Oslo, 2-5 September 2004 - The Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or
Belief
Oslo University College, Faculty of Education.
Presented at IARTEM Conference, Tartu,
September 20-23 2001. Published in Mikk J., Meisalo V., Kukemelk H. &
Horsley M. (Eds): Learning and Educational
Media. The Third IARTEM Volume. (University of Tartu), 139-147
In 1997 the new Curriculum for Primary and
Lower Secondary School introduced a new religious subject with emphasis not
only on Christianity, but also on all the other main religions as well as
philosophy and secular world views. This subject is compulsory for all
children, whether they are Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Hindu, Muslim or Atheist.
Cultural understanding, dialogue and identity building are in focus, and a
narrative approach is seen as a unique way of constructing such an identity.
However, there are quite a few challenges connected with a narrative approach
in a multi-faith Religious Education. This is a fact both as far as the
identity building project is concerned as well as the values introduced through these narratives. On the assumption that
the basic cultural and religious stories promote identity and cultural
understanding, it is appropriate to ask the following questions: Which ideals are conveyed through the
religious stories? How do the stories talk about human beings, gender and ethnicity? Are the stories promoting human dignity? From a critical point of
view we will now look into these aspects of the religious stories as they are
presented in the Norwegian RE textbooks. The focuses will be on
1) Stories related to women – whether they represent traditional role
models or they represent pro-active and independent women. The example here
will be the presentation of Sita from
the Hindu tradition.
2) How the textbooks present stories dealing with “self and Others”, in
relation to ethnicity. The example here will be the presentation of the Exodus story from the Bible.
Both girls and boys need to meet story
characters with whom to identify. These characters therefore should be as
complete and complex as possible. It is a fact, however, that the religious
stories represent a challenge for modern women - and men - when it comes to gender issues. These stories were
created in patriarchal societies, and therefore they often, explicitly or
implicitly, advocate a view on gender that does not correspond with the values
school-teachers are obliged to promote. Still, there are different ways of
dealing with these stories. They can be read, interpreted, presented and
commented on from different perspectives.
In our analysis we have looked into how textbooks and teacher's
handbooks deal with Biblical characters like Ruth, Martha, Mary and other
female disciples of Jesus - and women from the Islamic tradition.
Our example today is Sita,
the heroine of the great Indian epic Ramayana.
We shall look into examples from textbooks and teacher's handbooks published by
three Norwegian publishing companies[1].
We find different ways of dealing with Ramayana in these books.
Ramayana is the story about prince Rama and his wife Sita. Rama is an
avatar or incarnation of the great God Vishnu, sent to earth to fight the demon
king Ravana of Lanka. As Rama is an incarnation of Vishnu, Sita is an
incarnation of Lakshmi, Vishnus wife, and a representation of the great
Goddess.
The plot goes like this: Rama is exiled to the woods for fourteen years
due to intrigues at court about the succession to the throne. As a devoted wife
should do, Sita follows her husband into exile. In the woods they face problems
of different kinds. At last Ravana abducts Sita and takes her to Lanka. With
the help of a monkey army, lead by Hanuman, Rama finds Sita and fights Ravana
in a big battle. Sita is set free, but Rama will not take her back as his wife
because she has lived in the house of another man - even though she repeatedly
assures that she has resisted Ravana and been a faithful wife. But she is no
longer considered pure, as she has to be as the wife of a king. Voluntarily she
goes through an ordeal by fire to prove her cleanness. Rama and Sita return to
their kingdom and Rama takes over the throne, which rightfully is his[2].
In Hinduism Sita is traditionally seen as the perfect woman and ideal
wife, Rama as the perfect man and ideal husband, and together they are the
ideal couple.
Ramayana is a long story with various episodes and themes. It is
therefore quite possible to present Sita in different ways. A challenging and
difficult part of the story is Sita’s ordeal by fire. All the textbooks omit
this part of the story. Neither is it mentioned in the teacher's handbooks. It
is a central episode of the story, provocative to many Hindus as well as to
Western readers, and in some way it should have been dealt with.
Based on the analysis of the books we find that there are at least
three possible ways of dealing with the character of Sita. With some
reservations we have placed the books into three corresponding categories.
1)
The subordinate,
faithful Sita
Here we find Sita as a
subordinate, faithful wife in the framework of a traditional pattern of sex
roles. This corresponds with the traditional Hindu view of Sita as the ideal
wife.
One of the textbooks, called “Passing the Mountain” (grade 4), presents
a very short version of the story (15 lines), including the remark that
Rama’s faithful wife Sita made a speech in which she
insisted on accompanying her husband into exile. The story is followed by a
comment on Sita’s position as a model for brides, quoting from her speech:
In a woman’s life wagon,
horse and gilded castles are nothing.
For the beloved and loving
wife the shadow of her husband is more precious.
The teacher's handbook discusses Rama’s position in the Hindu tradition
and points to the ideal marriage of Rama and Sita. Sita’s position as a goddess
is not mentioned. In addition the book suggests the following themes for
discussions in class: What can the story of Rama, Sita and Hanuman teach human
beings? What did Rama, Sita and Hanuman do that could be ideals for human
beings today?
From one point of view one could say that the version of Ramayana found
in this book is close to the common interpretation in the Hindu tradition, but
we miss critical questions to this view on women, questions that could initiate
an ethical discussion in class.
2)
The invisible
Sita
By exclusively emphasising
her husband Rama’s part in the story, Sita can be made invisible both in her
role as an important agent in the epic and in her role as a goddess.
The example here is another book, “Bridges”. In grade 1 the pupils meet
Ramayana on a wall chart, picturing Rama and Sita on the throne in the city of
Ayodhya. The teacher’s handbook gives a short version of the story. The textbook for grade 3 reminds the pupils
that the story of Ramayana happened long before our time. It emphasises Rama’s
divine origin, his miraculous birth and his slaying of demons. Sita is not
mentioned at all. In fact her origin is also divine and her birth from a furrow
in the fields is also miraculous.
The teacher’s handbook says that the purpose is to be familiar with the
story about Rama and his position in Hinduism. The book discusses the concept
of god in Hinduism without mentioning the Goddess. It points to Rama and Sita
as the ideal couple. “Bridges” makes both Sita and the concept of goddess
totally invisible.
3)
The independent,
acting Sita
Here we find Sita as an
independent, acting person in her own right, making both good and bad decisions
- as humans do. Her acts drive the story forward.
The textbook “Tell me more” (grade 4) comes closest to a presentation
of Sita as an independent character in her own right. The book’s version of
Ramayana presents the most important elements of the story and a couple of
times it points to Sita as an important agent in the story, for instance Sita’s
part in the drama in the woods and her courageous resistance against Ravana.
And – as a matter of fact - in the original version of the epic the character
of Sita is exactly this independent and powerful female agent.
We gave this example of Sita to show some of the dilemmas we face when
using the religious stories in school.
Conclusion: In the case of Sita we give better marks to one book than
to the others. When we analyse another gender-related theme, the result is
different. It is no pattern here. The important thing is that stories can be
presented in countless ways. Authors of textbooks should give serious
consideration to the way they present female characters in stories.
“Self and Others” - Ethnicity in Religious Stories
A main purpose of the Norwegian RE subject is
to promote tolerance, dialogue and peaceful coexistence between groups of
people. The question is: Are the religious stories suitable for this purpose?
We have studied different stories as they are presented in textbooks, and have
decided to choose as an example a story from the Bible. One of the
possibilities could have been to look into the textbooks’ presentation of the Jews in the New Testament. That is because the New Testament stories reflect
the tense relation existing between the Christian authors and Judaism in the
time of the New Testament and therefore often describe the Jews by negative
terms.
Instead we have decided to look into the
well-known Exodus story, one of the
great and fundamental stories in the Bible. The story tells about how God saved
the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, after a long period of difficult and
aimless consultations with a stubborn pharaoh. As a consequence God sent ten
plagues over the Egyptians – the last plague the worst: all firstborn died,
both animals and human beings[3].
The traditional Christian interpretation of this story is to read it as a story
about liberation from suppression and about God saving his people. At the same
time this story reveals an attitude towards other people which for modern man
is hard to accept, namely that God, because of pharaoh, had to punish the whole
Egyptian people; men, women and children in such a cruel way. When the
children’s movie “The Prince of Egypt” was shown at cinemas in Norway, the very
same question came up among the children: What about the innocent Egyptians?
Why did God have to punish them? Weren’t they as valuable as the Jews – or the
Israelites?
Our question is:
How do the textbooks deal with such a negative
attitude towards other people as seen
in the Exodus story? In what way do the textbooks retell the Biblical
story? Do they omit the difficult
parts, do they reduce them, or do they render them with all the cruel details?
And how do the teacher’s handbooks recommend the teachers to deal with the
stories?
We have looked into textbooks and teacher’s
handbooks from the same three publishers as mentioned above.
1. Lower level
If we look at the presentation of the Exodus story for the lower level (grade 1-4), there is a tendency to play down – or ignore the problematical aspects. About the ten plagues one of the textbooks says: “The Lord sent terrible disasters over Egypt. Then pharaoh regretted and sent his soldiers after them. But the Lord saved the Israelites by a miracle.
Another
textbook for the same level is though more direct and specific when it says:
“God sent one plague after another over the Egyptians. But pharaoh didn’t give
up. Then God sent the Death Angel through Egypt. The eldest son in each family
died.” Even if the teacher’s
handbook recommends playing down the plagues and focusing on God saving his people, it nevertheless
suggests as a good idea that the children can draw the plagues, cut them out
and fix them on a cartoon with the heading: “Let my people go!” Both this
handbook and the handbook related to the first textbook underline that focus
should be on God who is saving his people and making them free, as well as
demonstrating that the god of Israel is more powerful than the Egyptian gods.
Good enough – but there is no reference to the challenging aspects connected
with the suffering of innocent Egyptian children and the Egyptian people as a
whole. On the contrary, one of the handbooks says that the stories about Moses
are “colourful and exciting”.
2.
Upper level
For upper level (grade 5-7) the Exodus story is
presented in grade 6, partly under the heading of Judaism. The approach to the
story is not radically different, but the plagues or disasters are told more
explicit and detailed. As one of the textbooks puts it: “Moses went to pharaoh
and asked him to let the people go. But pharaoh wouldn’t. Then pharaoh and Egypt were hit by several plagues.
The same night an angel went through Egypt and killed a lot of people. Then the
people (Israelites) were rescued.” There is no reflection in the teacher’s
handbook on the fate of “the Other” in the story.
One of the other textbooks suggests that the
students can work together in teams concentrating on the plagues. And what kind
of work? The suggestion is that after having read the story about the
disasters, the teams shall choose one of the plagues, produce a text and make a
drawing with nice colours – and then possibly hang it on the wall in a big
decorative collage.
Even if these plagues by the Biblical authors
were seen as divine miracles given for salvation of the Israelites, certainly
the experience was very different for the Egyptian people. Although the
teacher’s handbook offers solid and useful Biblical knowledge to the teachers,
there is no dealing with this ethical
dilemma in the story.
However, the teacher’s handbook related to the
third textbook for this level is an exception. It stresses that in the Jewish
tradition the fate of the innocent Egyptians has been a matter of concern –
emphasising that God was sad because he had to cause this harm to the
Egyptians. However, this has obviously no implication for the presentation in
the textbook.
The conclusion from the evaluation seems to be
like this: with one exception - either the textbooks and handbooks are playing down the drama or they are telling the cruel details, they lack
empathy with the Egyptians, suffering under a heartless pharaoh and at the same
time punished by God.
It is worth noticing that even if most of the
authors of the textbooks and the teacher’s handbooks seem to be comfortable with the plot and
the solution – namely God saving his people from the repressing Egyptians – the
children in the cinema have discovered another aspect: the innocent Egyptians!
Why is it so? Maybe the explanation is that the story is so seductive that we only see the Israelites as victims? Or maybe we read the story through strong
Biblical glasses? If we only focus on the faces of the Israelites, then we are
unable to see the faces of the Egyptians. But the children saw these faces too!
Why? It could be as simple as this: at least many of the children – when coming
to the cinema - met the story for the first time – as an open story – without
knowing the Christian or Jewish – or Islamic[4]
– interpretation of the story. And they felt a spontaneous empathy with both victims!
From the teacher’s point of view it is
important to reflect upon this: some of the stories from various religions
reveal negative and prejudicial attitudes towards other people and towards
non-believers (as for example seen in some of the Islamic stories as well as in
the Biblical stories). It is obvious that the teacher in a multi-faith class –
as well as in a more “homogeneous” class - will have to be careful when he/she
presents stories like these. Attitudes towards other people are created – not
exclusively, of course – but partly -
by listening to stories. Teaching religions and ethics has as an important aim
– on the basis of knowledge and understanding – to stimulate attitudes like
respect and tolerance towards other people – even if they think and act
different from oneself. The idea of human
dignity: that all human beings are of equal value and have the same human
rights, is a fundamental and absolute idea, extremely important in a modern
multicultural society and in a world consisting of people with different
religions and cultures.
Therefore - as part of this: When problematic
stories as the Exodus story is
presented, it is necessary that the teacher makes clear the storyteller’s point
of view and for what reason the story was told in the first place. This is of
course not only due to the Biblical stories, but to the Islamic stories as well
- and others. The Exodus story is
problematic both for ethical reasons and concerning the role of God. The
impression coming from the story that God supports some people - as people -
and doesn’t care about others – needs an explanation. This is an extremely
important issue, which has to be dealt with also in other contexts in Religious
Education – especially in connection with the three religions and the different
people in the Middle East. To sort out different
perspectives is an important task for those writing textbooks and teacher’s
handbooks. At least for the lower levels the textbook is perhaps not the place
to give this explanation, but that’s why the publishers need to make sure that
the teacher’s handbooks reflect on
these matters. In these handbooks such pedagogical and scientific information
and discussions are as important for the lower levels as for the upper.
Analysed books:
Alfsen, Meyer, Opsal:
Fortell meg mer 3, Aschehoug 1998
Alfsen, Meyer, Opsal: Fortell meg mer 3. Lærerens bok, Aschehoug 1998
Alfsen, Meyer, Opsal: Fortell meg mer 4, Aschehoug 1999
Alfsen, meyer, Opsal: Fortell meg mer 4. Lærerens bok, Aschehoug 1999
Bakken, Bakken og Haug: Lærerens ressursbok til Broene 1 og 2, Universitetsforlaget 1997
Bakken, Bakken og Haug: Broene 3, Universitetsforlaget 1998
Bakken, Bakken og Haug: Broene 3. Lærerens ressursbok, Universitetsforlaget 1998
Bakken, Bakken og Haug: Broene 4, Universitetsforlaget 1999
Bakken, Bakken og Haug: Broene 4. Lærerens ressursbok, Universitetsforlaget 1999
Gjefsen, Dæhlin og Egeland: Under treet. (2. kl.), Gyldendal 1997
Gjefsen, Dæhlin og Egeland: Under treet. Lærerveiledning, Gyldendal 1997
Gjefsen, Dæhlin og Egeland: Langs elven. (3. kl.), Gyldendal 1998
Gjefsen, Dæhlin og Egeland: Langs elven. Lærerveiledning, Gyldendal 1998
Gjefsen, Dæhlin og Egeland: Over fjellet. (4. kl.), Gyldendal 1999
Gjefsen, Dæhlin og Egeland: Over fjellet. Lærerveiledning, Gyldendal 1999
Background literature:
Breidlid, Halldis / Nicolaisen, Tove: I begynnelsen var fortellingen. Fortelling i KRL ,
Universitetsforlaget, Oslo 2000
Breidlid,
Halldis / Nicolaisen, Tove: “Stories and Storytelling in Religious Education in
Norway” in Journal
for the Study of Religion. Interreligious and Intercultural Studies.
Vol.11,no.1, March 1998, Department of
Religious Studies, UCT, Cape Town.
Breidlid, Halldis: “Kvinneperspektivet i KRL – en utfordring”. Prismet nr 4/2000
Kvanvig, Helge S.: Historisk Bibel og bibelsk historie. Høyskoleforlaget, Kristiansand 1999
Nicolaisen, Tove: “Ramayanas heltinne Sita”. Prismet nr
4/2000
[1] Aschehoug, Gyldendal,
Universitetsforlaget
[2] A complete English version of
Ramayana: The Ramayana of Valmiki,
Shanti Sadan, London 1952-59.
A
modern short version: Prime: Ramayana. A
journey. Collins & Brown, London 1997
[3] Exodus 7-12
[4] In the Quran we find an Islamic
version of the same story