Learning to Live Well Together. Tom Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ welcoming, secure in personal (and corporate) identity, welcoming and accepting of others and a good sense of humour.

      »The skills needed to enable self and others to live well together include empathy, listening, the ability to treat others impartially and modelling dialogue.

      »Religious faith helps living well together, because:

      »It helps you to think beyond yourself, enabling you to look at the world without always having yourself at the centre.

      »It helps you understand different morals and teachings; serious study of a variety of religious traditions reveals commonalities, including teachings about compassion and community.

      »It encourages virtues such as compassion, hospitality and neighbourliness.

      »It can lead to an increase in community cohesion.

      »Religious faith can hinder living well together, because:

      »People in a particular religious tradition may be limited by ignorance and fear. They may have a sense of their own innate superiority or a self-understanding that because they have exclusive access to the truth, everyone else is inferior.

      »Religious institutions can paralyse followers of a particular religious faith or get caught up in defending self-interest.

      »The baggage of history can be a challenge for forming relations in the present.

      »The media can report complex religious problems over-simplistically or inaccurately.

      The delegates at the London day conference suggested the following are essential components that should be taught to encourage living well together. The key skills identified included: emotional intelligence; the ability to facilitate discussion; the resilience to cope with challenges and disappointment; critical thinking and the ability to discern and question; and good communication skills and mediation skills. The topic of identity was argued to be central; if we are to live well together, then we must know ourselves and others. This would include teaching about self-value and self-awareness, as well as improving abilities of self-regulation. More generally, delegates argued that there is a need for improved religious literacy, including discerning the core values/shared values of the different religious traditions. This does not preclude discussing differences and debating what stances and attitudes are unacceptable in modern British society.

      The overwhelming opinion of all delegates was that living well together was not a discrete subject that could be taught in an hour once a week, but rather a disposition that must be integrated through the whole curriculum. Delegates suggested that there is scope for in- and out-of-school clubs and activities and holiday clubs that promote the ideal of living well together. It was also noted that how children are welcomed into the school (both as new arrivals and on a day-to-day basis) is important for modelling living well together.

      Having said that, delegates also recognised that living well together cannot be solely taught as a discrete subject; there is a particular place for quality religious education, personal, social, health and economic education, citizenship and British values teaching, and a corresponding need for development of resources and expertise in this area. But these subjects cannot solve the issue in isolation. A greater grasp of world history, for example, is a necessary precursor to understanding the complexities of modern geopolitics.

      As with the question of ‘when’, the question of ‘where’ living well together should be taught was given a wide-ranging answer. In the words of one delegate: ‘It should suffuse the school.’ The conference suggested that all teachers across the curriculum must have the skills to facilitate children discussing their differences and commonalities. They argued for Department for Education investment in these skills so that teachers feel confident to spot opportunities to promote discussion of interfaith issues.

      It was also suggested that living well together must be promoted by school leadership, the school ethos and shared values. Delegates argued that it was important to create appropriate time and space for things to happen. They suggested that fostering living well together requires a sustained and natural approach, not just an intervention. This therefore requires Ofsted to recognise that this is a long-term and committed process.

      Delegates at the London day conference suggested that teaching living well together must be a whole school issue. This means training, because it would be best taught by theologically literate teachers, in conjunction with inspirational faith visitors. Having the ‘right’ visitors was argued to be of crucial importance, and it was also recognised that both parents and children could contribute to mutual self-understanding. There was a suggestion of the need for local co-ordination and commissioning of effective interfaith educators.

      A number of strategies for teaching living well together were suggested, notably that teaching should be experiential, not just theoretical. This could be classroom based and also include visits. Teachers must be skilled at managing dialogue well and not closing down discussion. They should confidently and compassionately challenge the assumptions and prejudices of all participants. Teachers must be confident enough to risk discussion of difficult areas and enable children to discuss and question. Classroom-based learning might include meeting with inspirational faith leaders who embody respect for others. Going out into the community, for social action projects such as Sewa Day, Mitzvah Day or Sadaqa Day, was also an important component. Celebrating festivals and differing lifestyles, either through visitors coming to school or through class trips, was another key component. Finally, exchanges with other schools or links with different places of worship and community action would be valuable.

      Three further Living Well Together conferences were conducted in 2016. One in March 2016, held in Leicester, involved pupils from both Year 6 and Years 12 and 13. Two further conferences were held in November 2016, one in Leicester for pupils in Years 12 and 13 and one in Southwell for pupils in Year 6. The feedback from the conferences was broadly similar to that noted above. These additional conferences allowed for further refining of the framework employed to facilitate discussion, and confirmed the organisers’ hunch that a framework is necessary for ensuring good outcomes. The conferences involving pupils in Year 6 (aged 10 and 11) demonstrated that young pupils are perfectly capable of having mature conversations about difference with complete strangers. Finally, the popularity of the conferences is an indication that there is a real interest within school communities for help in having discussions about how we live well together with our differences.

      CASE STUDY 2.2: TRAINING FOR

      PUBLIC SECTOR ORGANISATIONS

      RIAZ RAVAT

      I am the deputy director of the St Philip’s Centre, heading up the corporate training arm of the organisation. Since the early days of the Centre, the charity has delivered a range of religious literacy training to many public sector bodies including the police and local authorities. More sporadic courses have been run for others such as Leicestershire Fire & Rescue Service, Leicester City Clinical Commissioning Group and for city schools’ religious education leads via Leicester City Council.

      However, our training for all new police recruits at Leicestershire Police (formerly Leicestershire Constabulary) has continued for a much longer period. Despite the peaks and troughs of recruitment cycles, we have remained a staple part of the force’s induction diet. In the early days, delegates undertook a foundation degree in community policing via De Montfort University. More recently, participants complete the same qualification albeit via an internally accredited offer.

      Many hundreds of police officers have sampled the St Philip’s Centre experience. All our public sector training courses are rooted in authenticity and encounter. The St Philip’s Centre is the responsible body but works in partnership with colleagues СКАЧАТЬ