Muhd Hafiz
Aug 9, 2017 · 4 min read

In this short essay, I responded to a chapter by Linda Lantieri — A vision of schools with spirit, and explore the idea of religious literacy in Singapore schools.

The article by Lantieri (2004) reminded me of a recent article I read from the Straits Times by Lim (2016) who put forth the idea of having religious literacy in Singapore’s secular classroom. Although Lantieri (2004) proposed in fostering and building the “spiritual life of young people while respecting both the wide range of religious convictions held by many” (p.192), Lim (2016) proposed to have a structured education about the various faiths beginning from the early school years of a child’s life. However, I feel this could pose a lot of problems and I will refer to both Lim (2016) and Lantieri (2004) as I explore these two proposals.

Lim (2016) argued that to strengthen social harmony, there is a need to have a “deeper awareness and understanding of religions”. However, I beg to differ because we have had a long history of social harmony whether it is race or religion (minus off the racial riots we had back in 1964). The idea of social harmony here should not be based on just the teaching of religion because it should include everything else that an individual needs. We cannot exclude the fact that there might be some who already have religious education through weekend classes, or some who might not come from a religious family. Introducing religious education into the secular curriculum might not be widely accepted, I feel. On the other hand, Lantieri (2004) believed that schools need to “place a high value on self-knowledge, healthy interpersonal relationships, the building of our community, and care for our planet” (p.196) which sounds exactly like the current Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) that we have in schools currently. But is that enough?

In answering this question, we need to take a look at the aims of the CCE curriculum which is to “inculcate values and build competencies in our students to help them grow to be good individuals and useful citizens” (SDCD, 2014, p.1). Although the goals are stated as such, it is prudent to consider that CCE aims for one to be a good citizen and that it does not really build one’s spiritual being. However, having self-knowledge for example would be interesting because CCE is mostly treated as another lesson and both teachers and students do not take it beyond what they require to do based on the syllabus. Thus, having a different approach might be useful for everyone in class. We are so imbued with catching up with syllabus one after another that as teachers we do not stop to think how to make full use of the current situations presented to us and make it an advantageous one where deeper values can be inculcated.

The other question that we might want to ask is who will be teaching these lessons. Are teachers capable of addressing this in class? As Lantieri (2004) mentioned, such teaching has to come “from the quality of each teacher’s own inner life” (p.203) which makes the learning different from one class to another considering that different teachers have different experiences that they would want to share. This is one where I feel that might be difficult to manage unless of course certain values are being emphasised for the week or the month and teachers are free to share from their own experiences and promote activities that contribute to the understanding of the value that is being discussed. This might work because children will then be able to have their “human spirits uplifted and their inner lives nourished” (p.204). However with the suggestion by Lim (2016), it might be valuable to consider religious literacy as more of a moral literacy, which is commonly done but not done enough within our secular schools. Religious education might be too difficult and complex for everyone to consider unless of course, you are referring to madrasahs or mission schools, where religious knowledge is being imparted as part of their curriculum.

Finally, I find that Lantieri (2004) ended with a thoughtful anecdote in that “every aspect of the human spirit is welcomed in our homes, communities, and especially our schools” (p.205) which is something very positive because in having that as an ideal, we can eliminate all the negativities in the world. Although religious education cannot be brought into our secular school contexts, as teachers, we are still able to bring some of the values in and inculcate our students the ideas and beliefs behind these values. In engaging the students at a very young age, the world will then be a safe and inclusive place for everyone to live in.

Hafiz graduated with both a Diploma in Education (Credit) and Bachelor of Arts in Education (Hons). His interests include: 1) Neo-liberalism in education, 2) Education system and policies, and 3) Linguistics issues. He has written a paper on “Criteria primary school teachers use when selecting dictionary for their classrooms” as part of his final year thesis.

Muhd Hafiz

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BA in Education (Hons)