Unit 1 INTRODUCTION TO RELIGIOUS STUDIES SYLLABUS
Key Unit competence: Explain the rationale and
components of primary ReligiousStudies
Introductory activity
Read the case study below and answer the questions.
Nyiransabimana and Alexis are student teachers in Social Studies
option in one of the TTCs in Rwanda. Musabyimana does not master the
content of Religious studies for primary schools. However, she is very
enthusiastic to study well Religious Studies in view of getting knowledge
and enough skills in Religious Studies teaching in primary schools. On
the contrary, Alexis does not like Religious Studies. According to him,
they are not very important since everyone knows what is good and what
is bad. He hopes to pass well other courses.
1. Between the two student teachers who is right and who is wrong?
Using various available resources like syllabus and textbooks,
justify your opinion.
2. Using the lower or upper primary Religious Studies syllabus,
identify the main components of it.
3. Using the Primary Religious studies syllabus, discuss the topics
which seem to be very difficult for you as a future religious studiesteacher .
1.1 Importance of studying Religious Studies
Activity 1.1
Basing on your personal experience and using various resources, research
on the importance of Religious Studies or religion in the society as well
as its importance to the learners.
Fundamentally, man is a religious being (homo religio) which implies that
man cannot be separated from the ‘chains’ of religion. Nevertheless, it is quite
difficult to find out a satisfactory definition of religion. Alternatively, Ninian
Smart described religion as a « complex object », having six dimensions :
doctrinal, mythological, ethical, ritual, experiential, and social (Holm :
1984). From this perspective, studying religion consists of looking at the the
way in which people actually experience and practice their religion: aspects
such as worship, rites, customs, festivals, sacred writings, codes of ethics,
institutions and communities and their traditions.
Therefore, through Religious Studies pupils are helped not only to
understand religious beliefs and practices but also they are offered some
of the values and challenges proposed by religions to mankind. It is in this
way that religion plays a great role in individuals’ lives and their respective
societies at different dimensions such as spiritual, mental, social, economic,
moral, political, civic, environmental, and so on.
Thus, religion and Religious Studies are important to people in general and
to learners in particular. Gates (2006) argued that:
‘The bracketing out of religion, for whatever reason, from within the
public process of educating citizens is seriously debilitating. To have
any vibrancy, citizenship and education related to it must give more
attention to the fundamental matter of beliefs and believing. That
entails scrutinizing religion as a common ingredient in the human
condition, with a potential to transform, for both good and ill. I claim
that the extent to which the moral roots of citizenship and citizenship
education succeed in drawing on the energies of religion and refining
its aberrations may even determine the operational worth and lastingoutcomes of public education in any country’.
1.1.1 The role of religion in socitey
Human beings are social, rational, emotional and different. As such, there
is a need of managing differences and emotions and searching for answers
asked by their intellect. Religion helps in one way or another to meet those
needs. More concretely, religion:
▪ Provides answers to fundamental and existential questions such as
the origin of the world, the meaning and purpose of life, existence of
God, evil, death and suffering.
▪ Allows their adherent to live the present without fear and despair by
bringing about hope and promising a good future.
▪ Provides a moral or ethical framework for all human being. Many
societies derived their ethical conducts, laws and other regulations
from Religion.
▪ Promotes cooperation and solidarity among the adherents of the same
religions.
▪ Contributes to the well-being of the society through promoting mutual
respect and tolerance.
▪ Develops rights attitude towards life, their environment, interpersonal
relationships and community life.
▪ Promotes social values such as faithfulness, generosity, honesty,
peace, respect and responsibility by which people come to make good
decisions and sound judgment.
▪ Helps people to build harmonious and peaceful commUnities.
▪ Gives sense of purpose and of belonging to the society.
1.1.2 Importance of studying Religious Studies to primary
school learners
Religious Studies in primary schools aim at increasing knowledge about
God and faith in Him (for those who believe), helping learners to develop
good relationships with their fellow learners, living a meaningful life and
being good citizens. Achieving these objectives is important for the learnersin various aspects.
Generally, studying Religious Studies helps to ensure the holistic growth of
the learners. Particularly, doing Religious Studies:
▪ Positively change attitudes and behaviors of learners.
▪ Instill moral values in the learners’life.
▪ Create and develop awareness about the values and their significance
and role. It helps in thinking critically and making appropriate social,
moral and spiritual decisions.
▪ Shape the character and conscience of learners through providing
them with education values, creative moral inspirations and guidance.
▪ Help learners to know about various living and non-living organismsand their interaction with the environment
Application activity 1.1
Having studied the rationale of Religious Studies for the society and for
learners, and being a student teacher in social studies option, adviseJohnson who considers studying Religious Studies as a waste of time.
1.2 Components of primary Religious Studies syllabus
Activity 1.2
1. Read the Lower and Upper Primary Religious Studies syllabus and
identify the main components of it.
2. Using Religious Studies Syllabus for primary schools, discuss the
role of each component in relation to teaching and learning.
3. Identify the topics which seem difficult to be taught and explainwhy you would not be comfortable with them.
Religious Studies and Social Studies are contained in one syllabus for the
lower and upper primary schools. Furthermore, the Religious Studies part
of the syllabus is divided into two components: Christian Religious Studies
and Islamic Religious Studies.
Moreover, the whole syllabus is internally structured into two main parts:
the Preliminary part and the syllabus Units. The first part introduces
the whole syllabus, presents the Rationale for the review and highlights
pedagogical approaches, competences and useful resources in social and
Religious Studies. The second part develops each Unit to be taught and
learnt from P1 to P6.
Each component of the primary Religious Studies syllabus plays an
important role at every step of the teaching and learning process.
Description of components
The Christian Religious Studies component in primary schools is distinctively
developed at the lower primary level and the upper primary level. Also, the
instruction languages are respectively Kinyarwanda and English.
Components are developed in various Units and each class has a specific
number of Units to be covered. For the Christian Religious Studies, there
are some Units which are commonly taught in schools as agreed on by the
education advisors of different christian denominations. There are also other
Units which are specific to doctrines of different christian denominations.
For example, the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the Roman Catholic
Church; the understanding of the Sabbath for the Seventh Day Adventists
(SDA), etc.
Concerning the Islamic Religious Studies component, Units are essentially
Islam based. Its development emphasizes on values that can make young
people good citizens in the world.
Understanding the content of primary Religious Studies and major
concepts
Student teachers should clearly understand the content of Religious Studies
and its key concepts. In fact, intending teacher ought to consider the
relationship between the contents and their future professional needs. Those
contents are mainly related to the major elements of Religious Studies suchas biblical studies (texts and/or history and/or theology); church history;
philosophy and/or ethics; world’s religions, including Christianity, liturgy,
etc. To have a broad and deep knowledge in this, will allow student teachers
to efficiently ensure in the future the teaching and learning process of this
subject matter.
However, being knowledgeable in Religious Studies only is not enough.
The aims, intentions and methods of the course are more significant as a
preparation for Religious Studies; respect, sympathy and tolerance, creative
thinking, critical insight and disciplined study, combined with commitment,
personal enthusiasm and intent are also essential qualities for the study of
Religious Education as much as for schoolteachers and pupils. These are
the more necessary when Religious education is related to, or integrated
with, other subject areas or linked with the need of moral, multicultural orsocial education (Marrat: 1984).
Unit Structure
Lower primary
Upper primary syllabus Unit:
Application activity1.2
Discuss the importance of major components in Religious studies syllabusin relation to teaching and learning.
1.3 Generic competences and cross cutting issues related to
Religious Studies lessons
Activity 1.3
Suppose that you are teaching in P4 the following topic: “Respect for
God’s creatures”.You invite learners for a nature walk around part of the
school compound and observe creaures for ten minutes. Then, return to
class and you ask the pupils to discuss and present as a group what they
found out and their importance.
1. Which competences do you expect from learners to develop while
performing the assigned task?
2. Which cross-cutting issues will you adress as they discuss onrespect of God’s creature?
The selection of the types of learning activities and teaching and learning
methods must focus on two things:
▪ Competences that the learners are able to demonstrate throughout
and at the end of the learning process.
▪ Cross cutting issues to be addressed.
Religion as a subject has its own way to develop competences and address
cross cutting issues.
1.3.1 Generic competences in Religious Studies
Critical thinking and problem-solving skills
Critical thinking has been described as “the intellectually disciplined
process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing,
synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by,
observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide
to belief and action” (Scriven & Co : 1987). These competences are part of
the Religious Studies process as they help students know in proper terms,
what the teacher is talking about and they help them in an exploratory way
to relate to the text in search for relevant solutions.
Critical thinking competences are developed as far as leaners assisted by
the teacher strive to know about the subject from more angles than one
and to consult as many sources as possible to a realistic picture of the said
idea could be created. Therefore, critical thinking skills are developed in
Religious Studies by asking learners open-minded questioning, leading
them think imaginatively and broadly, encouraging creativity and using
demonstrative examples, involving them in productive debate, organizinginteractive games and teaching them independence.
Creativity and innovation
All people are by nature creative. Indeed, to develop as a person is to undergo
a process of creation and to know anything is to invent it. In education,
creativity is used to alter parttens of conformity, streotyping and prejudice.
Educationally, to enhance the competences of creativity and innovation go
with placing a positive value upon stress and conflict, by affirming that the
inner life may be source of truth, by working in a context where there is
no absolute human authority and by recognizing and accepting personaldifferences (Loder : 1984).
In Religious Studies, the teacher involves learners in learning activities that
enable them to take initiatives and use imagination beyond the provided
knowledge and to generate new ideas or ways of dealing with situations or
issues. For instance, the teacher can also help learners develop creativity
and innovation by asking them to compose songs about the life of first
Christian community when teaching that Unit in P5.
Research and problem solving
An effective education does not only focus on the transmission of
knowledge; it also stresses much on the development of capabilities of
searching autonomously for non-given information and aspects of truth.
Therefore, the teacher is supposed to groom a learner into an “agent of his
or her own learning”. In other words, teachers should help learners become
“researchers”.
In Religious Education, research skills development is fostered by creating
attitudes to learning. This requires learning activities that enable learners
to learn by themselves. For example, the teacher can initiate real life
situations that touch the reality of learners and move them to feel the
responsibility to research for solutions. This can also be developed by using
learner-centered methods. The teacher can for example invite pupils for
a nature walk so as to observe and identify God’s creatures, discuss theproblems associated with biodiversity and come up with possible solutions.
Communication
Communication plays a great role in education; knowledge and skills,
attitudes and values are acquired and transmitted through communicationmeans. Therefore, learners are to be helped develop communication skills.
In Religious education, communication competences are developed through
the teaching and learning process of its content. The teacher should ensure
the proper use of the language of instruction and correct learners whenever
they make mistakes. He or she should also encourage learners to actively
participate in hihe or sher classes. On the other hand, he or she has to be
attentive in listening learners’ interventions and reading their answers in
view of appreciating their ideas and correcting their mistakes in language
structure and relevant vocabulary used in religion. Moreover, the teachercan use learner-centered methods like group discussions and presentations,
role play and debate where learners can have an opportunity to develop
communication skills.
Cooperation and interpersonal management
Religious Studies are related to, or integrated with other human sciences.
As such, they are also meant to improve human values. When those values
are well assimilated, they become competences. From this perspective,
Religious Studies can effectively and concretely develop the competences
of cooperation and interpersonal management. This is possible when the
teacher uses active teaching and learning methods like group discussions,
role play and debate, think pair and share, and so forth.
Through these exercises, pupils indeed learn to cooperate with others as
a team in whatever task assigned to them practice positive ethical moral
values and respect for the rights, and accept feelings and views of others.
Some topics seem more useful than others in developing cooperation and
interpersonal management competences. For instance, teaching the “Acts
of charity and faith” in P5 or “God’s creatures” Unit in P4 could be more
effective of practical activities are assigned to learners. In fact, these are
topics which advocate for personal, family and community health, hygiene
and nutrition, environmental conservation and respond creatively to the
variety of challenges encountered in life.
Lifelong learning
Generally, competences are combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes.
They are needed for personal development, employability, social inclusion
and active citizenship. It is the task of education to enable young people
to develop their competences so as to give them the best possible start in
life. In this vein, lifelong long learning competence is described as nonstop
learning in our lives; it is essential in satisfying the rapidly changing
societal needs (Wang : 2008).
In the lifelong learning process, learners should possess the following
qualifications; “Self-Planning their learning”, “Self-assessment of their
learning”, “Become more active learners”, “Learn in any environment”,
“Peer-learning and teacher-oriented learning skills”, “The ability of
applying different learning strategies in different situations” (Knapper, C.,
& Cropley, A. J. : 2000). To acquire these abilities, students need teachers
to assist them develop habits of lifelong learning, adjust themselves to the
changes they encounter in their lives and renew themselves constantly(Demiralay, R., & Karadeniz, Ş.:2008).
In Religious Education, lifelong learning competence can be developed
through teaching and learning activities which focus on the demands of
individuals, taking responsibility in their learning process, building up
learners’ potentials at utmost degree and increasing the social welfare by
assisting their development on learning skills.
1.3.2 Addressing Cross cutting issues in Religious Studies
Cross-cutting issues are integrated in Religious Studies activities and
examples as well as in the standing Units that are to be taught. Below are
examples on how the eight identified crosscutting issues can be addressed
in Religious Studies.
Peace and values education
The overall purpose of Religion and Ethics is the behavioral and positive
attitude change in the learners. In all activities, after exploring the Holy
Scripture passages, learners are helped to live and apply what they have
learnt in everyday life. Precisely, peace and values education is included
in each and every lesson more especially in the application activities and
in the End Unit assessment tasks. In some Units, learners are called to
practiceUnity in diversity and to respect other people’s beliefs, and to live
in harmony as Children of the same Heavenily Father.
Gender equality
This cross-cutting issue is dealt with in Religion and Ethics especially in
the activities of Unit 5 about Christian family where the interdependence
and complementarity of family members is highlighted. Involve both girls
and boys in all activities: No activity is reserved only to girls or boys. Boys
and girls should read equally the Holy Scriptures in the classroom without
discrimination. Teachers should ensure equal participation of both girls
and boys during reading the Word of God and during carrying out other
assigned tasks
Inclusive Education
Involve all learners, even the special needs education students and thephysically disabled children, in all activities without any bias. For example:
Allow a learner with physical disability (using wheelchair) to take notes orlead during assigned tasks. The needs of every learner should be catered for
Standardization culture
All lessons involve scripture readings from which we get the moral behavior
to adopt in our daily life. Students are invited to stick and stand for their
values. Decision making and right use of the conscience will help them to
live a standard life in matters of morality and avoid dichotomous life.
Environment and sustainability
In all lessons imbedded in Religious Studies, the teacher encourages
learners to recognize the importance of nature and the interdependence
of all creatures should be upheld to enhance peaceful coexistence. Hence,
learners glorify God by protecting and respecting his creatures and taking
positive attitudes of beautifying the world.
Financial education
Financial education is very necessary for students in gaining and spending
money. Learners are encouraged to have a reasoned spirit in gaining and
spending money. Earning money should be just and fair. Spending money
should be reasonable by remembering the values of indifference and
modesty.
Genocide Studies
Genocide Studies as a competence consists of understanding circumstances
that lead to genocide and those which led to the 1994 Genocide against Tutsis
particularly. It also provides an understanding of the circumstances that
led to the remarkable story of recovery and establishment of reconciliation,
social cohesion and national unity in Rwanda. Nevertheless, the root cause
of genocide is surely the lack of values and most specifically the sense of
human dignity which is a core value in most of world religions. Therefore,
Religious Studies can help student teachers to comprehend the sacredness
and inviolability of human life and the role of every individual in ensuring
that genocide never happens again.
For this, the participatory and interactive learner-centered approach to
teaching and learning process seems to be more appropriate. This approach
allows focusing on case studies and individuals’ testimonies and viewing
them from the perspective of religious beliefs and doctrines such the fifth
commandment of Ten Commandments of God “You shall not kill,” the Word
of God, etc.
Comprehensive Sexuality Education
Religious Studies aim at helping learners to positively change behaviours
and attitudes. Also, they develop in learners the ability to relate not only
with God but also with others. From this perspective, Religious Studies
should help to address the Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE)
competence specifically with regard to sexuality and reproductive life. In
fact, CSE is defined as an age-appropriate and culturally relevant approach
to teaching about sex and relationships by providing scientifically accurate,realistic and non-judgmental information.
In addressing the CSE in Religious Studies, teachers should explore all
social norms and religious values and factors related to sexuality in order
to address them through discussions, case studies, storytelling and field
study. Pedagogically, teachers should consider views from learners about
their sexual life and reproductive health, as opportunities to build on in
discussion. Thus, learners will be enabled to establish goals and achieve
them, make good decisions related to parenthood, make responsible choices
about their sexual and social relationships, explain and clarify feelings,values and attitudes, promote and sustain risk-reducing behaviour.
Application activity 1.3
If you are given to teach the topic “Ten Commandments” discuss crosscutting
issues you would address and how you would develop creativityand innovation, and communication, in learners?
End Unit Assessment 1
Primary learners are between 7 and 13 years old, according to you and to
what you have learnt in this unit and what you have learnt in Foundations
of education about the socio-affective development of the child, why do we
teach them religion and what content are adapted to the them. Justify your
position.
1. Discuss the importance of studying religious studies/Education to the
society and to the leaners?
2. All components of the lower or upper primary Religious studies
syllabus are important for the teacher in the teaching and learning
process. In your understanding, how are the following components in
teaching and learning of Religous Studies in primary level important.
▪ Assessment Approach
▪ Resources
▪ Syllabus Units
▪ References
▪ Pedagogical Approach
3. Discuss the components of units and their link in teaching and learning
process
4. Discuss the information found in the religious studies content in
primary that seems to be difficult for you.
5. Discuss the generic competences and cross-cutting issues that can be
addressed in teaching the following topics :
▪ Importance of relationship and friendship (Unit 3: P6 Christian)▪ Works of charity to the people in needs ( Unit 5, P4 Islam)