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| Productive conversations: Learning — and talking — together Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK |
Consequently, if education is to develop the next generation, it must nurture children as future citizens with the capacity to have productive conversations across these barriers of opinion and discipline.
We are often faced with big questions. But beyond the eternal questions concerning how life came into being and its purpose, there are more immediate concerns about which there will need to be decisions from citizens and leaders — both now and in the future. How should we respond to climate change? Should government be allowed to quarantine people to prevent the spread of disease? Should euthanasia of terminally ill children be allowed?
Responses to questions such as these can be informed by science, as well as by ethics, philosophy and religion. But how can we generate a well-reasoned argument using a range of diverse — and often contradictory — sources?...
Innovation
There is no single way that this cross-curricular collaboration could be rolled out in schools. Indeed, our participating teachers are innovative in finding approaches that work within the bounds of their busy, and often different, school lives.
In one example, an RE teacher and a science teacher are exploring the same question in their separate subject lessons: Why should we act on climate change? Students are asked to construct arguments using information that they have been learning in each subject, before combining these separate arguments from religion and science to present a convincing and coherent answer that draws on both disciplines.
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Source: Metro Newspaper UK
