Page 109 - TWO OF A KIND • Erik Renkema

1. Context and problem definition
The students sit together in small groups, facing each other in circles. They talk about the questions that are asked by the teacher. One of the older students leads the discussion in every group. The four teachers walk around, listen and sometimes encourage them by summarizing or asking a new question. A few minutes before, the students listened to a poem, read aloud by one of the teachers.
This short scene is part of a new educational practice that is designed by the 5 teachers. It is an experiment that tried to foster dialogue between all students from
Christian backgrounds and from other backgrounds. Looking at the school values
embraced by the school, the value of encounter presents a real challenge to the
teachers when they offer religious education.
The students and teachers are not accustomed to dialogical religious education at their school. This school is a cooperation school: a school that was created by a merger between a confessional school and a public school. The first has religious affiliations, while the second is neutral and actively multiform (Ter Avest et al. 2007). In our research about primary schools, it appears that the merging confessional schools are almost always Christian: either Protestant or Roman Catholic. Due to the rural location of most of these schools, students are almost always non-affiliated or Christian. This plurality presents a challenge to teachers and students: they are invited to handle differences in a constructive way that fosters the development of their personal identity and their sense of openness and curiosity (Wardekker and Miedema 2001a).
Facing this unique kind of plurality in the classroom, participants (teachers and principals) from these primary schools mention equality and encounter as their core school values (Renkema, Mulder and Barnard 2016). They underline the importance that students meet differing views and gain respect and understanding for other perspectives. The participants from our previous research emphasized these values not only as a school characteristic, but also as their personal and professional values. Equality and encounter characterize a cooperation school as well as teachers’ professional motives (Renkema, Mulder and Barnard 2017, 2018). We detected a discrepancy between school values on the one side and the practice of religious education on the other. In particular, the value of encounter was not
A PILOT STUDY
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