Theory and practice
This article is for paying subscribers My life in RE
Geoff Teece
Articles by Geoff Teece
This article is for paying subscribers
Reviews
This article is for paying subscribers Reviews
There is a sense of ‘back to the future’ in this reviews section. We have reviews of two books to get you thinking and questioning: one review by Geoff Teece, the retiring Editor of Professional REflection, and...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Time to be going
‘A generation goes, a generation comes, yet the earth stands firm for ever’
Reviews
This article is for paying subscribers Reviews
In this issue we have reviews from two members of the RE Today team who have clearly made good use of lockdown time for some significant reading. Lat Blaylock’s review of James W. Sire’s book on philosophical...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Religion and Worldviews: discipline or disciplines?
In writing about identities in his editorial to Spring’s edition of REtoday (Volume 38, Number 2, p. 3) Lat Blaylock says, ‘The question “Who am I?” doesn’t seem adequate to me – we are forever changing,...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Are we breaking from the past, or drawing from the past having learned important lessons along the way?
RE trainees began their RE journey across the country. It is also 50 years since I began my RE journey in Worcestershire. In fact, the current group of excellent trainees at Exeter will be the last group of either...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Reform and development in thinking about RE
One of the positive things about Mark Chater’s recent book Reforming RE (2020) is that it brings together theorists and practitioners to make their contributions about how they see the future of the subject. It...
Reviews
Reviews
Janet Dyson, Reviews Editor The two reviews in this edition will be of particular interest to those involved in teaching and research, and to teachers and students of philosophy. In the first review, Geoff Teece commends...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Religions and Worldviews: The way forward?
Since the publication of the Commission on RE’s report, the title of which heads our editorial this term, there has been much discussed and written about its recommendations. This writing, a sample of which is...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers What kind of education do we want?
For RE, in recent times autumn seems to be more significant than merely the start of another academic year. September 2018 saw the publication of the final report of the Commission on RE. As I write this it is October...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers The joys and challenges of ‘teaching religion’
When I was studying for my MEd at the University of Birmingham I majored in Curriculum Studies and Philosophy of Education, with a focus on ethics and epistemology. One of our lecturers, Dr Mike Degenhardt, arranged for...
Reviews
This article is for paying subscribers Reviews
Both of the reviewers in this issue have urged us, as professionals involved in RE, to make time for our own reading, going beyond texts we are obliged to read to explore those that provoke us to think more widely and...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers The ‘thinking community of RE’
I doubt if there is anybody reading this who is not at least aware of the Commission on Religious Education final report published in September 2018. Many of you will have seen Ben Wood on BBC Breakfast or heard him on...
Opinion
This article is for paying subscribers What’s the problem? Religion and human nature
Geoff Teece, RE teacher trainer at the University of Exeter, explores religions through the accounts they give of the flaws and failings of human nature. Are faiths best understood as prescriptions for ailing...
Theory and practice
This article is for paying subscribers What is meant by … ‘learning from religion’?
Though some key recent documents have dispensed with the distinction between learning ‘about’ and ‘from’ religion as a way of capturing the dynamic of RE, this image of RE has become embedded in the thinking...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers The nature and purpose of RE?
My friend and ex-colleague John Rudge often referred to RE as being like Halley’s Comet: it shoots into view every 75 years, making it possible for each of us to see it twice in his or her lifetime. The comet was last...
Reviews
Reviews
The two publications reviewed here are of particular value to teachers of RE and those involved in teacher education. Julia Diamond-Conway explores and critiques an exciting approach to developing a pedagogy for teaching...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Hello and goodbye
As the legendary comedians Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett didn’t say, this edition’s editorial is really a hello from me and a goodbye from him. In truth, Bill Gent said goodbye in his last editorial (September...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers RE: telling a positive story
We are all aware, I’m sure, of the disappointment felt in RE circles about the seeming lack of enthusiasm by government to implement much of what is recommended in the Commission on RE Report. There are, of course, the...
Theory and practice
The spirituality of mathematics
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty -- a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers It’s the learning, stupid!
‘It’s the economy, stupid’ was coined by James Carville, campaign strategist of Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign against sitting president George H.W. Bush. If we were preparing a...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers Research and pedagogy in RE
As most of you will be aware, a central purpose of Professional REflection in REtoday is to enable teachers to engage with research from academics working in the field, translated from academic journal writing into a...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers RE: learning from history; learning from research
When reading the contributions to this edition of Professional REflection, two quotations came to mind. The first was from the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana (1905): ‘Those who cannot remember the...
Editorial
This article is for paying subscribers RE: intimations for the future
As everyone is aware, the Commission on Religious Education – which was established to review the legal, education and policy frameworks for RE in schools in England, with the ultimate aim of improving its quality and...