edna.edu.au

History Teachers Association of Australia annual conference, July 2009

Click here to download my Data Presentation slides (.pdf 4.2 MB)

Click here to download the handout with references

Tags: christianity anti-racism anti-semitism holocaust
Posted at 09:47PM Jul 13, 2009 by Nigel Mitchell  | 

Teaching the Abrahamic Religions: Christianity in DialoguewithJudaism& Islam 15-17 April 2009

A very interesting conference.

Highlights was professor Andrew Wright from Kings College at teh University of London. His presentation on "Critical realism" is a challenge to the 'banking' and 'constructivist' pedagogical models. The key to teaching about the Abrahamic religions is not to teach as though we are all the same, but rather to learn from the points of difference. Relativity - not Relativism - is the key. 
"It is better to have a society of discontented philosophers than a society of contented sheep"
Our role as educators is to enable our students to grow in their religious literacy.
"Every student who walks into our classroom is already a theologian/ They already have language about God. Our job is to enable them to be better theologians"

Peter Vardy was also quite an inspiring speaker. His presentation argued that the history of the Abrahamic religions is a history of war, and that we havce an obligation to address this in our teaching. It is not our role to educate people in our own certainties.

The Dan website is at http://www.dialogueaustralasia.org/

Tags: islam pedagogy judaism christianity
Posted at 04:31PM Apr 18, 2009 by Nigel Mitchell  | 

Critical issues for Australian Catholic education into the 21st Century

I did my Masters in Religious Education at the University of South Australia, graduating in 1992. I was enrolled in external mode, so did not have much contact with my fellow students, but one of my colleagues, Helen Raduntz, asked a group of us to edit our theses to form the chapters of a book, which she published as:

Potential and opportunity: Critical issues for Australian Catholic education into the 21 st Century edited by Helen Raduntz, Auslib Press, Blackwood SA. 1995

My chapter is number 6: Teaching theology as religious education in a secondary school: some findings.

Tags: anti-semitism religious education christianity theology judaism
Posted at 10:49AM Dec 24, 2008 by Nigel Mitchell  |