UWS BA ePDPs – Page 248 – Personal Development Plans of BA(Hons) students of education

Religion, Society & Diversity

In the first lecture in the Society and Lifestyles module today, the concept of Religion was introduced. Religion is a complex topic which is not easily defined, however there are a number of common characteristics found within different religions – as detailed in Ninian Smart’s phenomenology of religion; a multi-dimensional approach. Having (begrudgingly!) studied …

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Response to “Room”

Reading has always been more of a task, or a chore rather than enjoyment for me. Reading isn’t something that I have been encouraged to do other than higher English at Secondary school, and now university. My English teacher informed me that we should all read as it stimulates the brain and widens your vocabulary, therefore you would find it easier to write essays and also communicate with others. As I was growing up, technology was becoming such a big necessity and it was become more and more normal for a primary school child to have a phone. As social media was making its way into Adult’s lives, it was also making its way into children’s lives. As my Mum had just bought a laptop for the family, I would much rather speak to my friends through social media and messaging sites such as Bebo and Msn at a young age. I think this took the interest off of reading at a young age as I would have much rather spoken online and shared pictures on my new colourful profile, even at the age of 11.

The type of texts I tend to read now a days are texts issued by university. However, I shocked myself when reading “Room” as I actually really enjoyed it. This has prompted me to start another fiction novel named “Me Before You” by Jo Jo Moyes. I find it easy to latch onto a book if it captures me in the first few pages. I also like to look at reviews to see if anyone else has found it interesting. “Me Before You” has a great review and people have recommended the movie, therefor I think I will enjoy the book. I would like to start reading more novels to widen my vocabulary.

The minute I started to read “Room” the writer had captured me. I was so fascinated with this little boy and the terms he was using to describe different things and the context he was in. I enjoyed this story as it was something different than I have ever read or watched before. The story line was grasping and interesting. Parts of the novel were disturbing for example when Jack was put in the wardrobe and had to listen to his mother get abused by Old Nick. I found parts of the novel hard to read such as when Ma had to tell Jack that the stain on the carpet was when she had a still born child. I also found it distressing when Ma tells Jack that she was kidnapped when she was 19 and has be captured in “Room” for many years. I find it hard to believe that this novel was based on a true story as I could never imagine this situation happening to me. I would recommend this story to a friend as it was eye opening and also a very good read.

Reading “Room” was often challenging as it was from a 5-year old’s point of view. As Jack missed out crucial words such as “ a” and “the”, this made it hard to read. Reading Room has encouraged me to read other novels as I really enjoyed the story line and could hardly take a break from reading it. It has proven to me that I thoroughly enjoy a fiction novel once I get into it. The story helped me to understand language acquisition and development once I analysed Jack’s language. It was helpful to analyse features of Jacks language to understand how context can have an impact in a child’s development.

Society and Lifestyles: Religion and Society

In todays lecture on Religion and Society, and the follow-up tutorial and independent task, I have learned about four main areas: How religion can be classified Common features of religion Approaches towards religion (Insider and Outsider approach) Sociological/Anthropological theories relating … Continue reading →

Religion, Society and Diversity

Today was the first class in the Society and Lifestyles module and it was focused on Religion, Society and Lifestyles. I really enjoyed the lecture and workshops and found them both very interesting and informative. I had previously done RMPS in high school as a higher and so I did have some previous knowledge on … Continue reading “Religion, Society and Diversity”

Today was the first class in the Society and Lifestyles module and it was focused on Religion, Society and Lifestyles. I really enjoyed the lecture and workshops and found them both very interesting and informative. I had previously done RMPS in high school as a higher and so I did have some previous knowledge on the subject already. However, my knowledge was greatly expanded from today’s lesson as it was aspects of religion and society that I had never looked at before.

From the lecture, I was able to grasp an understanding of what religion actually is and how so many people in different professions would define it. I found this very intriguing as I was unaware to how many definitions there were regarding religion and I certainly want to look a lot more into how religion can and is defined. I feel like the definitions that I related to the most were the Sociologists and Anthropologists view.

From that, we also discussed how when we as students speak and learn about religion we are taking a scholarly approach opposed to a believers approach. This was something I had never really thought about before in detail but found very interesting when we were speaking and learning about it in the lecture. A part of the lecture that I feel that I will need to do a lot of further research into from religious studies or books is the theorists. We were able to learn about different thoerists and how some of their views and findings supported religion. We spoke about four of them in particular: Smart, Malinowski, Durkheim and Bourdillon. When it came to one of the workshops, we were to research one of the theorists in more detail which was very helpful as it allowed me to gain a deeper understanding. However, I do feel like I will need to research these theorists in a lot more detail so that I can gain a deeper understanding of their viewpoints.

I would also like to deeper my understanding on functionalism. I found that I got a bit confused at this section, however once I read over my notes I started to understanding it a bit better although I do think I will need to do further readings to fully understand this part.

I really enjoyed today’s lectures and workshops and felt like they were very engaging, interesting and eye-opening. I feel like this particular module will be very useful and helpful for my progress as a learner and a teacher.

Religion, Society and Diversity

As a result of today’s lecture, tutorial and independent task – I feel like I have been thrown head first into a whole new world. Having not experienced any Religious Education since primary school, I feel today has helped me understand more aboutreligious diversity and the opportunities and challenges it presents to a society. After … Continue reading Religion, Society and Diversity →

Religion, Society and Diversity – 16/01/2017

Religion is an important part of society which effects everyone whether or not they believe in a certain religion. In today’s Society and lifestyle module, I was involved in listening, discussing and thinking about both positive and negative impact religion … Continue reading →

Religion, Society and Diversity

Today has been a very interesting but difficult day for me. This particular module contains a lot of new information for me to retain, therefore I am finding it a little hard to grasp. I hope in the upcoming weeks I will have better knowledge and understanding of what this module is fully about. In … Continue reading Religion, Society and Diversity →

In general, I have enjoyed my first lecture, tutorial and tutor based task for Society and Lifestyles. Today’s topic on Religion, Society and Diversity has been interesting for me to learn because it is something I have never looked into before. Although I am reflecting as a learner rather than a teacher, I believe this module will be very helpful in the years to come because it will give me more knowledge on a subject I know little about.

I thought that the lecture was very intense this morning. There was a lot of information to grasp, but I think it was beneficial in the tutorial because it gave me more to think and write about. I was very interested to learn about the insider’s (believer’s) and outsider’s (scholarly) approach to religion. I was unaware of these approaches and believe that this will be useful for me in teaching. As a teacher, it will be very important for me to keep to the outsider’s approach so that my views are not influencing the pupils in the class. This can also be linked to Ninian Smart’s multi-dimensional approach called phenomenology. This allows teachers to teach the ‘essence’ of religion and not influence a child’s view on religion.

I thought it was also very useful to learn about famous functionalists of religion. I think that it was a good idea to link this to the individual task, although today we had a limited amount of time unfortunately. I feel that this allowed us to look further into one of the functionalists and gave us more information on the background of the person. I chose to look into Broinslaw Malinowski and found out that he was mainly focused on religion as an institution because he believed that culture functioned to meet the needs of individuals rather than society itself.

I thought that the tutorial was very useful because we got to work in groups rather than individually. This allowed us to come together and answer the question as a group. In hindsight, I think that it would have been better to be split up into smaller groups. My group focused on the opportunities of religious diversity in society. One of the points my group came up with was that the religious institutions could be linked to social integration. We knew this because Durkheim believed tat religion serves to bind a group together, therefore allowing social harmony in religion.

Reflecting on the lessons today, I can definitely say that I have learned a lot of new information. To understand today’s lecture/ tutorial more, I will look over my notes from today to become more secure in my learning. If I am still struggling to comprehend some of the concepts/ issues discussed today I will research the area further to become more confident in Religion, Society and Diversity.

Religion, Society and Diversity

Within todays lecture and tutorials, I was made aware of some theorists involved when studying religion and also how to apply their work to exam questions. I also learned some extra information about religion and the different types of religion/sect/cult. I feel like I would understand the main concepts and issues of religion with further reading […]

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I feel like I would understand the main concepts and issues of religion with further reading of notes and theoretical approaches. As it was the first day, class changes and rooms were a tad unorganised which interrupted some learning, however I’m sure this will all be fixed for next week.

There is nothing that I have struggled to understand as of yet, however this will be to do with the small workload we have at the moment. Concepts and issues seem easy to follow as I have a great interest in the module topics.

I feel as though my knowledge of religion has developed today because I have never studied it in a theoretical way and I’m interested in what has to come from this module. I’m sure later on in the module there will be areas that I will have to improve but I am unaware of these at this moment.

This is the first module that we have had peer-ran tutorials and this is something I will have to improve on. It is easy to get distracted when left to my own devices, however the topic of this module is interesting and will hopefully keep me engaged and wanting to learn more.

Religion, Society and Diversity

As a result of today’s lecture, independent task and tutorial, I have learned that religion can be sectioned in to three types – established religion, sects and cults. Each of these share certain characteristics, allowing them to fall into the same category, although they also display differing levels of extremity and different ways of organisation. I have … Continue reading Religion, Society and Diversity

Religion, Society and Diversity

In today’s lecture and tutorials, I learnt a significant amount of knowledge in regards to religion and society. Firstly, the lecture was an overview of what religion means, features of religion, types of religion, core religions can vary in believes and introducing theorists and religion functions. During the lecture, I began to question my own views, as I practise my faith and have been brought up to believe in the faith teachings, but today allowed myself to consider a different dynamic to religions and cultures. Therefore, I found this input to be insightful, as the terms and definitions where genetic and universally used by all religions. Participating in the group tutorial enabled us to share our opinions and our individual perceptions of religion and society, concluding religion can have positive and negative aspects that can affect not just local communities but wider communities too. As part of the independent task I selected to research French social psychologist Emile Durkheim. His theories highlight religion is factual, brings society together, preserves society and engenders citizens to have a sense of value. Reading into Durkheim views it became apparent I feel and witness this through my faith.

In general religion and society are complex issues that can create confusion and questioning. But from today’s inputs I was able to understand majority of concepts raised specifically features of religion. However, I found the aspects based on theorists to be rather challenging and will have to consolidate my understanding through further reading. Also, being introduced to ‘insider and outsider view’ of religion will require more reading too in order to develop my knowledge and what is meant to have an ‘outsider view’ as a student teacher/teacher.

Overall today I learnt an abundance of new knowledge which has motivated myself to do further reading and research religion and society as I find this topic to be engrossing, learning the cultures behind the religions can influence the ways in which we lead our lives. It is important now that I look beyond my faith and have a wide scope of understanding of other religions.

As a student teacher, it is important that I develop my understanding of the many religions in not just Scotland but worldwide, and the impact that religions can have on societies. I believe that moral, ethnic and religious education is vital and should always be taught in the classroom as this provide pupils the opportunity to explore their own religion in-depth but other religions too. Being a practising Roman Catholic, later this year I am hopeful I will be able to start the Catholic Teacher Certificate and this will provide me with the opportunity to teach in Catholic Schools. However Catholic schools are become more diverse and enriched with other religions, it is therefore pivotal that I advance my learning of our religions and cultures to support the pupils whom I teach. By completing this module, I should develop my understanding of religion which could support my knowledge when I am ready to commence the Catholic Teacher Certificate.

Most aspect addressed in today’s input will require further revision and reading in order to consolidate and secure my understanding in these aspects of religion and society.