Religious Education in Schools: Foundations and Objectives
Foundations and Nature of Religious Education
*Pedagogical Reasons for the Nature and Role of the School*
– Transmit culture systematically and critically. The school provides the specific service of “culturizing” systematically through an ongoing, ordered process, carried out with scientific rigor. It also fosters critical awakening so that the process of student socialization is consistent, responsible, and free. A true cultural formation is transmitted systematically and critically:
- To help students to stand vividly before the Spanish cultural tradition that is so steeped in Christianity. Education is part of that culture, to assimilate it, reject it, or to evolve from it.
- To educate students to be inserted into society critically in order to change what is necessary. Citizens must be prepared to change and improve society; the school has to educate their critical sense.
- To answer the ultimate meaning of life with all its implications: to offer a lifetime of open horizons in response to the great questions of human life.
– Inclusive education, homework. The formation of the individual covers all aspects: physical, psycho-emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, social, moral, and religious. The formation of the person also requires that religious education be integrated into the overall process of human training. Religious education complements and gives full meaning to this human formation, at least for believers.
*Curricular Foundations*
The sources of the curriculum are:
- The sociological source refers to the social and cultural demands on the education system.
- The psychological source is related to the developmental processes and student learning.
- The pedagogical source gathers both the existing theoretical framework and the educational experience gained in teaching.
- Finally, the curriculum has its epistemological source in the scientific knowledge that makes up the relevant curricular areas or subjects.
Curricular dimensions of Religious Education:
- Cultural and historical dimension of Religion (Sociocultural Source): It is highlighted in the curriculum to make clear that this is a subject that directly responds to the cultural source.
- Humanizing and ethical-moral dimension of Religion (Psychological source): Religious Education provides a humanizing dimension, ordering the students’ personal development, and moreover a moral and ethical dimension, through which the student has a table of values from which to live a free and critical life.
- Theological and scientific dimensions of religion (Epistemological Source).
- Educational dimension of Religion (Pedagogical source).
*Identity of Religious Education: Characteristics and Objectives*
FEATURES:
Optional Material: Although it is a mandatory offering for the center, it is optional for the student. / / Curricular materials: Framed in the context of school and academic and other curricular materials / / Material of faith: The teaching of religion is not just information about the event or religion in general, but rather a statement of a particular religion with all its religious implications.
AIMS OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN SCHOOL:
- Present the Christian message and event in order to dialogue with culture and achieve awareness of Christian roots.
- Present and discover religion, and specifically the Christian faith, as a critical body of society, in light of criteria that come from the Gospel and the Christian faith, and to transform society.
- Present the Christian message in its moral requirements and in order to achieve a liberating and humanizing attitude of the person. Provide a hierarchy of values and attitudes regarding the meaning of life. It seeks to educate the ethical and social dimension of the person in order to achieve a universal and realistic opening to address the problems of humanity, for success in life.
- Provide a Christian vision of man, history, and the world for its understanding and for dialogue with other worldviews and religious traditions, so that men may clarify their doubts about themselves, society, and history, looking for the meaning of life.
- Educate the religious dimension of the individual, in order to complete training, being able to obtain scientific and systematic training that is interdisciplinary and comprehensive.
*Religious Education in Relation to Other Related Subjects*
Religious Education as a Church Service: Relationship with Catechism
- Similarities: Both institutions are made by the church, so the “missio,” or the bishop’s permission, is needed. The content is the message and Christian events, and the recipients are baptized boys and girls.
- Differences: The areas where one or the other activity is performed are different (the task of catechesis is “Christian community,” while Religious Education is typical of the school). The objectives presented are different: while the goal of catechesis is that the Christian faith begins and matures within the community, the objective of Religious Education is to stimulate knowledge based on the Christian faith. The intent of the recipients is also different.
- Complementarity: There must be coordination between the parish and the school, between teachers, parents, and catechists.
Religious Education and Sociocultural Studies: Relationship with Other Fields of School
- Similarities: They evolve in the same field, the recipients and the teachers are the same, and there is the same methodological approach.
- Differences: The peculiarity of Religious Education in its approach to reality; it is different in nature and substance from the content of other disciplines. There is a different status of the teacher (as the teacher of religion is an envoy of the Church, while other teachers are free to interpret the facts).
- Complementarity: If there is a dialogue between Religious Education and other disciplines, it will result in the student’s comprehensive education.