Tag: religion

The lecture and tutorial today helped me gain a better insight into what religion is and how it is defined in the world. I learned that there many types of religion and that they can be split into different categories such as established religions, sects and cults. This was something I did not know before as I thought that sects and cults were not classed as religions. I also learned about some of the theorists involved in religion and this helped me to understand religion from a more academic point of view. I also understand a bit better from the lecture and independent task how religion can be influenced and interpreted by theorist views.

                I feel that the notes and concepts were a bit confusing at first as it is such a heavy workload, however I feel that it will be easier to understand the concepts by reading the extra reading materials and trying to link the concepts to modern day society and religion. I also feel that I will enjoy the module and so I will find it easier to learn the concepts and theory.

                I enjoyed the tutorial today as we got to share our opinions with people we didn’t perhaps speak to very often within the class. It was useful to get to hear other people’s opinion on religion and how their own faiths linked in with the information about religion and the research we had found out about the theorists.

                By being a part of this module, I feel that I will gain a better understanding of religion in the world around me and may notice more aspects of religion that I did not notice before. I think that this will be useful in a primary school setting as a teacher because I think that it will be easier to adapt lessons and gain more insight to the different religions and cultures that children are part of. As a future primary teacher, I aspire to be able to make all children in my care feel comfortable expressing their beliefs and practices regarding their religion and not to feel that they cannot in other people’s presence in society.

                Using what I have learned today and my previous understanding of religion, I can see how religion has an impact on societies and lifestyles. I can see from both sides that religion can be both good and challenging. I can see and understand, following Durkheim’s theory that religion brings society together and the benefits that this has. I can also see how religion can be derived and divide societies through cults and negative forces on a religion.

                Overall, through the course of the lecture, independent task and the tutorial I have gained a better insight into religion and societies and lifestyles and how religion impacts society and lifestyles. I feel that I will grasps the concepts better by reading over notes and further reading. I am deeply interested in this subject and I am looking forward to learning more about the topic in the module.

               

 

 

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 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.

 

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.