“What have I learned?”

When I was initially faced with this question I was very unsure as to how I was going to answer it. To be honest I wasn’t entirely sure what I had learned until we were introduced to artefacts and the stories behind them, which gave me some food for thought. If this is what helped me to understand various religions by touching and actually seeing then of course it would be much easier for the children to learn in this way whilst being much more engaging for them. I even learned how to wear a sari in the last input.

The artefacts brought much more discussion; what is the object? How do you use it? What religion does it relate to? These are all great opening questions to create discussion and enquiry in the classroom with the children.

These lessons have most definitely opened my mind to teaching RME. My memory of this subject at school was visiting the church on special occasions and simply re telling stories from the Bible about Jesus of Nazareth, which to be honest was very of putting and boring for me. However living in a Muslim country for a year opened my eyes to religion and made me realise how important it is to be culturally aware. I most definitely don’t know everything about all religions but this excites me as I can learn with the children and hopefully make lessons as exciting and enjoyable as possible.