The importance of schools is also to bring children and young people together in small groups to learn from the teacher and from each other. Together they try to form a safe and fine place to handle diversity. This diversity concerns different views on life, but also social backgrounds, family situation, living place, leisure activities, character, …
Young children have to learn to accept each other, to play with the other, and to communicate. So little exercises to talk to each other, to do things together (walk, sing, dance, make,…) can help. Lessons RE are not only knowledge about many subjects, but also participating from your own existence. And we are at a first level our body. If possible, let’s do from time to time physical exercises, mindfulness… Emotions are embedded in that body, thanks to a marvelous biological evolution. We need to give enough attention to emotional intelligence as descripted by Daniel Goleman. Today many teachers do this already, certainly in primary school. Even more, there is also the interesting concept of the highly sensitive person (Elaine Aron). Which, if not fully acceptable scientifically, stays an useful point of view, to understand people. One could even say, that Jesus and Buddha were HSP.
We could help our pupils and students to find their way of life, in these borderline-times, through dissonance and existential confusion…to find themselves,…in different dimensions. That’s a lot…but in many countries we have 2 hours a week, twelve years long …that’s a lot of time where we can spread the dimensions, combine them, adapt them to the necessity of the class and pupils. In primary schools we could call these classes, ‘life formation’, and in secondary schools: ‘life orientation’.
Our lessons ‘lifeviews’ can integrate about 12 items.
- Knowledge about and insight in Christianity, humanism, worldviews, views about life, different religions, …
- Values, moral subjects and ethics.
- Parts of philosophy and the activity ‘to philosophize’.
- Knowledge about and understanding of oneself, of being human; a bit psychology.
- Dialogue, questioning and answer, communication, research group.
- Attention to the inner life of a person, of life itself.
- Knowledge and insight about society and citizenship.
- Creative expression, emotional intelligence (Goleman), multiple intelligence (Gardner).
- Science, technology and work.
- Relaxation, movements and dance.
- Literature, (social) media, internet.
- Nature, ecology and sustainability.
‘Re-ligare’ means we try to make positive connections, in the person, with the other and others, in the group, in social contexts, in society, with nature, the world, cosmos, the past and the future. Building bridges. The teacher has the right to do this within his possibilities, always a bit in her/his/its own way, with personal accents, finding sense and sence.
Hugo Durinck,
2016 and 2022