EFTRE workshop demonstrates how to deal with the religious dimension in intercultural education
Around 25 Religious Education experts from around Europe gathered together on Zoom for the second EFTRE online workshop on Friday, 19th March 2021. Dr Angelos Vallianatos from Greece offered a session on the recently published teacher training module Signposts. He himself had been involved in the development of this resource published by the Council of Europe and the Wergeland Center.
After a short introduction presenting the background, origin and development of this practice-oriented publication, Dr Angelos Vallianotos introduced the concrete case of Ahmed Mohamed. This 14-year old American boy had been arrested for allegedly bringing a bomb to school – although this object had simply been a self-engineered clock. How can we approach this case from an intercultural education point of view? That was the task for the following small working groups phase. With the help of short video sequences along with questions and worksheets, participants entered into rich exchange about prejudices, discrimination and democratic culture.
In the end, all participants were very grateful for this opportunity for self-reflection and working together with colleagues from all around Europe. The workshop gave valuable input on how to use the training module in teacher training, at school or for any other Religious Education setting.
Links:
Find the free accessible teacher training module for download here: https://theewc.org/resources/signposts-teacher-training-module-teaching-about-religions-and-non-religious-world-views-in-intercultural-education/
More information about the Ahmed Mohamed case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Mohamed_clock_incident