mostly harmless reflections of teaching religion in a secular society

1. �Mostly Harmless*�Reflections of Teaching Religionin a Secular Society ASREAP 2008

3. My Part Am I a reactor or actor? What am I proactive about? How can I be Creative? Contribute?

4. �It depends where we start� The young regard religion with �benign positive regard� - good but inconsequential 

5. Experience of DissonanceStanding in the �Tragic Gap�

6. Dissonance between what is happening, or trying to happen, in classrooms on one hand, and real life realities of students and teachers on the other, is depleting the energy and momentum of the enterprise in which teachers of religion are engaged. Apart from the obvious impact of this situation on educational outcomes, living and working in the tragic gap of this dissonance is not insignificant in its contribution to teacher burnout.

8. �Where are you?� �If we don�t know where we are going, any path will get us there�

9. an acute sense of the obvious The world is a very different place socially, culturally, ethically etc to what it was when we trained as teachers. There is a pervading feeling that life is too busy, pathologically faster, and as a result, people commonly lament that they feel more fragmented than ever before. There is a heightened sense that there is something about our culture that is preventing people from flourishing.

10. Living in a fragmented and strange world presents challenges and implications for teachers, it is also the garden bed of adolescent formation

11. There is a hunger or yearning for more. No one usually seems to know what that �more� they seek is, however there is a growing conviction that it is not more of the same.

12. The Research is showing: experiences of �connectedness� with others were significant in ameliorating this hunger.

13. Pondering the word, Religion and its roots, and remembering that it means �to bind together�, or �to connect�, seems almost sadly ironic. It is not insignificant to think that �fragmented�, �dissatisfied�, �alienated� describes a significant proportion of those engaged in the formal religious education of youth. Combine this with natural healthy adolescent resistance to conformity, and wider social disengagement with religion, and it would seem that the religious education presently faces significant challenges.

14. understanding society a society that on the surface not only appears to largely no longer consider that religion has a significant role, but actually seems to largely consider religion irrelevant. On the surface, this also appears to be the attitude of the average group of adolescent students. It is striking and thought provoking that inquiry into this social dynamic is not engaged with genuine curiosity, rather than the usual nostalgic lament.

15. 48% of youth identify with a religious tradition

16. 52% - �No Religion�:? 35% Don�t believe in God? 22% Do believe in God?41% Unsure about God

17. 48% identify with a religious tradition52% don�t identify with a religious traditionor 80% open to the possibility

18. Triangulate a Perspective

20. Is this our current reality? School

21. Whereas in the past is was almost impossible for religion not to be significant, today in Western society, regarding religion as irrelevant to one�s life is both socially acceptable and a viable alternative[1]. [1] Charles Taylor: A Secular Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007)

22. What does the change in social dynamic suggest? The religion teacher has gone from being the instrument of enculturation working with family and parish, midwifing the religious cultural identity to the next generation, to just one of many competing influences on individual and group identity of youth in a fragmented continually changing society.

23. This is very different from past social dynamics where, as Erik Erikson observed, group identity preceded individual identity and that youth identity developed out of immersion in community. Currently mass media, rather than families, homes, neighbourhoods, churches and civic authorities are more likely to be the significant sources of identity for adolescents[1]. [1] David F. White, �The Social Construction of Adolescence� in Mahan, B.J.; Warren, M. & White, D. F.: Awakening Youth Discipleship, (Oregon: Cascade Books, 2007), 17-18.

24. When it comes to school, the effects of being immersed in a Catholic school as a community can appear to be largely mitigated by other cultural pressures as well as pressures of constantly changing curricula, national standards and testing, which all combine to make the milieu of the chalk-face constantly reactive to external trends rather than one to encourage youth to explore their own talents, abilities and potentials.

25. Community has been replaced by virtual community and the influence of mass media. These are now at least as effective, if not more effective, in transmitting values.

26. Erikson�s insight that group identity preceded individual identity means that individual identity is no longer forged in what was traditionally thought of as community, but from a variety of other sources

27. They might believe in God, but at the same time they may reject Church teachings Believing without belonging Christian nominalism Vicarious religion Minimal religion Just Christians Spiritual but not religious

28. If religion is no longer woven into the social fabric but just one of a number of viable options, why isn�t religion off young people�s radar all together?  there is �a lack of an acceptable model of how to be religious in the contemporary world (Eberle)

29. The Politics of Religion is a turn off: Globally Nationally Locally

30. 1 Cor. 12:14-26 it is not possible to be a Christian apart from community Erikson Kohlberg, Fowler & Gilligan

31. �Spiritual Tropism�(Houston Smith)? SearchingJourney�Peregrinatio�(St Augustine)

32. Is making an effort to connect to a community that seems to be disappearing, akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? Are religion teachers attempting to enculturate into a community that no longer exists?

33. Today�s community is emerging. Like all offspring, it will carry some of its ancestors� traits, but it will have its own personality and characteristics. It is an intellectual sleight of hand to say that because the community of the past is not recognizable in the present, there is no community.

34. �Greatness of Soul� The religion teacher is involved in enculturation into a community that is constantly a work in progress. What is planted in the soil of the present will grow and fruit in the future. In an educational environment ever more obsessed with defined and measurable outcomes, this is an anomaly.

35. Mike Carotta � �Sometimes We Dance, Sometimes We Wrestle� Engaging in/Experience of Religion Transcendent Interpersonal Interior

36. Tom Zanzig, �Adult Faith Formation Strategies� Yearning Responding Searching Awareness

37. While this is a model of personal religious growth and development, the role of the community is essential and necessary to assist the searcher articulate their yearning, hunger and longing in order that they search in ways that are life giving rather than life depleting. The community is also necessary for grounding, as well as assisting in articulating the moments of awareness as religious experience and then channeling the appropriate responses flowing from these.

38. Something other than the economic, and hence political, influences needs to address the social construction of adolescence. The church, hence church school, needs to be as serious about understanding and addressing the yearnings of youth as marketers are.

39. ��And still some grown-ups will not see why these are matters of such great importance� (Antoine De Saint-Exupery)

40. www.michaeldowney.com.au