How to Unlock the Prison #4

At the start of a new academic year, Richard Coton, CVE Scotland Trustee and former headteacher, writes in a series of four blogs on the way in which CVE Scotland is helping schools and churches in Scotland work together:-

Thanks in part to the work of the New Atheists (Richard Dawkins et al), the belief is now widespread among non-Christians (including children and young people) that “science and faith are incompatible”.

It’s not inevitable that children and young people must be imprisoned by stereotypes. Significantly, the fake news that “Science has disproved religion” is not nearly so widely believed by pupils in RC schools, where the ways that science and faith complement each other are regularly explored in science teaching.

So, as a bonus, here’s a fourth key to unlock the prison:

Key #4: Challenging fake news about science and faith

Working with the Christian charity Grasping the Nettle, we’re supporting the use in secondary schools of their superb curriculum resource, Introducing the God Question. In May 2018, CVE Scotland, together with the Scottish Catholic Education Service, jointly organised a national training event for teachers of Science and of Religious Education. Over 50 secondary teachers from across the country spent a full day learning about the topic, which helps senior pupils think through the relationships between science and faith. Keynote speaker was Professor John Lennox (Oxford).

In 2019, we’ve worked with Grasping the Nettle and local school chaplains and teachers to pilot a highly successful conference on science and faith for S6 pupils in East Renfrewshire, with the world class astronomer, Dr. Deborah Haarsma. The Introducing the God Question package was used as the basis of this event, and our hope is to develop fuller curricular resources to support it in classrooms across Scotland. Further conferences in Glasgow and Dundee are scheduled for November. The guest speaker at these events will be Dr Guy Consolmagno, the Papal Astronomer.

Impact: Most attendees at the national training day indicated their intention to use the ITGQ resources, so it is likely that approx an additional 6000+ pupils per annum in 40 schools are now understanding that science, far from disproving faith, actually complements it. Senior pupils at the East Renfrewshire conference gave overwhelmingly positive evaluations and 20 asked to be given opportunities to follow up the insights into science and faith they had gained.

[All blogs on our website are the personal view of the writer and do not necessarily represent a position taken by CVE Scotland.]