This article was downloaded by: [University Of Maryland]

On: 03 May 2014, At: 11:07

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

British Journal of Religious Education

Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbre20

Is it learning about and from religions,

religion or religious education? And is it
any wonder some teachers don’t get it?
a
Geoff Teece
a
School of Education , University of Birmingham , Birmingham,
UK
Published online: 08 Feb 2010.

To cite this article: Geoff Teece (2010) Is it learning about and from religions, religion or religious
education? And is it any wonder some teachers don’t get it?, British Journal of Religious Education,
32:2, 93-103, DOI: 10.1080/01416200903537399

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01416200903537399

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever
or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or
arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-
and-conditions
 British Journal of Religious Education
Vol. 32, No. 2, March 2010, 93–103

Is it learning about and from religions, religion or religious

education? And is it any wonder some teachers don’t get it?
Geoff Teece*

School of Education, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

(Received 10 September 2009; final version received 16 November 2009)
Taylor and Francis
CBRE_A_454203.sgm

British
10.1080/01416200903537399
0141-6200
Original
Taylor
202010
32
g.m.teece@bham.ac.uk
GeoffTeece
00000March
&
Journal
Article
Francis
(print)/1740-7931
2010
of Religious Education
(online)

This article was first presented as a short paper at the annual conference of the
Downloaded by [University Of Maryland] at 11:07 03 May 2014

Association of University Lecturers in Religious Education in Exeter, July 2009,

and seeks to clarify different possible interpretations of what is meant by current
uses of the terms learning about religion and learning from religion. Drawing on
research/reports by OfSTED and examples from classroom practice, it recognises
that this is an area that is by no means clear in many teachers’ minds. The article
also examines a variety of statements about teaching and learning processes in
religious education (RE) in relation to learning about religion and learning from
religion as a pedagogical strategy and argues that the three terms used in the title
do not mean the same thing and that any concept of learning from religion
depends on being clear about what it is that pupils should learn about religion.
This in turn means making choices about how religion might be defined and
understood in RE to enable us to understand how learning from religion can make
the subject a distinctive curriculum experience.
Keywords: religious education; learning about religion; learning from religion;
explanatory frameworks; descriptive reductionism; explanatory reductionism

Introduction
The terms learning about religion and learning from religion have become wide-
spread in religious education (RE) syllabuses in England and Wales. Whilst this fact
is unexceptional, it is evident from the academic literature on the subject that contro-
versy remains as to the terms’ meaning and validity (see, e.g., Bates 2006; Baumfield
2009; Hella and Wright 2009; Wright 2004). This article is an attempt to explore a
variety of possible meanings given to the terms in various documents and writings and
to examine some examples of their use in the classroom in order that we might move
the debate forward more satisfactorily than has been the case hitherto. This will mean
paying particular attention to what we actually mean by the term religion in the
context of teaching and learning in RE.

Why this title?

Most people are aware that the terms learning about and from religion were first intro-
duced by Michael Grimmitt and Garth Read in 1975, two people with whom I have
worked closely and who have been the most significant influences on me as both a

*Email: g.m.teece@bham.ac.uk

ISSN 0141-6200 print/ISSN 1740-7931 online

© 2010 Christian Education
DOI: 10.1080/01416200903537399
http://www.informaworld.com
 94 G. Teece

teacher of RE and a teacher trainer. The classic statement of the terms can be found in
Grimmitt (1987, 225–6):

When I speak about pupils learning about religion I am referring to what the pupils learn
about the beliefs, teachings and practices of the great religious traditions of the world. I
am also referring to what pupils learn about the nature and demands of ultimate ques-
tions, about the nature of a ‘faith’ response to ultimate questions, about the normative
views of the human condition and what it means to be human as expressed in and
through Traditional Belief Systems or Stances for Living of a naturalistic kind.

When I speak about learning from religion I am referring to what pupils learn from their
studies in religion about themselves – about discerning ultimate questions and ‘signals
of transcendence’ in their own experience and considering how they might respond to
them. The process of learning from religion involves, I suggest, engaging two though
different types of evaluation. Impersonal evaluation involves being able to distinguish
Downloaded by [University Of Maryland] at 11:07 03 May 2014

and make critical evaluations of truth claims, beliefs and practices of different religious
traditions and of religion itself. Personal evaluation begins as an attempt to confront and
evaluate religious beliefs and values [and] becomes a process of self-evaluation. (1987,
225–6, original emphasis).

Two points need to be made at the outset about Grimmitt and Read’s conception of
these terms. Firstly, some criticisms of learning from religion have, possibly, over
emphasised Grimmitt’s personal evaluation to the detriment of what he says about
impersonal evaluation (see, e.g., Bates 2006 and, although he doesn’t mention
Grimmitt particularly, Wright 2004). As can be seen from the quotation above, there
is nothing in Grimmitt’s original conception of learning from religion that should
inhibit students from examining the truth claims of religious traditions. As can be seen
from the quotation, impersonal evaluation involves, ‘being able to distinguish and
make critical evaluations of truth claims, beliefs and practices of different religious
traditions and of religion itself’ (Grimmitt 1987, 225) (for a wider discussion of this
point see Teece 2008).
Secondly, it is important to note that learning about and learning from religion
were conceived within a human development approach to RE, fully developed in one
direction by Grimmitt (1987) and by Read et al. (1992), through the Westhill Project
(1986) which, significantly, stressed that the study of religion should play an instru-
mental role in RE pedagogy.
One reason for a variety of understandings (and misunderstandings?) can be
attributed to the fact that since Grimmitt introduced the terms the model has been
uprooted from its original context and according to Grimmitt, ‘some of its features
[are] transplanted within a curriculum structure which, in other respects, reflects a
rationale for RE which is alien to its intentions’ (2000, 37). This alien environment
was the SCAA (School Curriculum and Assessment Authority) model syllabuses
where the terms became learning about religions and learning from religion. Imme-
diately we can ask, is there a difference between learning about religion and learn-
ing about religions? And if one is learning about religions, what does it mean to
learn from religion? These questions are not answered either in the SCAA models
themselves or the QCA (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority) Non-Statutory
Guidance of 2000.
Instead the QCA (2000, 18) guidance provides a list of examples of ‘good prac-
tice’ in learning from religion. Whilst one example states that learning from religion
is about the concepts of religion(s), most examples are about processes and skills, or
 British Journal of Religious Education 95

ways of teaching, which could be applied to any subject in the curriculum. These
examples include being ‘concerned with the active responses of pupils to what they
are learning about’, ‘valuing pupils’ own ideas and concerns’ and ‘developing skills,
e.g. the skill of living in a plural society’. A similar point has been made with regard
to the Non-Statutory National Framework for Religious Education (QCA 2004) by
Kay (2005, 42–7), even though when the terms appear in the National Framework
they revert to learning about religion and learning from religion. However, in the
statement, ‘The Importance of Religious Education’ it is written, ‘Religious education
encourages pupils to learn from different religions [my italics], beliefs, values and
traditions while exploring their own beliefs and questions of meaning’ (QCA 2004, 7).
What are we to make of this?
Finally, in a recent editorial of the British Journal of Religious Education
headed ‘Learning about and from religious education’, Vivienne Baumfield (2009)
appeared to be exploring common themes within that particular issue of the journal
Downloaded by [University Of Maryland] at 11:07 03 May 2014

that were explicitly realised in Hella and Wright’s article on learning from religion.
Did she mean to make a distinction between learning about and from religion(s)
and learning about and from RE or was it just a slip of the pen? It might be
objected that I am being pedantic here, being concerned merely with semantics. I
don’t think so.
What might learning from RE mean? Possibly the content-free skills based exam-
ples listed above might be said to encompass what we might call learning from RE.
But did Baumfield really mean that? If one reads the editorial we find that she states
that,

We need to determine what is the object of study before we can devise appropriate means
of learning and this is in part a question of intent but also a consequence of the extent to
which concepts with which we are engaging have been defined within a recognised
disciplinary framework. (2009, 2)

Clarity about two statements embedded in this quotation seems to me to be of crucial

importance to this discussion, namely ‘what is the object of study’ and ‘the extent to
which concepts with which we are engaging have been defined within a recognised
disciplinary framework’.
Moving on to the second part of the title. There is evidence, largely from OfSTED
reports (e.g. OfSTED 2005, 2007), that many teachers are not comfortable with this
model; the major criticism being that learning about religion lacks depth and that
consequently learning from religion is too ‘narrowly conceived only as helping pupils
to identify and reflect on aspects of their lives, with lessons used narrowly as a
springboard for this reflection’ (2005, 2).

Why does this matter? A theoretical point

There has been some discussion of the contours, possibilities and limitations of the
model in the academic literature (see, e.g., Grimmitt 2000, 34–38; Hella and Wright
2009) in terms of the teaching and learning processes involved or, in other words,
learning about religion and learning from religion as a pedagogical strategy. But what
I want to suggest is that this is all very well but it might not get us very far if we ignore
a prior question well expressed by Grimmitt when he wrote, ‘the evaluative process
of learning from religion(s) should be fully integrated into how, within a secular
 96 G. Teece

educational context, pupils are learning about religions in the first place [my italics]’
(2000, 15).
I would like to add the word ‘what’ to Grimmitt’s ‘how’, mainly because we have
not as yet decided whether pupils should be learning about religion, religions or,
indeed, RE.
Moreover, Hella and Wright (2009) have identified the tension that inevitably
arises between leaning about religion and learning from religion when applied outside
a ‘confessional’ context. This is because within a ‘confessional’ context pupils share
a common worldview and ‘the knowledge and insights gained from learning about
their faith tradition will have a direct connection to their own personal beliefs and
values’ (2009, 56). However, in a ‘liberal’ context pupils are required to engage with
a plurality of views, some of which they might not see as immediately valuable or
relevant to their personal development.
One could respond here by stating that Grimmitt was fully aware of this as can
Downloaded by [University Of Maryland] at 11:07 03 May 2014

be seen from the examples he provides in Religious education and human develop-
ment (1987, 267–388). Remembering that religion is understood instrumentally by
Grimmitt, the unifying factor in his rationale is the bringing into a synergetic rela-
tionship the life world of the pupil and religious life world of the various religious
traditions. In Grimmitt’s design, the religious life world does not include anything
that one might select from the phenomena of a particular tradition, but only that
which illuminates and informs the pupils’ life world curriculum (see 1987, 226,
267–388). So religion illustrates questions to do with order, meaning and purpose in
the universe, questions of truth, questions about human nature, questions about a just
society, questions about individual self-fulfilment, ethical questions, questions about
the nature of community and questions about values. So it could be said that the
unifying factor is human experience rather than religion.
Nevertheless, Hella and Wright’s point is an important one because it necessarily
poses difficult questions about what we might mean by religion in such a context.

Why does this matter? Examples from practice

However, this is not merely a theoretical issue. As we have seen from the OfSTED
reports many teachers are unsure how best to use this model. So rather than providing
a theoretical analysis of these three possible interpretations, I will look at it with the
aid of some examples. These examples are drawn from my experience as a PGCE
external examiner observing lessons at Key Stage 3 and from other sources.

Example one
Year 8 lesson: what is a ritual?
The stimulus for this lesson, and an example of a ritual, was Hindu puja. Pupils
were asked to note down what they do on a regular basis. The idea of ritual was then
explored and they were then introduced to a PowerPoint slide of a puja tray and the
student teacher explained that puja was a ritual. Pupils then watched a short video
showing Hindus doing puja. The aim of the lesson and the learning from element
was for pupils to understand puja as an example of a ritual in religion and then
reflect upon the manifestation of ritual generally and in some cases in their own
lives.
 British Journal of Religious Education 97

Example two
Visiting places of worship
This example is taken from Visiting places of worship by Gateshill and Thompson
(2000, 9). In this book, suggestions are provided about how pupils may learn about
and from religion during and following their visit: suggestions for the way that pupils
may learn from religion included asking them to think about a special place of their
own, somewhere they go alone to think, a special building they have visited, a room
or area at school that is special. A final offering is that pupils could design a peaceful
area at school with questions for the pupils about how, when and why it might be used.

Example three
Primary lesson: the Parable of the Lost Sheep
Downloaded by [University Of Maryland] at 11:07 03 May 2014

This example is taken from OfSTED (2005). We are told that in a lesson on the Para-
ble of the Lost Sheep, the focus of the lesson was on ‘caring for others’.

Example four
Year 7 lesson: the story of Kisagotami
The lesson began with the student asking the pupils what they understood by loss. She
then told the story. Then she asked the pupils to construct a ‘memory line’ of the key
elements of the story. There were many enthusiastic answers including one girl who
said that the key part for her was, ‘that Kisagotami was adamant that her child wasn’t
dead’. Another girl answered that she thought the story told us that we all had to die
and that the story helped her not to worry too much about dying. The student teacher
then went on to develop the learning from element which was ‘who and for what
reasons do you go for guidance in your life?’

Analysis
What are the pupils expected to learn about and from in these examples? In example
one, we could say that the teacher intended the pupils to learn about and from religion
if religion is to be understood in terms of what we might call a second-order explana-
tory framework provided by Smart’s dimensions (Smart 1968). However, as Smart
points out ‘the notion of ritual cannot be defined in an essentialist way’. Neverthe-
less, ‘this leaves open the possibility of seeing analogies between “secular” rituals
and religious ones’ (1973a, 17, emphasis in original). But in order to achieve this for
his pupils, the trainee teacher would have needed to have explored with them in much
greater detail the meaning of puja for the participants. This would require bringing
out the structure and meaning of puja without comparing it to anything else. Smart
uses an example of the Anglican Eucharist where he describes the method of ‘brack-
eting’. He writes ‘what we want to bring out in describing the Anglican Eucharist is
the web of values and beliefs and feelings implicated in it for the participants’ which
‘might be obstructed by hasty comments on the truth or otherwise of the beliefs, the
validity of the values, or the propriety of the feelings’ (1973a, 20). By merely offering
a brief description of the puja tray and a little of what happens the trainee teacher
might have enabled the pupils to learn something superficial about puja but certainly
nothing from it. Very significantly Smart states that ‘there is the sense of the term
 98 G. Teece

phenomenology which refers to a descriptive method which need not be in any strong
sense typological [my italics]’ (1973a, 21).
A similar comment could be made about the second example. The overriding focus
was the category ‘places of worship’ not a particular place of worship. So in asking
pupils to think about a special place of their own or building they have visited there is
no intention to learn anything from any particular religion. In the third example, it
wasn’t ideas about God they were learning about or from, for example the idea of God
as the good shepherd, but rather a version of RE understood as a form of PSHE. Both
of these examples fall prey to the mistake of reducing religion to the experience of the
learner rather than religion enriching the experience of the learner. With regard to the
former example each place of worship has its own particular gifts (Grimmitt et al.
2006) to offer and those gifts are firmly embedded in the self-understanding of the
tradition not in the experience of the learner. What I mean by this might best be
illustrated by the following example.
Downloaded by [University Of Maryland] at 11:07 03 May 2014

Let’s imagine that a teacher takes a group to visit a gurdwara. During the visit the
pupils will probably have experienced sitting in the prayer hall listening to the Guru
Granth Sahib being read, sat together and served langar, they may have been taken
on a ‘tour’ of the gurdwara and listened to Sikhs talking about their beliefs and how
serving in the gurdwara influences the way they live their lives.
In responding to these experiences, the teacher might want the pupils to reflect
on their thoughts and feelings during the visit. It is not unusual for a teacher to ask
the pupils to undertake such activities as, talking about special places they like to
visit, to consider the importance of worship to religious people and to consider the
things that influence the way they live their own lives. The question that begs to be
asked about such activities is how does the teacher intend these reflections to enable
the pupils to learn from Sikhism? We can only answer this if we know what she
intends the pupils to learn about Sikhism and it is difficult to see how this might be
achieved unless specific Sikh beliefs and concepts are unpacked for them. Without
such specific concentration on Sikh beliefs and practices the above activities are
merely about the pupils’ experiences and are not necessarily related to what they
might learn from Sikhism. For example, in order really to learn from Sikhism, they
will have experienced Sikhs doing sewa so pupils can reflect on ideas such as
generosity, service, sharing and humility. From the experience of langar they might
reflect on ideas of equality, willingness to give and receive, on caring for others.
The experience of listening to the continuous reading of the Guru Granth Sahib
(akhand path) might lead to reflecting on the importance or not of God’s word
being continuously heard and on what in their view are the most important sounds
in the world. Reflecting on the importance of the Guru Granth Sahib for Sikhs they
might reflect on ideas such as respect, guidance, authority and what a teacher
means.
And in the final example, the pupils were, potentially, learning something about
Buddhism but the opportunity for them to learn from the teaching of Buddha was
lost because the student teacher almost completely ignored the above-mentioned
answers because her attention was focused on achieving her learning from objec-
tive which involved trying to get the pupils to think about ‘who you go to for
guidance’. However, the two girls did understand something of the teaching of
Buddha about the inevitability of loss and death but their excellent answers were
never developed and an opportunity for the whole class to learn from Buddhism
was lost.
 British Journal of Religious Education 99

What should pupils be learning about?

I wish to make two points arising from this analysis. First point concerns what it is
pupils should be learning about. According to OfSTED, ‘Good opportunities for
personal reflection do not secure real “learning from” religion because work in “learn-
ing about” religion lacks depth’ (2007, 11). That it is, ‘often simpler for [them] to fall
back on the mechanics of religion instead of tackling the reality of being religious’
(12). These comments could be applied to our examples, above. Unfortunately,
OfSTED then muddies the waters by stating that, ‘there is much room for improve-
ment, particularly in getting pupils to think more deeply about RE’ (13). Surely it is
not RE that pupils should be thinking more deeply about but religion. Or is it
religions?

Explanatory frameworks and the inevitability of reductionism

Downloaded by [University Of Maryland] at 11:07 03 May 2014

I have argued elsewhere that we need second-order explanatory frameworks of reli-

gion if we are to organise the RE curriculum. Historically, teachers and syllabus
compilers have often worked with Smart’s dimensions. I have been interested in writ-
ing about religion as a distinctive phenomenon with its overriding characteristic being
its spiritual dimension as understood as human transformation in the context of
responses to the transcendent (Maybury and Teece 2005; Teece 2008, 2009).
However, in interpreting religion with the aid of this particular second-order frame-
work the intention is not to learn about and from the framework but to enable teachers
and syllabus compilers to select appropriate content from the religions that pupils
could beneficially learn about and from.
Organising the phenomena of religion into curriculum structures necessarily
requires some form of reductionism. According to Proudfoot (1985), there are two
possible forms of reductionism – descriptive reductionism and explanatory reduc-
tionism. According to this distinction, descriptive reductionism is the failure to
identify a religious experience by which the subject identifies it. So, ‘[T]o describe
the experience of a mystic by reference only to alpha waves, altered heart rate and
changes in bodily temperature is to misdescribe it,’ or, ‘to characterise the experience
of a Hindu mystic in terms drawn from the Christian tradition is to misidentify it’
(Proudfoot 1985, 196). Smart is also aware of this issue. He provides an example
from Bishop Heber who composed a famous hymn in which he wrote ‘the heathen in
his blindness/Bows down to wood and stone’ (Smart 1973a, 20). Heber was a
missionary writing from the standpoint of evangelical Christianity. But as Smart
points out the ‘heathens’ in question, Hindus, do not identify Vishnu with a carved
lump of stone. Furthermore, ‘[S]ince worship is an intentional act, having an inten-
tional object, its correct description requires proper description of that object’ (Smart
1973a, 21). Consequently, such descriptive reductionism fails to provide an accurate
account of the subject’s experience.
Explanatory reductionism, on the other hand, offers an, ‘explanation of an experi-
ence that are not those of the subject and that might not meet with his [sic] approval’
(Proudfoot 1985, 197). Proudfoot claims that this is perfectly justifiable and is normal
procedure. He gives an example from history whereby historians offer explanations of
past events by employing concepts such as socialisation, ideology, means of produc-
tion and feudal economy yet, ‘[S]eldom can these concepts properly be ascribed to the
people whose behaviour is the object of the historian’s study’ (197). But this is not a
problem for the explanation stands or falls as to how well it accounts for the available
 100 G. Teece

evidence. Indeed the study of history could not proceed without such explanatory
frameworks.
Of course history is (arguably) easier to define than religion so this begs the
question as to whether second-order frameworks can appropriately account for the
phenomena of religion. A case could be made for learning about religion in terms
of a second-order explanatory framework of the kind typically derived from Smart’s
typology (see Smart 1973b, 45–8). Indeed the type of concepts listed in the
Hampshire agreed syllabus, Living Difference (Hampshire County Council/Ports-
mouth City Council/Southampton City Council 2004) and the Westhill Project
(Read et al. [1986] 1992, 27) referred to as concepts derived from the study of reli-
gion, such as myth, ritual and symbolism, may well be helpful as a mechanism or
tool to enable pupils to develop a broad understanding of the phenomenon of reli-
gion, but we must not be led into thinking that learning about and from ritual,
ethics, myth per se is the same as learning about and from particular examples of
Downloaded by [University Of Maryland] at 11:07 03 May 2014

ritual, ethics or myth. If we merely learn about Hindu puja as an example of a class
of ritual we are not necessarily learning about Hinduism nor are we necessarily
learning from it. Furthermore, by merely looking at puja as a form of ritual we
could be accused of superficiality and of domesticating the religious tradition. We
could be accused of descriptive reductionism (see, e.g., Wintersgill 1995). This has
possibly been an area of confusion for teachers because learning about myth, ritual
and symbolism per se does not, arguably, enable learning about and from to be used
in a way that best enables each term to illuminate our understanding and evaluation
of the other. This can most effectively be achieved by selecting appropriate content
from the religions themselves.

Why second-order frameworks can be helpful?

Nevertheless, second-order frameworks for religion can be useful, especially if such a
framework interprets religions in the context of what, for the adherents, their religion
teaches about what it means to be human. If we can identify this then we can make
some appropriate links between human experience and how we might deepen and
broaden our pupils’ understanding when they learn about the various religions. I have
been interested in applying John Hick’s second-order explanatory framework that
interprets religions as providing an analysis of human nature, which is always imper-
fect, and the role that religion plays in transforming human nature from self to ‘reality’
centeredness based on an understanding of transcendence as understood in the various
traditions. So in Judaism, for example, the idea that creation caused a disunity in the
world and ‘divine sparks’ were scattered all around the universe (Montagu 1990, 26)
can help us understand that humanity’s task is to repair the world, which Jews refer to
as tikkun olam. This is the demanding task for Jews who are created by God with free
will, susceptible to both good and bad inclinations (yetzer haTov and yetzer haRa). Let
us continue to take as an example visits to places of worship. If we come to understand
Judaism, within a second-order explanatory framework that interprets religion as
human responses to the transcendent, a visit to, or study of, the synagogue is not about
a particular Jewish building used for worship but a study of one way in which Jews
attempt to bring God’s holiness (kedusha) into the process of repairing the world. The
same point could be made about learning about Jewish practices such as the remem-
brance of Shabbat or learning about Jewish festivals, especially Rosh haShanah and
Yom Kippur.
 British Journal of Religious Education 101

So to conclude the first point, it is learning about religions within an understanding

of how we might conceptualise religion as a distinctive phenomenon that best enables
pupils to engage in Grimmitt’s personal and impersonal evaluation. Of course it may
be objected that there are many other ways to interpret religion and pupils should be
entitled to understand these. I wouldn’t necessarily want to argue with this point. What
I have been concerned with here is an attempt to clarify how we might best understand
the pedagogical strategy of learning about religion and learning from religion that
presents religion as a distinct phenomenon that does justice to the transformative qual-
ities of the religious traditions in a way that may enable pupils to widen and deepen
their understanding of both what lies at the heart of the religions and their interpreta-
tion of the human condition. In this sense learning about and from religions can be
said to be a dialogue between the pupils’ life worlds and the worlds of the religions.
I have suggested elsewhere (Teece 2008) that such a dialogue can be understood as
upayic as in the Mahayanan Buddhist concept of ‘skilful means’.
Downloaded by [University Of Maryland] at 11:07 03 May 2014

In the second point, it is difficult to see how we might achieve this without paying
attention to teachers’ subject knowledge. One way is to make sure that what teachers
are concentrating on are the concepts and values that are inherent in the spirituality of
religious traditions.
As concepts provide a framework for human beings to interpret and understand
human experience, the Hampshire syllabus (as does the Westhill Project, see Read et al.
[1986] 1992, 27–9) divides concepts into three categories, namely concepts that are
common to religious and secular experience such as celebration, community, justice,
relationship; concepts that are common to many religions and the study of religion such
as God, worship, myth; and concepts that are distinctive of particular religions such
as sewa (selfless service) in Sikhism, ibadah (worship) in Islam, kedusha (God’s holi-
ness) in Judaism, etc. It might be objected to here that identifying ibadah, for example,
we are merely referring to the particular language that Muslims use for worship. It is
true that the concept of worship is not distinctive of Islam but the way that worship
is understood is distinctive and Muslims refer to it as ibadah. Another objection
might be that sewa is not distinctive only of Sikhism: it is also a common term used
in ‘Hindu’ circles. Whilst this is true, sewa is a key concept in Sikhism and facilitates
an understanding of Sikh beliefs about what it means to be human.
We have commented above that the second category of concepts is common to
many religions and the study of religion can facilitate a broad understanding of reli-
gion. But it is a deep understanding of the relationship between the other two catego-
ries of concepts, those common to religious and secular experience and concepts that
are distinctive of particular religions that hold the key to a conceptual approach and,
in my opinion, to a proper understanding of the terms learning about religion and
learning from religion. But unless teachers really understand this then it’s expecting
a lot to expect them to enable pupils to use such concepts as interpretive tools when
applying what they have learned about these concepts to their own and other peoples’
lives, and to the world at large.
Of course the Hampshire syllabus throws up another challenge. In having only one
attainment target, ‘interpreting religion in relation to human experience’ it begs the
question as to whether the terms learning about religion and learning from religion
should be retired gracefully. For this to happen the RE profession would have to agree
a commonly understood teaching and learning process, in the way that Hampshire
does, to ensure that the kind of learning about and from religions, that I have
attempted to outline here, actually takes place.
 102 G. Teece

Conclusion
I have argued in this article that there is a lack of clarity about what the terms learning
about and from religion actually mean. I have attempted to identify the possible
contributory factors to teachers’ confusion by exploring the changes to the terms over
the years since Grimmitt and Read first introduced them.
Since writing a first draft of this article there has been further evidence that
primary teachers still find it difficult to integrate learning about and from religion
successfully. Furthermore, some secondary teachers lack clarity about a conceptual
approach to the subject (Brine 2009). In identifying that learning from religion is often
‘too narrowly conceived only as helping pupils to identify and reflect on aspects of
their lives’ (OfSTED 2005, 2), OfSTED has identified the practice of, what I have
called, reducing religion to the experience of the learner. This was not helped by the
QCA Non-Statutory Guidance (2000, 18) which identified largely generic skills as
Downloaded by [University Of Maryland] at 11:07 03 May 2014

good practice in learning from religion. It is this approach that I have interpreted as
learning from RE.
I have also argued that the use of the term religion can be understood as applying
to a second-order explanatory framework that refers to concepts that apply to the study
of religion, such as myth, ritual and symbolism, which can provide pupils with a broad
understanding of religion but does not provide the best opportunities for teachers to
develop a clear understanding about how the terms can be integrated. It might be more
helpful to adopt a second-order explanatory framework that interprets religion as
distinctive phenomenon with its overriding characteristic being its spiritual dimension
as understood as human transformation in the context of responses to the transcendent.
Such a framework might enable teachers and syllabus compilers to select appropriate
content from the religions that pupils could beneficially learn about and from.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Jill Stolberg and AULRE colleagues for their comments on earlier drafts
of this article.

Notes on contributor
Geoff Teece is the director of studies for initial teacher education and a lecturer in religious
education at the University of Birmingham.

References
Bates, D. 2006. John Hull a critical appreciation. In Education, religion and society: Essays in
honour of John M. Hull, ed. D. Bates, F. Schweitzer, and G. Durka, 6–31. London:
Routledge.
Baumfield, V. 2009. Learning about and learning from religious education. British Journal of
Religious Education 31, no. 1: 1–2.
Brine, A. 2009. Agreed syllabuses: The way forward now. Paper presented at the Association
of RE Inspectors and Advisors conference, November 12, in Birmingham, AL.
Gateshill, P., and J. Thompson. 2000. Visiting places of worship. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Grimmitt, M. 1987. Religious education and human development: The relationship between
studying religions and personal, social and moral education. Great Wakering, Essex:
McCrimmons.
Grimmitt, M. 2000. Pedagogies of religious education: Case studies in the research and
development of good pedagogic practice in RE. Great Wakering, Essex: McCrimmons.
 British Journal of Religious Education 103

Grimmitt, M., J. Grove, J. Hull, and L. Tellam. 2006. A gift to the child. Series 2, Religious
education in the primary school: Teachers’ source book. Bury, UK: Articles of Faith.
Grimmitt, M., and G. Read. 1975. Teaching Christianity in RE. Great Wakering, Essex:
Mayhew.
Hampshire County Council/Portsmouth City Council/Southampton City Council. 2004. Living
difference: The agreed syllabus for Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton. Winchester:
Hampshire County Council/Portsmouth City Council/Southampton City Council.
Hella, E., and A. Wright. 2009. Learning ‘about’ and ‘from’ religion: Phenomenography, the
variation theory of learning and religious education in Finland and the UK. British Journal
of Religious Education 31, no. 1: 53–64.
Kay, W. 2005. A non-statutory framework for religious education: Issues and opportunities.
British Journal of Religious Education 27, no. 1: 41–52.
Maybury, J., and G. Teece. 2005. Learning from what? A question of subject focus in reli-
gious education in England and Wales. Journal of Beliefs and Values 26, no. 2: 179–90.
Montagu, S. 1990. Judaism: Teacher’s manual, the Westhill Project RE 5–16. Cheltenham:
Stanley Thornes.
Downloaded by [University Of Maryland] at 11:07 03 May 2014

OfSTED. 2005. OfSTED subject reports 2003/05: Religious education in primary schools
(Document reference number: HMI 2346). (Out of print)
OfSTED. 2007. Making sense of religion: A report on religious education in schools
and the impact of locally agreed syllabuses (Document reference number 070045).
http://www.OfSTED.gov.uk/OfSTED-home/Publications-and-Research/Browse-all-by/
Education/Curriculum/Religious-education/Secondary/Making-sense-of-religion
(accessed September 1, 2009)
Proudfoot, W. 1985. Religious experience. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA). 2000. Non-statutory guidance on religious
education. London: QCA.
QCA. 2004. Religious education: The non-statutory national framework. London: QCA &
DfES.
Read, G., J. Rudge, G. Teece, and R. Howarth. 1992. How do I teach RE? The Westhill
Project RE 5-16. 2nd ed. Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes. (Originally published 1986)
School Curriculum and Assessment Authority. 1994. Model syllabuses for religious educa-
tion. Model 1, Living faiths today; Model 2, Questions and teachings. London: SCAA.
Smart, N. 1968. Secular education and the logic of religion. London: Faber & Faber.
Smart, N. 1973a. The science of religion and the sociology of knowledge. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Smart, N. 1973b. The phenomenon of religion. London: Macmillan.
Teece, G. 2008. Learning from religions as skilful means: A contribution to the debate about
the nature of religious education. British Journal of Religious Education 30, no. 3: 187–98.
Teece, G. 2009. Religion as human transformation. Resource 31, no. 3: 4–7.
Wintersgill, B. 1995. The case of the missing models: Exploding the myths. Resource 18,
no. 1: 6–11.
Wright, A. 2004. Religion, education and post-modernity. London: RoutledgeFalmer.