Page 148 - TWO OF A KIND • Erik Renkema

CHAPTER 6
process (Miedema 2014). Perspectives of the traditions encourage students to discuss and to reflect on “existential questions, meaning in life and the influence a worldview might (aim to) have in people’s and pupils’ lives” (Van der Kooij, De Ruyter and Miedema 2013). This focus on life experiences in traditions of belief and worldview has the potential to go beyond religious and denominational differences: “Many of us work with religious and non-religious students, and so an engagement with spirituality must be able to transcend this divide. This can be achieved through a focus upon experience, where attention is not so much given to its ‘truth’ but rather to how experiences are interpreted and given meaning” (Webster 2009, 97).
Because all students are encouraged to relate to these experiences and recognize them in their everyday life, school values of living together and encounter are manifested in religious practices: it is these experiences students that communicate about and try to understand in each other.
Fourth, the exploration of and the dialogue about this religious dimension of experience in collective practices can be enhanced by putting forward “the intellectual and moral resources which humanity has succeeded in getting together” (Dewey 1897, 1). These stimuli are introduced by teachers in such a way that every student is encouraged to relate them to his or her own life experiences. Questions that are raised by this process encourage students to communicate and explore commonalities and differences with others. When the content of these languages and symbols from outside the student originate from a variety of sources, teachers manifest equality of traditions and convictions as a key value of cooperation schools. When an emphasis on one specific tradition or source is abandoned, teachers also make it possible for every student to have a chance to feel acknowledged.
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