As the name implies, the approach recognises the existence of various religions in society and requires religious educators to organise teaching and learning in a way that addresses the various religious experiences of their learners. Although the Zimbabwe Junior Primary School Religious and Moral Education syllabus (Grade 3- 7: op.cit.) is biased towards Christianity, the Infants’ syllabus (Grade 1-2: op.cit.) is multi-faith and allows the teacher to draw examples from various religions hence objective three of the syllabus requires learners to “…know about the other religions they are likely to encounter in Zimbabwe, so that they understand their differences and appreciate their similarities…”(Primary School Religious and Moral Education Syllabus Grade 1 and 2, op. cit:2). The same syllabus aims at making pupils understand their own traditions and religion through discovery and searching, develop their own belief systems. This means that both the content and methodology in teaching should acknowledge the multi-faith nature of the learners in the classroom.
According to Nondo (op. cit.), Religious Education in a multi-faith class should consider both the explicit and the implicit religion of the pupils. He warns that even if some learners do not understand themselves as religious, they nonetheless have their beliefs that must be considered. The implicit religion is what the child or student believes in. It may not be clearly noticeable yet the believer strongly maintains it. The student of religion or the teacher will have to find out these beliefs through close interaction with the believers and pupils, study and interpret their religious
19 experiences. Implicit R.E should deepen the believer’s search for meaning in life in terms of his or her experience. It should investigate the answers offered by religion in terms of the meaning and purpose of life for the adherents. Sealy (op. cit.) notes that this approach may not be taken as a method of teaching as such, but as a believer’s way of seeing the world.
Thus religion can manifest itself through many different forms of the believer’s religious experience. The task of the teacher is to analyse the religious experience of the student and deepen it through teaching, so that the student has a better understanding of his or her religious experiences (Schools Council Working Paper 36, op. cit.).
The proponent of the implicit religion is Sir Harold Loukes who emphasised learning through experience. To Loukes, good teaching is, “a process of dialogue about experience” (Loukes, cited in Nondo, op. cit:16). This principle applies to R.E as it applies to other subjects. All learning is essentially an analysis of human experience hence according to Loukes, “…unless a subject proceeds from the concrete to the abstract, unless the whole process is set about with sense experience… then it will not be educative ” ( Nondo, op. cit:16). Loukes argues that even the Bible is about the human situation or experience. In the light of this argument, the researcher examined closely the implicit religion, that is the religious experience of the research participants and their values in order to establish how they impact on their knowledge and attitude to ARs.
Loukes maintains that the task of the teacher in this approach is to, “set children thinking and searching for meaning in an atmosphere of sympathetic dialogue.” (Nondo,op.cit:16). Thus when the researcher analysed the participants’ religious experience, he was not value judgmental, but entered into genuine and sincere dialogue, being honest and showing no bias against any religious denomination. These are the same principles the researcher sought to cultivate in them in the study of A.I.Rs through phenomenology of religion.
20 However, the “implicit religion” approach is rather too liberal and considers everything believers call religious as religious. Learners, especially the younger ones may not develop a proper concept of religion because human experience is different from person to person and its interpretation is also different. This may add to the already existing complications of interpreting religious data. “If it is adopted as the sole approach to R.M.E, it may not do justice to a proper concept of R.E, because it is too easy for the distinctively transcendent elements in religion to escape attention ...” (Sealy, op.cit :59).
There is also imminent danger in this approach of confusing “the nature of religion as it is seen by religious people ... and what pupils may be taught about this” (Sealy, op.cit :59). While teachers may teach learners that religious people see everything through religious spectacles, and interpret everything according to their faith, this may not help learners to taste the religiosity of the believer’s experiences.
Explicit religion is part of the multi-faith approach and targets the explicit or observable phenomena of religion as subject of study. Such phenomena include religious places, religious dress, religious objects, rituals, sacred practitioners and ceremonies. Through the study of these essences, the students can understand the meaning, truth and worth of religion. Selected religious phenomena in A.I.Rs such as sacred places, sacred practitioners, religious objects and ceremonies were studied. Through a comparative study of the common elements in A.I.Rs and Christianity, the participants were able to appreciate the former as a religion in its own right and understand the essence of religion. The study of the explicit phenomena should also be guided by the same principles of neutrality, (not being value judgmental) openness, empathy and sympathy. The major proponents of this approach are Smart (1973), Cox (1966, 1983) and Smith (1975).
Students in teacher education institutions need to adopt the multi-faith approach not only because society is multi-faith, but also because the country’s constitution allows for freedom of worship. It is therefore the responsibility of the Colleges of Education
21 to develop a teacher with the right skills and attitude to other religions including A.I.Rs and one who can apply the methodologies of the discipline. This is the real groundwork of any subject not the content (Smart, cited in Schools Council Working paper 36, op.cit.). However, despite the merits of the multi-faith approach, it may be a toll order to expect the teacher to keep abreast with the various religions that may be found in the classroom and their ramifications. This difficulty may be lessened by conducting in-service teacher education programmes for teachers of R.E, that will develop in them both knowledge and skills in the subject.
The thrust of this research was to develop in trainee teachers the correct knowledge and right attitude to A.I.Rs through the phenomenological method. This will keep them abreast with new developments in Religious Education and make them apply the skills of “disciplined inquiry” as tools and raw materials for learning (Smart cited in Schools Council Working paper 36: ibid).