An interview with Jan Bless, Deputy Head Teacher
Please introduce yourself and tell us something about your involvement with Carpenters School.
My name is Jan Bless. I’m the Deputy Head of the School and I’ve been here for two years. I’m from Holland where I did a four-year teaching degree. In many ways teaching here is similar to teaching in Holland. Carpenters School is a multi-cultural school. Our children speak about forty languages. And we have a multi-cultural staff as well, with teachers from various parts of the world including Spain and Australia and New Zealand and of course from different parts of Britain. All this contributes to our diversity and a quite exciting school life.
RE is one of the subjects you have to teach. How do you approach that?
RE is on the National Curriculum so it is statutory. I approach any subject I teach by finding ways to include all the children. We have children from so many different backgrounds and different faiths and I believe it’s important to try to include all of them. I tend to start from a general point of view and then narrow it down. For example, I’m doing work on Islam at the moment but I started out by asking the children to think about why people pray and why they go to a place of worship. Later I introduced the specifics of how Muslims pray and what it means to them and then on to talk about what Muslims do in a mosque.
Some people would prefer not to have to teach RE. What is your own view on that?
I think it’s important for children to understand how people of other faiths experience their religion. If for no other reason than to give them a better understanding of their own school-friends and what these friends do at various times of the year. It’s good if they understand why, for example, Diwali is celebrated. And understand why, in this school, we actually take a day off for that celebration each year. So, for that reason alone it is valuable to educate our children so they have a better understanding of each other.
I can understand why some teachers are worried about teaching RE. Sometimes I feel I’m not knowledgeable enough about a particular religion and I don’t want to offend children by saying the wrong thing or giving mis-information. I think this is one reason some people are hesitant about how to approach our teaching RE.
Faith is always a personal thing. I can talk more animatedly about Christianity because that is my background but there is nothing to stop me using my understanding of Christianity as a basis on which to talk about other faiths. What do all religions, collectively, have in common?
It is very important to avoid giving offence. I often find myself asking the children for confirmation that I am expressing the points about their religion correctly. Most children are happy to clarify a point but, of course, it’s my job to go into any discussion as well-informed as I can be. There are many resources to draw on. We have a good RE coordinator in the school and a lot of effort has gone into making sure we are well trained in the area.
We are careful to avoid imposing ideas on the children. Teaching RE is never about promoting propaganda. We can certainly give information about religions of the world and examine the ideas behind Christian values and Muslim values and Sikh values and Judaic values and Hindu values and so on. Many of those values are shared in common with all other religions. We talk about respecting the views and beliefs of people who have different faiths.
Some people might say that taking a Muslim or Hindu child into a Christian church and trying to get them to explore their feelings could be interpreted as being somewhat insensitive or inappropriate. What do you think about that?
I think it’s a good idea with any learning to let children have concrete experiences. See things, hear things, feel things. As much as possible, let them use all their senses to understand what they are learning about. Yes, we could simply show the children a picture of a stained glass window but to see the real thing is a much better way to experience it more fully and the only way to do that is to go into the building. I suppose we could play them a CD of a church organ but it’s a much stronger educational moment if they are in the middle of a church building and hear the organ playing and also experience the full reverberating echo of the organ around the building.
In basic terms, what are you hoping the children will learn from this visit to the church?
The aim is that the children come to understand what the inside of a church looks and feels like. How it is used. Who it is used by. So that they gain a fuller understanding of how people worship there. And later, after the visit, there is nothing to stop us talking about what is similar between a church, a mosque and a temple in terms of their shapes, their uses and so on. We might think about the sense of awe some people experience in a church. Is there a sense of awe when you enter a mosque or a temple or a synagogue? We might discuss the differences and the similarities of places of worship but we won’t be using the words right and wrong. There are differences in these religions but we are not going to be making judgements about those differences. It’s not about indoctrination. It’s about exploration of the world they live in and the children tend to enjoy that very much.