposts, but also it connects teacher trainers and training to CDC and especially to the work and educational material of the Council of Europe on controversial issues.

1. How does this affect me? These points link teaching about religions and non-religious world views to the teacher personally. They form a collection of matters to consider as a person, when dealing with religious or non-religious world view content or examples during training or teaching.

2. How does this affect my teaching? These points address what has to be taken into consideration in training or teaching, when dealing with religions and non-religious world views in the framework of intercultural education.

3. What can I do? These are practical propositions that help to deal with the issues that are analysed in the previous questions. They refer both to personal and professional needs and actions.

4. What do I need to develop? While the previous question is connected to immediate ways to react, the content of this question refers to a future process. These are longer-term professional development points, for developing the competences needed to deal with religion and non-religious world-view issues.

Activities

Every activity is the starting point of a process regarding a particular part of Signposts. Thus, the activities for the training module are positioned per Signposts chapter. This is because at a first level they are linked to a specific chapter and are to be used when the training deals with its issues. Nevertheless, the activities can be used in relation to multiple issues and at different levels, as explained below.

You will notice that the activities are not necessarily time limited. This is because each activity is part of a learning process. At a first level, each activity can be used as it is, since time may be limited, or confidence is still being built. However, you will find in practice that the outcome of each activity is not absolutely predictable. Each activity should, over time, develop to a second level, where participants can engage in extended discussion in order to connect with its issues and their personal experiences in their own educational environment and everyday work.

Any activity is enhanced by a long and rich debriefing. Through discussion, participants can consider which issues are more or less difficult to address, which need further investigation, how they might begin to apply what they have learned, and so on. Participants themselves need a safe space to express and discuss their own questions arising from the activities, from Signposts or from Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)12. Those questions are the sources for follow-up on different levels. At any point, if opportunities present themselves or if such questions are left out and are not covered in the activities, the trainer should address them in discussion.

In general, the activities are time flexible. They can be implemented in short or extended ways: during a session, or in multiple face-to-face and/or online sessions; combined with research, role-playing or experimenting in real situations; one after the other, or with gaps for implementation activities in school.

It is essential at every step to connect the activities to the Signposts text, and through Signposts