THE RELIGIOUS DAY SCHOOL

Reflection on the Holocaust is still critical today to help all educators teach their students about good and evil in the world today. In particular, reflection on the Holocaust is crucial for religious educators to help people know and name God, as well as help them deal with questions of theodicy, within their everyday life experiences. This article examines the role of religious education in this post-Holocaust context. Because of the Holocaust, Christians ought to be educated in ways that free them from biased and slanderous views of people and their religions, and open them to more inclusive and hospitable ways of coexisting with all types of people in the world today.     

Outthinking the Media: Lessons from a Tennis Master

This article challenges contemporary religious educators to take notice of some of the competitive aspects of media, not to scapegoat the technological changes of twenty-first-century life, but to address the concerns of a people who feel overwhelmed by media's game plan yet long to work for a more invigorated future of American religious education. Just like winning tennis superstars, religious educators can master the media environment by recognizing, analyzing, and capitalizing on various options of resistance and consent in every media moment.     

THELMA AND LOUISE DO RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: A DIALOGUE FROM THE EDGE FOR LEADING WITH HOPE

The 1991 movie Thelma and Louise and its protagonists continue to be cultural icons for many women of all ages. With quotations, song lyrics, the metaphor of the edge from the film, and collected wisdom from pedagogy, two religious educators reflect on their vocations and leadership drawing implications for the teaching ministry. The themes address friendship, the journey, risk-taking, awakening, turning points, and the choice to keep going. The authors believe that friendship and co-creating dialogue offer their students hopeful models of leadership for ministry and higher education in mutually beneficial ways.     

Religious Educators are the Future

Abstract

Written by the Forum for Theological Exploration's Senior Director for Learning Design Patrick B. Reyes, and Senior Fellow Dori Baker, the guest editorial explores the way ten religious educators embody the future of Religious Education. Baker and Reyes tether religious education to matters of human existence. From climate change to mass incarceration, from racism to international immigration, the editorial argues that the future of religious education is addressing these most pressing, life-threatening issues. It challenges religious educators to see themselves as healers of a broken and violent world.     

Imagining the World: The Significance of Religious Worldviews for Science Education

This article begins by examining whether ‘science’ and ‘religion’ can better be seen as distinct or related worldviews, focusing particularly on scientific and religious understandings of biodiversity. I then explore how people can see the natural world, depending on their worldview, by looking at two contrasting treatments of penguin behaviour, namely that provided in the film March of the Penguins and in the children’s book And Tango Makes Three. I end by drawing some initial conclusions as to what might and what might not be included about religion in school science lessons. Science educators and teachers need to take account of religious worldviews if some students are better to understand the compass of scientific thinking and some of science’s key conclusions. It is perfectly possible for a science teacher to be respectful of the worldviews that students occupy, even if these are scientifically limited, while clearly and non-apologetically helping them to understand the scientific worldview on a particular issue.     

Countercultural Autobiography: Stories From the Underside and Education for Justice

This article describes a countercultural approach to autobiography in comparison with three dominant uses of autobiography in religious education. It defines countercultural autobiographies as stories from the underside of society meant as tools for education for justice and as invitations for transformative dialogue in institutional and societal settings. The article's goal is to invite religious educators, in seminaries and faith communities, to begin a dialogue for finding ways to use countercultural autobiographies to inform theories and practices of religious education that will educate us all in the path of God's vision of justice for the world.     

教育家办学背景下的校长领导力刍议

教育家办学是时所必然,学校校长具有成为教育家的最有利条件。在教育家办学的时代背景下。校长只有不断加强自身领导力的建设与提升,才能顺应时代要求,真正成长为教育家,进而更好地实现教育家办学。校长应拥有教育家的情怀,要通过培养自己的学校愿景规划能力、课程和教学领导力、引领和激发教师活力的能力、统筹学校发展的能力、社会协调及学校经营能力、人格魅力和道德感召力,努力使自己成为教育家型的校长。     

Developments in religious studies: towards a dialogue with religious education

The early days of non-confessional, multi-faith religious education in Britain benefitted from close collaboration between academics in universities, teacher educators and teachers. This article attempts to initiate a revival of such a dialogue, by summarizing some developments in religious studies at university level and suggesting possible implications for religious education in schools. After a brief retrospective of phenomenological and ethnographic approaches in religious studies and religious education, it examines feminist, queer and postcolonial theory as well as the changing religious landscape in contemporary Britain and the wider world. Themes emerging from this analysis prompt the following proposals: to take an anti-essentialist approach to ‘religion’ and ‘religions’; to stress diversity within and between traditions; to recognise complexity and change in religion and society; to acknowledge both local and global contexts; to focus on real people and seldom-heard voices; and to criticize dominant discourses, whether as patriarchal, heteronormative or colonialist.     

Redefining Leadership: Lessons from an Early Education Leadership Development Initiative

This study examined how experienced early educators developed as change agents in the context of a leadership development program. Unlike in many other professions, experienced early educators lack opportunities to grow throughout their careers and access the supports they need to lead change in their classrooms, organizations, the profession, and beyond. This qualitative study brings a relational and entrepreneurial leadership theory lens to its analysis of the experiences of 43 early educators as they co-created pathways forward as leaders for change. The study defines leadership as a process of influencing change to improve early care and education, and not reserved just for those with a formal leadership position. Results show how educators came to see themselves as leaders and pursued different paths to making change and driving improvement. The study offers a new conceptual mapping of a leadership development ecosystem for supporting educators’ capacity to identify as leaders as well as lead improvement and innovation. The paper concludes with lessons learned and recommendations for strengthening the leadership infrastructure to support early educator leadership for change and innovation.     

Legacy Projects: Helping Young People Respond Productively to the Challenges of a Changing World

How might educators help young people respond to current and future challenges of a changing world? In this article, I describe how educators can design Legacy Projects to provide young people with opportunities to make positive and lasting differences in their lives, schools, communities, and beyond. The connection between legacy projects and the kinds of transformative leadership skills outlined in Sternberg’s (2017) Active Concerned Citizenship and Ethical Leadership (ACCEL) model is also discussed.     

Futures education for the gifted

Futures education is an important area for educators of the gifted who are interested in leadership potential for it develops those skills which students can use to meet the issues and challenges of today's and tomorrow's world.     

A Meta-Analysis on the Effects and Contributions of Public,Public Charter,and Religious Schools on Student Outcomes

An extensive meta-analysis, including 90 studies, was undertaken on the effects of religious private schools, charter schools, and public schools. The study explores the relationship between each of these school types and student outcomes. Additional analyses were done to determine the strengths and weaknesses of these institutions in a broad sense. The results indicate that attending private religious schools is associated with the highest level of academic achievement among the three school types, even when sophisticated controls are used to adjust for socioeconomic status. Students from public charter schools, however, performed no better than their counterparts in other public schools. Supplementary analyses indicate several ways that educators from religious and public schools can learn from one another.     

A Grounded Theory of Counselor Educators' Academic Leadership Development

Counselor educators are well‐equipped to serve as academic leaders, yet little is known about what factors influence their engagement experiences. This grounded theory provides a theoretical model of academic leadership engagement based on interviews with 20 counselor educators with academic leadership experience. Implications for facilitating academic leadership engagement are provided.     

COLLABORATING WITH PEOPLE TO STUDY "THE POPULAR": IMPLEMENTING PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH STRATEGIES IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

This article seeks to describe the theoretical foundation upon which the author has pursued research into questions of how religious educators could and should interact with popular culture. The methodology employed is most often labelled "participatory action research," and is used in an attempt to bring together the various disciplines of theology, psychology, media studies, and religious education into one conversation that sheds light on the dilemmas facing religious educators in a mass-mediated context. In many ways the choice of which methodology to use to pursue these questions has its roots in the situatedness of the author's own educational journey. Locating herself in a particular context leads into a discussion of the distinctions between "method," "methodology," and "epistemology"; and from there into a very brief consideration of "standpoint" epistemology and its utility in the convergence of feminist practice and religious educational practice. From there her understanding of participatory action research, and how that methodology has worked to structure a collaboration with other religious educators around the use of media literacy within religious education is explicitly described.     

Implementing professional development in invitational education

Abstract

The professional development of educators is seen as an ingredient essential to creating effective schools and raising learners' performance. Since educators have the most direct contact with learners, and considerable control over what is taught and how it is taught, it is reasonably assumed that enhancing educators' knowledge, skills and attitudes is a critical step towards improving learner performance. To ‘reculture’ schools according to the philosophy of Invitational Education in order to increase learner performance means to develop collaborative work cultures that focus, in a sustained way, on the continuous preparation and development of educators in relation to creating favourable learning conditions for all learners. Moreover, the aim of Invitational Education is to create an entire school environment that intentionally invites success for everyone in the school. This article attempts to explain key factors that may influence the effective implementation of Invitational Education as an example of professional development for educators. The following major categories are described: learning styles of educators; educators' commitment to change; transformational leadership; out-of-school conditions; in-school conditions; and requirements of programmes.     

Cultural Isomorphs of Educational Administration: Reflections on Western-centric Approaches to Values and Leadership

This article proposes that the achievement of conditions approximating reflective practice in educational administration in an increasingly globalized society is a function of three particular leadership qualities—sophistication, sensitivity and synergy. A case for the achievement of these conditions is presented in three phases. First, a context is established for promoting reflective administrative practice by looking at the prevailing or dominant social isomorphs associated with school administration in the English speaking world. Second, several robust and empirically verified theory perspectives on values derived from the work of Hodgkinson are presented as supports to the achievement of sophisticated and sensitive educational leadership practice. Although grounded in theory, these perspectives are presented in a practical and easily understood fashion that is relevant to school leaders. Third, the application and use of these perspectives in the setting of educational leadership practices is demonstrated. The article concludes by warning that since much of the prevailing literature has a North American bias, educators in Asia need to be alert to the potential of misleading cultural isomorphs.     

THE UNIVERSITY PASTORATE MOVEMENT∗

Building on the author's experience in leadership development in Roman Catholic parishes and recent work in the field of congregational studies, this essay examines the religious educator's role as a catalyst in the transformation of the culture of the local church. As an alternative to an instructional/schooling approach to religious education, the paper proposes a model of congregational education directed specifically to the transformation of the corporate life of the faith community by its members working together to reshape concrete behaviors, structures, and roles in order to carry out the church's mission and ministry.

This argument is developed through a discussion of foundational assumptions about the significance of congregational life for the church's educational mission and a brief case study illustrating central dynamics in the process of congregational education. The paper concludes with observations about the range of skills required of congregational educators, especially their ability to understand and evaluate the complex dynamics of congregational life in a disciplined way.     

哈萨克语颜色词的文化含义

颜色词是语言词汇系统的一个分支系统,它能直接地反映一个民族的世界观、宗教信仰、社会经济和生产生活情况;反过来,这些因素又会影响颜色词的意义发展。通过深入分析影响哈萨克先民颜色观的环境、图腾崇拜、时空观念和宗教信仰等因素,探究哈萨克语颜色词所蕴藏的深层文化含义,有助于人们更深入地了解哈萨克族及其语言文化,从而更好地保护并传承哈萨克文化。     

Examining some aspects of the worldview of students in Australian Catholic schools: some implications for religious education

Abstract

Religious education always takes place within a cultural context. In recent decades, this context has changed significantly and Catholic schools now engage with a world that is very different from the immediate post-Vatican 2 era. This changed cultural context shapes the views, beliefs and practices of students in Catholic schools. One way of exploring this contextualisation is to describe the worldviews of young people and to discuss some of the major features of these. This paper reports on an ongoing study of students in Catholic schools. It records how they see themselves, their involvement in Church and their religious expression. Results indicate nuanced responses that invite sophisticated analysis of young people and worldview. One clear trend to emerge is the changing perception of students as they progress through the school system. This finding is in accord with a view that describes religious engagement of young people reaching a plateau at a relatively early age. Some of the implications of this study for religious educators in Catholic schools will be drawn out and discussed with a number of recommendation made for practitioners.