Thinking RE in Areas of Social Deprivation – thoughtful RE...

RE and the Spirit: Imagining the Real

Julian SternCentre for Educational Studies

University of Hull

RE and the Spirit: Imagining the Real

Dr Julian Stern, Head of the Centre for Educational Studies The University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, United Kingdom, tel +44 (0)1482 466134

email [email protected], http://web ces.hull.ac.uk

Welcome to a Journey

We are here from around Europe – and beyond – most of us having travelled a long way. With your permission, I would like to take you on another journey. But this time, without taxis and airports and delays and lost luggage. Instead, I would like to take you on a journey from the self through dialogue, community, schools, religion, and beyond, all involving acts of inclusion: real actions, real observable events that school researchers must learn to discover, and, more importantly, that school teachers and pupils (and wider communities) must do. This journey is what it means, for me, to encourage spiritual development in religious education.

It is an imaginary journey. Or, rather, it is a journey that requires imagination: imagination of the most important kind. Not imagining fantastical things, the absurd, impossible and nonsensical. But making that imaginative leap we need to meet. We need to be imagining the real.

I take my cue from the philosopher Martin Buber, a Jewish man with a characterisitically pan-national identity, perhaps as some of us here, brought up in Austria and the Polish Ukraine and living also in Germany and Palestine until it came to be called Israel.

In defining "dialogue," Buber introduces a concept … of "experiencing the other side" of the relationship. This act of "inclusion," as Buber calls it … is that which makes it possible to meet and know the other in his [sic] concrete uniqueness and not just as a content of one's experience. … [So] the I-Thou relationship "teaches us to meet others and to hold our ground when we meet them." This means that experiencing the other side, or, as Buber later calls it, "imagining the real," goes hand in hand with remaining on one's own side of the relationship. (Friedman in the introduction to Buber, 2002, p xiii-xiv, and see also Friedman 1999.)

Amongst the ways in which we may do this, is in music (as in Stern 2004). One of my favourite pieces of music to use in RE, is a piece written in the European Jewish tradition, with words in Yiddish, that touches on other traditions. The singer describes listening to a Gypsy fiddler and finds it touching (Der Alter Tzigayner by Abraham Ellstein, Jacob Jacobs and Israel Baline aka Irving Berlin, from Mandy Patinkin (1998) Mamaloshen; Nonesuch 7559-79459-2):

Der Alter Tzigayner/White Christmas

There on the little hill under the free sky,far from the noisy city confusion,stands there a cat alone on one spot – an old gypsy lives there.Very sweet tones are heard therethat cry in a minor keywhen the old gypsy plays on his fiddle

Page 1 RE and the Spirit: Imagining the Real – © Julian Stern – August 2004 Page 1

with his soul on fireonly as a gypsy can.

A gypsy melody is so beautifulthat once you hear it, you will never forget itbecause it is warm, soulful, full of charm.A strange craft,it gives you love and also a lust for life.Hear it but onceand it gives no rest,you're spellbound by the melody.

When you hear it,you might think it's pedestrian, naïve,and you then have no ideahow deeply it touches the soul.Each timeit fills you with lust and joyousness,and you want to hold on foreverto the sounds of the melody:

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas,just like the one I used to know,where the treetops glistenand children listento hear sleigh bells in the snow.I'm dreaming of a white Christmaswith ev'ry Christmas card I write:May you days be merry and brightAnd may all your Christmases be white."

When the gypsy plays his song,In your heart you feel a fire.The sounds from his fiddleawaken the yearnings of your soul.Your blood cooks and boils.He draws his fiddle's bow,and the skies begin to move.Your passion is to live – life becomes so good.

That is the old gypsy's song.

The self must enter into dialogue, must meet and include, not to be 'entertained', but to exist. My other philosopher-companion for this journey is John Macmurray, a Scottish academic and Quaker, who said that when he considered himself alone, 'he just crumbled away to dust' (Costello 1998). He will therefore be one of our companions, along with Martin Buber.


A Disagreeable Companion

An author can say that '[s]piritual development lies at the heart of our school system' (John Hall, quoted in TES, 1998), yet the nature of what is called 'spiritual' is rarely a matter for agreement. In recent years UK – mostly English – government agencies (for example, Great Britain/DES, 1977; NCC, 1993; Ofsted, 1993; Ofsted, 1994; SCAA 1995; and, from UK local government, Hartland, 1999) have contributed to the debates just as have those based in universities and elsewhere (for example Best 1993, Copley 1997, Hull 1998, Hay 1998, Cohn-Sherbok 1998, Thatcher 1999, Wright 1999). Teachers in schools may have even more diverse views, as described by Geraint Davies (Davies 1998, and see also Watson 2004 and Mason 2004).

I hope to be a disagreeable companion, incidentally. It is important that I say things, today, that some of you will disagree with: if I say only things with which everyone agrees, then I am probably saying things of no worth. So let me quickly say some things that will help me become a disagreeable companion:

1 The spirit should not be understood as contrasting with the body or physical nature: traditional philosophical and religious dualism is wrong.

2 RE does promote spiritual development, whether it wants to or not.

3 Most people whom we come into contact with are replaceable; pupils and teachers are irreplaceable.

4 It is spirituality that breathes life into RE.

Can I ask if you could indicate whether you disagree with any of these statements? You are not alone. Indeed, Macmurray might have liked the idea expressed in the words of the next song, from a Christian Protestant tradition, No One Stands Alone (Blue Murder (2002) No One Stands Alone; Topic TSCD537):

No One Stands Alone

Hold my hand all the way,Every hour, every day,From here till the great unknown.Take my hand, let me stand, Where no-one stands alone.

Once I stood in the night, With my head bowed low,In the darkness as black as the deep:And my heart felt alone and I cried 'oh Lord,Don't turn your face from me'.

Like a king I've been there – in a palace so tall – With riches to call my own,But I don't know a care In the whole wide worldThat's worse than being alone

Once I stood in the night, With my head bowed low,


In the darkness as black as the deep:And my heart felt alone and I cried 'oh Lord,Don't turn your face from me'.

Okay, so let us go travel together on a journey, in which those four statements will form part of the conversation. I would like to start by introducing more fully my two companions, Martin Buber and John Macmurray.


Martin Buber (1878-1965)

For Buber, the modern world – for him, the 20th century world – was problematic. He described two ways of treating others, with the two kinds of relationships characterised as I-It and I-Thou relationships. There are problems with institutions, he said, and problems with people's feelings.

'Institutions are 'outside,' where all sorts of aims are pursued, where a man works, negotiates, bears influence, undertakes, concurs, organises, conducts business, officiates, preaches. They are the tolerably well-ordered and to some extent harmonious structure, in which, with the manifold help of men's brains and hands, the process of affairs is fulfilled.' (Buber 1958, p 62.)

Does this seem to you like a good description of your dealings with institutions, the institutions to which you belong – schools and universities, perhaps EFTRE itself? In contrast to institutions are feelings:

Feelings are 'within,' where life is lived and man recovers from institutions. Here the spectrum of the emotions dances before the interested glance. Here a man's liking and hate and pleasure are indulged, and his pain if it is not too severe. Here he is at home, and stretches himself out in his rocking-chair. … (Buber, 1958, p 62-63.)

Does this seem to you like a good description of your 'private life', the life of your feelings? Buber says that both descriptions are problematic, as

the separated It of institutions is an animated clod without soul, and the separated I of feelings an uneasily-fluttering soul-bird. Neither of them knows man: institutions know only the specimen, feelings only the 'object'; neither knows the person, or mutual life. (Buber, 1958, p 63.)

So we must go beyond the safety of institutions organisation and private feelings, and walk instead through a world of meeting, of inclusion, of spiritual development. Otherwise we will be less 'I' or 'Thou' and more 'It'. Buber describes such a person as 'self-willed', a term often used – similarly critically – in both Sikh and Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions.

The self-willed man does not believe and does not meet. He does not know solidarity of connexion, but only the feverish world outside and his feverish desire to use it. (Buber, 1958, p 82.)


John Macmurray (1891-1976)

John Macmurray and Martin Buber met on a few occasions. Buber is quoted as saying 'I see no difference between us. It is simply that you are the metaphysician and I am the poet' (Costello 2002, p 322). As a metaphysician, Macmurray believed that

'We are not individuals in our own right; and in ourselves we have no value at all, since we are meaningless. Our human Being is our relations to other human beings and our value lies in the quality of these relations.' (Macmurray 1995a, p 72.)

Macmurray's starting point is that '[r]eligion is about action' (Macmurray 1995a, p 65, quoted in Stern 2001b), with action, in this sense, being what distinguished the Good Samaritan. When people act in certain ways, as whole people, they may be making community – they may become 'my neighbours'. But action is not merely physical movement. It includes thought as one of its aspects.

'Whereas in reflection we are engaged quite literally in changing our minds, in action we are engaged in changing the world. Action includes thought; it is not something which can be distinguished from thought. The life of reflection is not a different life from the life of action. It is a limitation of the life of action to one of its aspects. This is why we contrast ideas and real things.' (Macmurray 1996b, p 75.)

Macmurray therefore rejects 'dualism', ancient and modern, and it is his rejection of dualism that perhaps best illustrates what religion, education and spiritual development is and is not.

The contrast between the Greek and Roman social achievements is a contrast of opposites at the same level. Both are dualist societies, subject to the opposition of spiritual and material ideals. The Greek sacrifices the material to the spiritual; the Roman sacrifices the spiritual to the material. (Macmurray 1996b, p 175.)

And

in his [Macmurray's] view Descartes' starting-point led inevitably to atheism. But since he considered atheism false, it followed that the Cartesian mode of thought must be mistaken. If the individual is no more than a detached consciousness, action becomes inexplicable and the existence of other people problematic: that of God, even more so. Here is the genesis of idealism, or dualism, to which Macmurray was implacably opposed: the splitting of experience into mind and matter, the spiritual and the secular, ideal freedom and material subservience to law … Religion, if not rejected outright as illusory, becomes a question of pure subjectivity, while the organization of everyday life is surrendered to scientists, managers and technocrats. In short, idealism breeds materialism. (Cornford in Macmurray 1996b, p 21.)

Philosophical systems based on dualism, and approaches to education based on these systems, inevitably fall into an atheistical materialism or an idealism based on false views of the 'spiritual'. Spinoza, incidentally, had a similar view of Descartes, and in one of the surprisingly robust parts of the Ethics says: 'Such is the doctrine of this illustrious philosopher (in so far as I gather it from his own words); it is one which, had it been less ingenious, I could hardly believe to have proceeded from so great a man' (Spinoza 1955, p 246).


The spiritual, and spiritual development in schools, is sometimes stereotyped as a form of 'escapism', or a form of idealism. Macmurray was certainly not of that opinion.

Idealism seeks to escape from action into meditation; and from the tensions of life in common into the solitariness of one's own spirit. The purely spiritual which it seeks is the purely imaginary, a ghost world without substance or shadow. (Macmurray 1995a, p 59.)

Hence, the first of my disagreeable points:

1 The spirit should not be understood as contrasting with the body or physical nature: traditional philosophical and religious dualism is wrong.

It is worth considering how Macmurray, as an anti-dualist, positively describes the 'spiritual', as it complements the work of one of the leading modern Scottish writers on spirituality in education, David Hay. Talking of the work he and Rebecca Nye had been doing on children's spirituality, Hay sees a similarity between his and Macmurray's views on spirituality and religion, which current debates (in an 'individualist' culture) had managed to hide. Hay says that:

It was only during the final stages of our analysis last year that I came across Macmurray for the first time. As I read his Gifford lectures [i.e. Macmurray 1991a and 1991b] I realised that our findings were converging on an understanding of the nature of spirituality and hence religion that seemed remarkably close to his vision. I felt some relief that our analysis had not simply reflected back to us the conscious preconceptions we had brought to the practical side of the research. At the same time I was surprised and somewhat alarmed that such an important element of spirituality could be central to our theoretical dialogue, yet had escaped our notice over several months of planning. Our obliviousness seems to have been a function of the presuppositions we share with the individualistic society which John Macmurray criticises so trenchantly. Children's spirituality and its religious expression appears to point overwhelmingly in the communal direction expounded by Macmurray. This theme emerged in spite of our blindness, when we paid close attention to the children's language. (Hay 1998, p 10-11.)

It is only a dualist, then, who would see 'spirituality' or 'spiritual development' as a separate and rather idealist aspect of education, and only an individualist who could see relations between people (or between a person and 'the Other'), as, similarly, a possible addition to an otherwise individual-centred curriculum. Having dismissed a dualist idea of spirituality, Macmurray, like Hay, builds a case for a 'communal' or 'relational' view of what makes a person (and see also Stern 2001c and 2001d). 'God' is seen by Macmurray as the 'universal other' and religion as the 'expression of consciousness of community'. It is only in communities that people have 'personal lives': it is in communities that people exist as people. 'It is the life of the individual that is the common life' (Macmurray 1993, p 9), 'it is the sharing of a common life which constitutes individual personality' (Macmurray 1993, p 37), human life has an 'inherent sociality' (Macmurray 1993, p 31), 'the personal is inherently mutual' (Macmurray 1968, p 27), and, in summary 'a person is always one term in a relation of persons' (Macmurray 1968, p 149). And, on God, '[i]n its full development, the idea of a universal personal Other is the idea of God' (Macmurray 1991b, p 164).

Incidentally, I would like to stress that in opposing dualism, I am not opposing duality or multiplicity: the person who only counts up to one will be a limited and existentially unhappy person, like the poet Philip Larkin (from Larkin 1988):


Counting

Thinking in terms of oneIs easily done – One room, one bed, one chair,One person there, Makes perfect sense: one setOf wishes can be met, One coffin filled.

But counting up to twoIs harder to do;For one must be deniedBefore it's tried.


Spiritual Development

Macmurray disapproved of dualism. In that context, there are two possible ways of interpreting Macmurray's views on spirituality described here. One would be to say that, in rejecting dualism, he rejected any recognisable idea of 'spirituality', or interpreted it in a way that would not be recognised within a wide range of religious or philosophical traditions. However, a second and more plausible interpretation of Macmurray would be to see in his work on persons-in-relation, and God as the 'universal other', an approach that might be acceptable within many religious traditions, and many of the 'official' descriptions of the nature of the spiritual in education. In particular, in defining the individual in terms of relations – that is, in making transcendence an essential element of the 'self' (as 'the capacity for self-transcendence ... is the defining character of the personal', Macmurray 1993, p 58) – it chimes with the UK's School Curriculum and Assessment Authority ('SCAA', now the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority or QCA, with an English and Welsh remit) description of spiritual development, which refers to

Experiencing feelings of transcendence – Feelings which may give rise to belief in the existence of a divine being. ... Relationships – Recognising and valuing the worth of each individual; developing a sense of community; the ability to build up relationships with others. ... [S]teps to spiritual development might include: recognising the existence of others as independent from oneself. (SCAA 1995, p 3-4.)

More recently, but suggesting a similar approach, a report by the English school inspection service said that spiritual development in schools was good in schools which 'provide opportunities across the curriculum for pupils to consider, for example, … the importance of relationships and the worth of each individual' (Ofsted 2000, p 32).

In this way, I suggest the second of my disagreeable points:

2 RE does promote spiritual development, whether it wants to or not.

I am reminded of a visit to a toy shop. There, I am struck by the division often made between 'toys', and the hushed corner containing 'educational toys'. The puzzle is that children learn from all the toys they play with, so why call only a small group of toys 'educational'? It is the same with spiritual development in schools: it is not the activity of the hushed corner, but the activity of the mainstream of school life, in which RE must play a central rôle.


Spiritual Development in School

Hay and Nye (1998) describe 'categories of spiritual sensitivity'. These 'categories' seem to be the modes or senses of spirituality, and they complement the 'relationships' which are the subjects and objects of those senses. Categories of spiritual sensitivity are awareness-sensing (here-and-now, tuning, flow, focusing), mystery-sensing (wonder and awe, imagination), and value-sensing (delight and despair, ultimate goodness, meaning). I would therefore like to describe the relational aspects of spiritual development (taken from Macmurray, Hay, and government documents such as SCAA 1995, and Ofsted 2000, and also described in Stern 2003a, 2003b and forthcoming), and put them alongside these 'categories of spiritual sensitivity'. Here is a table, with examples of some of the ways in which spirituality may be developed. I would like to ask which of these 'boxes' does RE have most to contribute to:

Awareness-sensing (here-and-now, tuning,

flow, focusing)

Mystery-sensing (wonder and awe,

imagination)

Value-sensing (delight and

despair, ultimate goodness, meaning)

Relationship with self

Self-awareness, self-control, ability to lose self.

Imaginative links with past and future selves, and selves in different contexts.

Pleasure in understanding, in creating. Realising despair.

Relationship with 'other'

Realising the not-self, existential humility (i.e. limits to the self), perspective, awareness of the significance of own death.

Imagining 'position' in universe.

Sense of different meanings to different people. Fear of death.

Relationships with others

Team-work (including sport, play, music, conversation), physical engagement (sensitivity of touch), aural/oral engagement (sensitivity of listening, and talking), visual engagement (sensitivity of look, and visual presentation of self).

Sensing of unconditional trust and love. Imagining the real.

Friendship and love, and the loss of friendship and love.

Relationships with groups: communities

and institutions

Social skills, job and career. Adapting the self, without losing the self, in a community/institution.

Sociological, geographical and historical imagination. Sense of creativity in making a family, group or community.

Memberships and their meanings.

Relationship with (or

'oneness with') the world, or

the whole

Sense of the infinite and eternal (as in Spinoza).

Imagining god, gods, or nature. Wonder at eternal life.

Meaning of life, in context of whole. Beyond a fear of death.


All of these 'boxes' can be achieved in any subject in the school, but RE has a particular rôle to play: it would be difficult seeing how all could be achieved without systematic consideration of religious and other world views, or how RE could be justified without recourse to some of these characteristics. Although this presentation focuses on spiritual development, any full description of spiritual development will also of course consider themes such as RE and the emotions, RE and community, and RE and the mind. Spirituality is inevitably holistic, and religion is needed there.

As John Hammond says,

Religion is an important resource for spirituality. It is not the only source, but to omit religion in a spiritual search is to ignore a central and enduring strand in humanity's quest for meaning and right living. Religion is the place where spiritual energies, organised around ritual, symbol, narrative, doctrine and ethical code have been most systematically honed and shaped. Religious Education has, therefore, a major contribution to make to the spiritual dimension of the curriculum. (Hammond, in Broadbent and Brown 2002, p 189.)

RE can – I believe – achieve these boxes, both in good times and in bad times. A piece of music like The Little Ones (from Yusuf Islam et al (1997) I Have No Cannons That Roar; Jamal Records J70003CD) illustrates how touching a religious response can be, and how necessary, too:

The Little Ones (of Sarajevo & Dunblane)

Oh, they've killed all the Little OnesWhile their faces still smiledWith their guns and their furyThey erased their young livesNo longer to laughNo longer to be a childOh, they've killed all the Little OnesWhile their faces still smiled

Now they're burying the Little OnesAnd making their graves deepSo the world cannot seeThat tonight we may sleepWhile they wash away the blood The mothers all weepOh, they're burying the Little OnesAnd they're making their graves deepYes, they're burying the Little OnesAnd they're making their graves deep

Yet where will the devils goWhen that Day comes?When the angels drag them outTo face The Little Ones

They'll be raising The Little OnesWith no sin to atoneIn the light of high Heaven


They will sit on tall thronesWhere playtime lasts foreverAnd God's Mercy never endsThey'll be raising the Little OnesAnd they'll all be best friendsThey'll be raising the Little OnesAnd they'll all be best friends


Teaching People Not Subjects

Spiritual development can only be achieved, of course, through the way in which people in school interact. It is not a matter of a 'subject of study', with people being incidentally involved; it is a matter of schools being spiritually-developing learning communities. The possibility of schools being such communities is not an 'ideal' for our companion Macmurray, as

when we try to teach, we must deal with living human beings. We, the teachers, are persons. Those whom we would teach are persons. We must meet them face to face, in a personal intercourse. This is the primary fact about education. It is one of the forms of personal relationship. It is a continuing personal exchange between two generations. To assert this is by no means to define an ideal, but to state a fact. It declares not what education ought to be, but what it is – and is inescapably. We may ignore this fact; we may imagine that our task is of a different order; but this will make no difference to what is actually taking place. We may act as though we were teaching arithmetic or history. In fact we are teaching people. The arithmetic or the history is merely a medium through which a personal intercourse is established and maintained. (Macmurray 1968, p 5, and see also Stern 2001a.)

Teachers, therefore, 'are not training children to be mathematicians or accountants or teachers or linguists; ... [they] are training them to be men and women, to live human lives properly' (Macmurray 1968, p 112). And 'a good education is one which succeeds in training a child to live well, to live his whole life as life should be lived' (Macmurray 1968, p 111), so that '[t]he golden aim of education [is] to teach the children how to live' (Macmurray 1968, p 114), and this should not be 'crowded out by a multiplicity of little aims' (Macmurray 1968, p 114) (see also Stern 1997, 1999, and 2003).


Friendship in School

One of the consequences of teaching people, not subjects, is that, in such a community, friendship is possible. Friendship of a kind that Aristotle might have described: a personal relationship that is not dominated by external aims. For Macmurray, '[f]riendship … is the condition of freedom in community' (Macmurray 1968, p 34), and '[f]riendship is a spiritual relationship' (Macmurray 1995, p 37) as it is a 'personal relation' (see also Stern 2002c).

Our personal relations … are unique. As husbands or wives, as parents, as brothers, or as friends, we are related as persons in our own right: and we are not replaceable. If I lose a friend I lose part of my own life. This is not a mere poetic metaphor. For we are what we are through our intercourse with others; and we can be ourselves only in relation to our fellows. Personal relations, moreover, are necessarily direct. We cannot be related personally to people we do not know. We must meet; we must communicate with one another; we must, it would seem, be alone together. (Macmurray 2004, p 169.)

Hence the third of my disagreeable points:

3 Most people whom we come into contact with are replaceable; pupils and teachers are irreplaceable.

Of course, pupils and teachers are replaced, but if we treat them in the way we might properly treat customers in a shop, or our hairdresser or doctor, then we are not in such spiritually-developing schools. Teachers and pupils are irreplaceable in the same way that friends and family are irreplaceable. We need to understand the 'whole child', and the 'whole child' needs to understand the 'whole teacher'. This is not about swapping details of our private lives and going out together, but about treating each other as whole people rather than as means to further ends.


Breathing Life Into RE

Talk of schools as spiritually-developing, personal, learning communities takes us back to the beliefs of Martin Buber, that school as an institution should not be 'an animated clod without soul', any more than the life of feelings, a private life, should be 'an uneasily-fluttering soul-bird'. In researching spirituality, I am a little frustrated. Most of the uses of the terms, as described in English dictionaries, have a dualist meaning, a meaning so closely-associated with Buber's 'uneasily-fluttering soul-bird'. It was only when I realised that the word 'spiritual' itself comes from an older tradition, in which the 'spirit' is the breath. We are 'inspired', we breathe in. Spiritual would therefore mean breathing, or living, or simply being. As in Breaths (Sweet Honey In The Rock (1988) Breaths: Greatest Hits; Flying Fish COOKCD 008):

Breaths

Listen more often to things than to beingsListen more often to things than to beingTis the ancestors' breathWhen the fire's voice is heardTis the ancestors' breathin the voice of the waters

Those who have died have never never leftThe dead are not under the earthThey are in the rustling treesThey are in the groaning woodsThey are in the crying grassThey are in the moaning rocksThe dead are not under the earth

Those who have died have never never leftThe dead have a pact with the livingThey are in the woman's breastThey are in the wailing childThey are with us in the homeThey are with us in the crowdThe dead have a pact with the living

It was when I realised that, that I became confident again that spirituality was important to schooling, and – as in my fourth disagreeable point – that

4 It is spirituality that breathes life into RE.


The End of the Journey: Can You Imagine the Real?

And so we have come near to the end of our journey. Can you imagine the real? How will you agree and disagree with my four points, and how will you see RE achieving the fifteen boxes?

I look forward to hearing your views, and hope you have enjoyed this journey and wish you a smooth journey to come (Soave sia il vento from Herbert von Karajan (conductor) (1988) Così Fan Tutte (Mozart); EMI CHS 7696352):

Soave sia il vento,Tranquilla sia l'onda,Ed ogni elementoBenigno rispondaAi nostri desir


ReferencesBest, R (ed) (1993) Education Spirituality and the Whole Child; Cassell.Broadbent, L and Brown, A (eds) (2002) Issues in Religious Education; London: RoutledgeFalmer.Buber, M (1958) I and Thou: Translated by Ronald Gregor Smith: Second Edition with a postscript by the author; Edinburgh: T&T Clark.Buber, M (2002) Between Man and Man; London: Routledge.Cohn-Sherbok, D (1998) 'Room for a bit of belief' TES 20/3/1998.Copley, T (1997) Teaching Religion: Fifty years of religious education in England and Wales; Exeter: University of Exeter Press.Costello, J (1998) [Comments to Julian Stern in conversations during The Life and Work of John Macmurray Conference, University of Aberdeen, March 1998]Costello, J E (2002) John Macmurray: A Biography; Edinburgh: Floris.Davies, G (1998) 'What is Spiritual Development? Primary Headteachers' Views' in International Journal of Children's Spirituality Vol. 3 No. 2 December 1998 pp 123-134.Friedman, M (1999) 'The Interhuman and What is Common to All: Martin Buber and Sociology', Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 29:4, pp 403-417.Great Britain, Department of Education and Science (1977) Curriculum 11-16: Working papers by HM Inspectorate: a contribution to current debate; London: DES.Hartland, I (1999) Shaping the Spirit: Promoting the spiritual development of young people in schools: Guidance on Spiritual Education from Kent SACRE 1999; West Malling, Kent: Kent County Council.Hay, D (1998) 'Relational Consciousness in Children: Empirical Support for Macmurray's Perspective' in The Life and Work of John Macmurray: Conference Proceedings, University of Aberdeen, March 1998.Hay, D with Nye, R (1998) The Spirit of the Child; London: Harper Collins.Hull, J M (1998) Utopian Whispers: Moral, Religious and Spiritual Values in Schools; Norwich: RMEP. Larkin, P (1988) Collected Poems: Edited with an Introduction by Anthony Thwaite; London: The Marvell Press and Faber and Faber.Macmurray, J (1968) Lectures/Papers on Education; Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections Gen 2162/2.Macmurray, J (1991a) The Self as Agent: Volume 1 of The Form of the Personal: introduction by Stanley M Harrison; London: Faber.Macmurray, J (1991b) Persons in Relation [Volume 2 of The Form of the Personal]: Introduction by Frank G Kirkpatrick; London: Faber.Macmurray, J (1993) Conditions of Freedom; New Jersey: Humanities Press.Macmurray, J (1995) Search for Reality in Religion; London & Toronto: Quaker Home Service & the John Macmurray Society.Macmurray, J (1996) The Personal World: John Macmurray on self and society: Selected and introduced by Philip Conford; Edinburgh: Floris. Macmurray, J (2004) John Macmurray: Selected Philosophical Writings, Edited and Introduced by Esther McIntosh; Exeter: Imprint Academic.Mason, M (2000) 'Spirituality – What On Earth Is It?', Paper given at the International Conference of Children's Spirituality at Roehampton Institute, Summer 2000, available at http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/contentViewArticle.asp?article=1264 (accessed 12th August 2004).


National Curriculum Council (1993) Spiritual and Moral Development – A Discussion Paper.Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) (1993) Handbook for the Inspection of Schools; London: HMSO. Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) (1994) Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development; London: Ofsted.Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) (2000) The Annual Report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools: Standards and Quality in Education 1998/99; London: Stationery Office.School Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA) (1995) Spiritual and Moral Development: SCAA Discussion Papers: No. 3; London: SCAA.Spinoza, B (trans R H M Elwes) (1955) The Ethics; New York: Dover.Stern, L J (1997) Homework and Study Support: A Guide for Teachers and Parents; London: David Fulton. Stern, L J (1999) Developing as a Teacher of History: Professional Development Management File Beginning Teaching Workbooks (series editor Harry Tolley); Cambridge: Chris Kington.Stern, L J (2001a) Developing Schools as Learning Communities: Towards a Way of Understanding School Organisation, School Development, and Learning; PhD Thesis, London University Institute of Education.Stern, L J (2001b) 'John Macmurray, Spirituality, Community and Real Schools' International Journal of Children's Spirituality, Vol 6:1, pp 25-39, April 2001. Stern, L J (2001c) 'Being DIRECT With Primary Religious Education: Linking Primary RE to Local Communities' (Resource 23:2, pp 11-15, Spring 2001).Stern, L J (2001d) 'Making a Community of a School: Being DIRECT with Primary School Religious Education and Local Communities' (SHAP: World Religions in Education: 2001/2001: Living Community, pp 56-59, 2001).Stern, L J (2002) 'EMU Leadership: An Egalitarian Magnanimous Undemocratic Way for Schools', International Journal of Children's Spirituality, Vol 7:2, pp 143-158, August 2002. Stern, L J (2003a) 'Above & Beyond: Using ICT to Develop Pupils' Spirituality', REsource 25:3, Summer 2003, pp 4-8. Stern, L J (2003b) 'Above and Beyond: What Does ICT Have to Do With Spiritual Development: Julian Stern Explains', Teaching Thinking: 11, pp 14-18, Summer 2003 [also at http://www.teachthinking.com].Stern, L J (2003c) Involving Parents; London: Continuum. Stern, L J (2004) 'Marking time: using music to create inclusive Religious Education and inclusive schools', Support for Learning, 19:3, pp 107-113.Stern, L J (forthcoming) Teaching RE With ICT; Maidenhead, Berks: Open University Press. Times Educational Supplement (TES) (1998) 'Give us our daily worship' Times Educational Supplement 14th August 1998.Thatcher, A (ed) (1999) Spirituality and the Curriculum; London: Cassell. Watson, B (2004) 'Spirituality in British State Education: An Alternative Perspective', Journal of Beliefs & Values, 25:1, April 2004, pp 55-62.Wright, A (1999) Discerning the Spirit: Teaching Spirituality in the Religious Education Classroom; Abingdon: Culham College Institute.


About the Centre for Educational Studies (http://ces.hull.ac.uk)

The Centre for Educational Studies (CES) is involved in a wide range of teaching and research, centred on schools, reaching out to everyone involved in learning. As well as initial teacher training, we provide a wide range of courses at all levels. Some are for new and experienced school teachers and other education workers, many involve training and research in the wider community. The CES is committed to understanding and developing learning communities.

Courses (http://ces.hull.ac.uk/courses/ )

There are over 2000 people on accredited courses in the CES, in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, and there are many more in the other centres of the Institute for Learning (IfL), especially the Centre for Lifelong Learning (specialising in non-school-based adult education http://www.hull.ac.uk/cll/), and the Scarborough School of Education (http://www.sse.hull.ac.uk/).

* PhD (contact Mike Bottery [email protected]) the research doctorate* EdD (contact Mike Bottery [email protected]) the professional doctorate* MEd by Research (contact Mike Bottery [email protected])* MEd in Early Childhood Education (contact Wendy Jolliffe in Hull [email protected])* MEd in Inclusive Education (contact Dorothy Howie [email protected])* MEd in eLearning (contact Shirley Bennett [email protected]) an online programme* MEd (contact Ian Shaw [email protected]) * MA in Educational Studies (contact Tina Page [email protected]) for early career teachers* ACES (Advanced Certificate in Educational Studies) (contact Julian Stern [email protected])* PGCE Primary: 5-11 (contact David Waugh [email protected]) including MFL specialism* PGCE Secondary (Business Studies, English, Geography, History, Mathematics, MFL, RE, Science) (contact John Smith

[email protected] and subject leaders)* BA (Hons) Educational Studies, with Early Childhood Studies, Urban Learning, or Psychology (contact Wendy Jolliffe in Hull

[email protected])* Foundation Degree in Pre-16 Learning and Teaching Support (contact Shirley Bennett [email protected])* Foundation Degree in Applied Digital Media (subject to approval) (contact Kevin Burden [email protected])* UFA (University Foundation Award) in General Education Studies for GTP, Subject Studies for GTP, Succeeding in the First

Year of Teaching, Succeeding in the Second Year of Teaching, Mentoring for ITT Programmes, Mentoring Teachers in the Early Years of Their Careers, eMentoring to Support the 14-19 Curriculum, Whiteboards (contact Julian Stern [email protected] and Kevin Burden [email protected], and see also the Centre for Lifelong Learning)

Research and Reach Out and Consultancy (http://ces.hull.ac.uk/researchandconsultancy)

There is an immense quantity of research, reach out and consultancy going on, including school governorships, evaluations, publications, national and international projects, and everything you can imagine. There are weekly research seminars, conferences (for example on the 'New Work Ethics' and on 'The eConfident School'), and articles and books for students, for professionals and for academics. Since 2000, there have been 240 successful masters and 60 successful doctoral research theses completed by students of the CES. These are listed on the website at http://ces.hull.ac.uk/courses

The IfL currently has eight formal research working groups, in all of which the CES is involved), working with the Director of Research Derek Colquhoun ([email protected]):

* Work-Based Learning (Dina Lewis in CLL and colleagues)* Religion and Education (Julian Stern and John Smith in CES and colleagues)* Learning Processes and Paradigms (Dorothy Howie in CES and colleagues)* Policy and Education (Nigel Wright in CES and colleagues)* Community Research (Annette Fitzsimons in CLL and colleagues)* Technology Pedagogy and Education (Kevin Burden in CES and colleagues)* Lifelong Learning: Access, Barriers and Learning Experiences (Shirley Bennett and colleagues)

Invitation

If you would like to know more about the CES, please refer to the website (http://ces.hull.ac.uk) and contact myself or my colleagues.

Dr Julian Stern, Head of the Centre for Educational StudiesThe University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, United Kingdom, tel +44 (0)1482 466134

email [email protected], web http://ces.hull.ac.uk

Julian was a schoolteacher for fourteen years, and has worked for twelve years in teacher training, research and consultancy in four universities (the Institute of Education, London, the Open University, Brunel University, and now Hull), in partnership with numerous schools, local education authorities, government agencies, and other organisations across this country and in Europe. At Brunel, he was Deputy Director of the BFSS National RE Centre, running the REaSE (RE and School Effectiveness) Project. In Hull, he is head of the Centre for Educational Studies: a department of fifty staff and two thousand students working across all subjects and levels in education.

He has written eight books and several dozen articles for trainee teachers, experienced teachers, and teacher trainers, most recently on involving parents in schools, and with the next one being on the use of computers in RE teaching. His projects in the University of Hull include the Include Me Out one on enhancing social inclusion, working in partnership with local schools, LEAs, media and training groups, community groups, government agencies, the Open University and Ultralab.

Use of this material: The material in this paper is all copyrighted to Julian Stern, unless quoted from other sources, If you wish to reproduce all or part of it, could you contact Julian for permission.

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