Keepers of the fire: Leadership in Religious Education

BY PAUL?FALLER

Good Religious Education requires good leadership and a fiery passion, argues PAUL?FALLER. Imagine a life without electricity—the very blood that runs in the veins of our society making all things possible. It is so much part of who we are that a power cut leaves us dead in our tracks or, at least, fumbling in the dark.

Without blood the body dies: without electricity we are as ghosts, helpless and out of touch with our reality.

There was, of course, a time—and not so long ago—when we had no knowledge of electricity and thus no access to it. But we did have fire for light, for warmth and for movement. Now imagine a life without fire: there was also such a time in history before this gift was made to humankind.

Where did the fire come from? There are as many stories as different peoples that tell of how we first got fire; from lightning strike or fireball, or from the gods, as in the Greek myth of Prometheus.

But once acquired, the fire needed to be protected, for its origin was still a mystery and the art of making it easily not yet discovered. Fire became the centre of human life, both in the family hearth and in the sacred fire of the community which was never allowed to die. This was the responsibility of the fire keepers whose fate followed that of the fire they were given to attend.

Without fire, life is diminished: on this we will agree. But there is another, more foundational fire that I want to bring to our attention. It is the fire of faith, or the fire that faith reveals, a fire unseen by most that moves within and beyond the horizons of our world.

Fire brings light. Fire warms. Fire tests an object’s worth. Fire transforms what may appear dull into something resplendent. And this is the task of education. Education can be seen as the lighting of a fire. Religious Education as the lighting and fanning of the fire of faith—that which lies at the heart of the curriculum of the Catholic school and at the heart of what it means to be human.

Religious Education, too, has a hidden component we call ethos—the fire that gives life to the school, but there are also visible, concrete expressions of this in the school’s religious observances and a structured curricular programme.

While the tendency in many countries today is to sideline Religious Education or place it at the service of citizenship, there are voices that announce a more positive future for the enterprise. With an air of excitement author Gabriel Moran proclaims:

“Religion for the deeply committed is raw power, but its passion needs to be tempered, says Moran, by the forms and rationality of education. And so we have religious education, an enterprise which gives shape and direction to human beings from the centre of their being outwards, generating creative responses to the experiences and challenges of their lives.”

Religious Education needs strong, thoughtful and dedicated leadership. “The one factor that affects the quality of RE more than any other,” according to the inspectorate in Britain, “is the leadership of the subject.”

A common perception about leadership, says  Bill Sultmann, the Australian executive director at Catholic Education Services, is that it involves only a few people within the organisation, usually those who hold administrative positions or those who possess governance responsibilities.

However, the reality is that all within the organisation play an important role and that it is in the realisation of teamwork and interdependence among all, that the goals of the organisation are achieved.

All within the Catholic school, therefore, are called to leadership. But leadership needs a focus or gathering point so that it is both encouraged and coordinated. The most obvious focal point of leadership in the school is the principal whose function it is to preserve and promote the school’s distinctive character.

The most obvious mark of this character in a Catholic School is its Religious Education programme. Hence, the principal must take the lead in this area.

In practice, however, the principal cannot take care of the day-to-day management of the subject and so he delegates this responsibility to a Religious Education coordinator who, in normal circumstances, will be part of the school management team.

The coordinator exercises leadership in a number of ways—by inspiring faith, sharing the vision, building community, enriching learning, and managing resources. It is his or her task to champion the subject so that it acquires and maintains the status of a full curriculum area. The enthusiasm of the coordinator even amid daily difficulties will be like a lamp that attracts others.

“Catch on fire with enthusiasm,” said John Wesley, “and people will come for miles to watch you burn.”

It is the calling and challenge of Catholic and other faith-based schools in South Africa to fan the fire of faith through Religious Education—faith not so much seen as an external mark of membership, but as an inner capacity to see, with humility, beyond our limited horizons.

For ultimately, said Thomas Merton, “faith is the only key to the universe. The final meaning of human existence, and the answers to the questions on which all our happiness depends cannot be found in any other way.”

And if this is so, we must offer our children and young people a vibrant and meaningful Religious Education for, as Nelson Mandela once said, “there can be no clearer revelation of a society’s values than the way it treats its children.”

We will offer ourselves as the wick for the lamp and the religious traditions of the world as its oil in order to light the way for our learners into the mysteries of life.

Paul Faller is the national coordinator of religious education of the Catholic Institute of Education.