Posted by Mark
15 March 2022One of the questions that we’ve been exploring with Secondary PGCE RE trainees at Exeter is what does it mean to ‘understand’ in RE.
It’s hardly controversial to say that one of the goals of education is the development of students’ understanding. And yet when we try to pin down exactly what that might mean, it’s easy to find ourselves in a muddle. How do we know when a student has ‘understood‘ the religious concept, belief or practice being explored in the classroom. Is it when they can explain it to someone else? or when they can explore the impact of that belief or practice on an individual’s way of life? or when they can compare/contrast it to another concept, belief or practice? or when they adopt that concept, belief, practice into their own way of looking at the world?
I remember one trainee once saying:
“I understand the laws of Karma. I understand how they work. But if I really understood the laws of Karma, wouldn’t I live my life differently?”
An interesting question, which leads to other equally interesting questions, such as:
Interestingly, there is no clear consensus in the literature about what is meant by ‘understanding’. Given that understanding appears at the centre of the educational stage, it seems remarkable that we don’t know, or rather don’t agree, what it is. After all, if we don’t know what counts as understanding, how can we teach for understanding and how can we know when a student has achieved it?
My interest in these and other related questions, led me to undertake a small scale research study with Secondary PGCE RE trainees teachers at the universities of Birmingham and Exeter. I have shared some of the results of this study as part of the University of Exeter’s ExeTalks series (see link below).
I was particularly interested in how the trainee teachers resorted to the use of figurative language and metaphors when trying to articulate what they thought it meant to ‘understand’. As explored in this short video, the metaphors they used (seeing; grasping; and construcing) have clear implications for classroom practice. But what really struck me as they were talking, was how the term ‘understanding’ is itself a metaphor (under+standing) which suggests that understanding has something to do with how we position ourselves in relation to the object of study…how we relate to what it is we are seeking to understand… rather than a purely cognitive activity.