Page 147 - TWO OF A KIND • Erik Renkema

DUTCH COOPERATION SCHOOLS AS DEMOCRATIC COMMUNITIES
is expressed and an embryonic society is shaped. Student participation in these practices of community is an essential element of Dewey’s view. This also implies that the community is challenged to explore differences, as is underlined by our respondents (Renkema, Mulder and Barnard 2017). “This means that children should be able to participate in listening to peers with different faiths and critically engage as to the warrants behind such views. Faiths can be ‘tested’ with regard to examining their implications and differences with others” (Webster 2009, 100). In religious education, democratic practices of dialogue and exploring differences must be organized explicitly and intentionally to embody values of school identity and to foster the student’s identity (Berding and Miedema 2007).
In outlining our second suggestion, we focus on existing practices of moments 6 of contemplation and celebrations segregated according to public education and
confessional denominations. Following Dewey’s view on “a mode of associated
living” (1980, 93), we point out that democratic school values of encounter and
dialogue are expressed more evidently in collective religious education. This implies that the development of students’ identity and their competences of respect and openness are fostered more firmly in moments of contemplation and celebration where students of all possible religious backgrounds are present and challenged to meet everyone. In his elaboration on Dewey’s view on the teaching of religion in schools, Knight states vividly: “To teach each child in its own faith and in its own version of that faith risks the social harmony and tolerance at which education aims” (1998, 70). Teachers of cooperation schools are encouraged to express collective encounter without any restriction as a key value of their education.
Our third suggestion concerns the content of these communal practices. Other than a distinct result of our research, these moments of contemplation and celebration show no emphasis on any religious tradition. However, in line with Dewey’s emphasis on the central place of the religious dimension of experience, these activities can enhance dialogue and encounter by focusing on this dimension in the life experiences of all students. The exploration of these experiences and the “actual religious quality in the experience” (Dewey 1934, 14) is then the subject. The teacher contributes to these activities by putting forward content of a variety of traditions and challenging the students to contemplate and to discuss the human life experiences in the sources. Traditions of belief and worldview are introduced to stimulate students to reflect on their life in an intersubjective and hermeneutical
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