Who am I, the religious educator? Religion in the formation of a moral compass

Abstract

The formation of identity in a secularized world is different from formation in a religious oriented society. In this situation, educating young people and guiding their personhood formation is even more a task of connecting to the pupils from out of your own heart. A Catholic religious teacher can be a mirror for these young people when answering three questions for her or himself and share these openly with her or his pupils. At the micro level: Who am I as a person? What is in my soul?; at the meso level: What am I doing as a professional and religious teacher?, and at the macro level: Where do I work? What is my context? And how do I deal with that? Keywords Moral compass • Religious education • Identity • Teaching through religion This article addresses the question of "Who am I, the religious educator?" It concerns both the teacher in secondary education and the instructor in tertiary education teacher training. The teacher or instructor's very self plays a significant role when the formation of (mostly young) people is the central goal. This immediately means something for the attitude and skills of the educator. The educator needs receptivity her or himself if the students are to open up and become more receptive. This openness and authenticity are an essential part of religious education (Baumfield 2015). Something is learned when those who take the role of educator upon themselves hold their experiences up as a mirror, or as an invitation to the students. Pupils will have to be formed in such a way as to equip them to deal with the many choices that they have to make every day. In other words, they have to develop a moral compass. This compass will have to be a conscious set of values and motivational reasons that young people construct for themselves in today's world and which they can use in the future when faced with difficult choices. This article focuses particularly on the role religion, tradition and worldviews can play in secularized classrooms, whether the school subject is 'citizenship education', 'worldview education' or 'religious education'. Traditions that are rooted in the past have to be openly discussed in a genuine * Monique van Dijk-Groeneboer

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“…Indonesia's cultural diversity reflects the principles of inclusivity and interfaith harmony, which can be an important basis in Islamic Religious Education teaching approaches [8], [9]. The concepts of tolerance, mutual cooperation, and a sense of responsibility towards others, which are reflected in religious activities, can be integrated as moral values that underlie Islamic teachings [10], [11]. Learning Islamic religious education can emphasize the importance of respecting differences, encouraging interfaith cooperation, ISSN:2722-628X …”

Religious Education in (Post-)Pandemic Times; Becoming a Resilient Professional in a Teacher Academy

“…The EVS divides values into survival values (emphasis on economic and physical security) versus self-expression values (subjective well-being and quality of life on the one hand, and traditional values (religious beliefs and absolute moral standards) versus secular-rational values (freedom for individual choices and high tolerance of the opinions and beliefs of others) on the other. The EVS has nothing to say about how values are, or can be, influenced by education.For twenty years, I have been conducting surveys every five years in the Netherlands to determine what values young people have(van Dijk-Groeneboer and Maas 2001, 2005;van Dijk-Groeneboer et al 2008;van Dijk-Groeneboer and Brijan 2013; van Dijk-Groeneboer and Van Herpen-de Regt 2019). Similar results are also emerging from our research in Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic These results show how different the values amongst young people are in the various countries in Europe, and point us to how to develop these values, combine and mediate them and how to shape the thought patterns and actions based on them in these different contexts.…”