ARMSTRONG,THOMAS (1997): Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom. Alexandria – Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum.
BAUER,JOACHIM (2007): Lob der Schule: Sieben Perspektiven für Schüler, Lehrer und Eltern. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe.
COLES,ROBERT (1999): The Secular Mind. Princeton: University Press.
FORGAS,P.JOSEPH (2000): Feeling and Thinking: Summary and Integration.
In: FORGAS, P. JOSEPH (ed.): Feeling and Thinking: The Role of Affect in Social Cognition. Cambridge: University Press, 387-406.
GARDNER,HOWARD (1993): Frames of Mind. The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.
New York: Basic Books.
GARDNER,HOWARD (1999): Intelligence Reframed. Multile Intelligences for the 21st Century. New York: Basic Books.
GOLEMAN,DANIEL (1997): Emotionale Intelligenz. München: DTB.
JENSEN,ERIC (2005): Teaching with the Brain in Mind. Alexandria: ASCD.
KIHLSTROM, F. JOHN & CANTOR, NANCY (2000): Social Intelligence. In:
STERNBERG, J. ROBERT (ed.): Handbook of Intelligence. Cambridge: University Press, 359-379
MAYER,D.JOHN &SALOVEY,PETER (1997): What Is emotional intelligence?
In: SALOVEY, P. & SLUYTER, D. (eds.): Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Implications for educators. New York: Basic Books, 3-31.
MAYER, D.JOHN & SALOVEY,PETER & CARUSO,DAVID (2000): Models of Emotional Intelligence. In: STERNBERG, J. ROBERT (ed.): Handbook of Intelligence. Cambridge: University Press, 396-420.
NUSSBAUM,C.MARTHA (2001): Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
RIEMANN, FRITZ (2003): Grundformen der Angst: Eine tiefenpsychologische Studie.
München – Basel: Ernst Reinhardt Verlag.
SHOWERS, J. CAROLIN (2000): Self-Organisation in Emotional Contexts. In:
FORGAS, P. JOSEPH (ed.): Feeling and Thinking: The Role of Affect in Social Cognition. Cambridge: University Press, 283-307.
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OMANIASpiritual education, one of the most important concepts of contemporary pedagogy, can be defined in relation to moral and intellectual education, and to Christian values and ideals.
After a profound analysis of the content and aspects of religious education in Romania, Constantin Cucoş (1999) notes that the essence of education is based on the religious values, drawing the attention of young people to being a good Christian.
We need to emphasize, in this context, the pedagogical influence of the Church, as a religious institution, completing the educational impact starting with the family education and that of the initiation in nature study.
According to Constantin Cucoş, the church and spiritual education represents an alternative and a completion of the family education: “the church completes the educational process initiated by the parents and proves to be a complementary method to school in spiritual, moral education and in active civic training” (Cucoş 1996:12).
We can appreciate in this context that religion provides the young generation with a set of ideals, principles and values which can offer them a better guidance in life, which can be spiritually fortifying. Religious education enables faith cultivation, finding a spiritual meaning, way above the clichés and banality of everyday life. Through his nature, a human being cannot be content just by the material values and profane processes of life. The young generation continuously aspires to something transcendent and this aspiration must be systematically supported and sustained by a competent, qualified person, a priest or a teacher for example. The same author, trying to establish the basic characteristics of the religious education, states that “Christian education is maintaining the communion between man and God, a communion which requires man’s permanent seeking for purification of sins and a growth in virtue” (Cucoş 1999:145).
Religiously stimulated educational models and motifs, consequences of the religious values are emphasized in this context, correlated with moral and intellectual aspects, having, as a result, a certain strategy of religious approach in schools.
Trying to create a limit in the theory of education in pedagogy, Elena Macavei underlines the importance of spiritual and religious education.
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Religious education is connected to the Christian moral system of values.
Christian moral virtues, the educational potential of temperance, compassion, devoutness, meekness, religiousity baesd wisdom, courage, sincerity and especially faith are underlined and emphasized in this context. It is appreciated that faith and hope “engages the human perception completely unconsciously and subconsciously at an intellectual and emotional level”
(Macavei 2002:91). From this perspective, Elena Macavei concludes that religious education is a complex training, guiding process of the youth within the moral-religious system of values so that they can know and contemplate God.
From a larger historical and pedagogical point of view, Ioan Nicola notes that religion and religious education are as old as human community, because the ferment of human culture have crystallized in this region.
“Religious education is the basic element of the entire formative approach and consequently, the essence of religious education in school consists of generating and maintaining an inner spiritual state of mind, helping human beings to transcend reality and relate himself to absolute” (Nicola 2003:242).
The progress containing the elaborate concept of religious education, including its methods of implementation in school life, is illustrated by the preoccupation related to pedagogical research in the field of religious education. Resuming G.G. Antonescu and Mihail Bulacu’s traditions, Musata Bocos, Monica and Dorin Opriş underline the importance of pedagogical research in this field.
Inter-curricular and cross-curricular aspects and their ethical implications are revealed in this context. An answer to a difficult question is being sought: “To what extent can we assume and, possibly, adopt general methodological indications and directions in a precise research in religious education?” (Opris, M. & Opris, D. & Bocos 2004:60). Opris and Bocos recommend the method of a systematic observation, including observation as a participant, experiment and interview, but especially the questionnaire survey method. Under a different context, the same authors propose action-research models in religious and moral education. For example, proposing the didactic use of the icon, the authors engage research from the hypothesis that
“initiating students in icon analysis referring to the events in Jesus’ and the saints’ lives studied in the 6th grade, increases students` knowledge acquisition level and forms an auspicious, free willed attitude to respect and honor religious objects and things”( Bocos & Opris, D. & Opris, M. 2006:244).
Although very closely connected to moral and civic education, we can distinguish some specific characteristics of religious education: (1) it is the oldest form of education, from which arises, at a given moment, the intellectual-philosophic, moral and scientific type of education. (2) it has a
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75 larger content, much larger than civic and moral education, philosophy or history, as it concerns man’s role, mission in the world, his aspiration to transcendent. (3) implanting faith in God itself represents an excellent educational ferment capable to stimulate not only moral and civic education, but also other domains, such as professional and aesthetic education. (4) religious education is characterized by an increased permeability to problem solving and research, being at the sometime, an excellent and osmotic method between intellectual, moral education on one hand, and professional, aesthetic and scientific education on the other hand.
As it is known, before 1989 in Romania, as well as in other former communist countries, religious education was achieved only within the church, not being included in the curriculum of public schools.
The political events in 1989, under the imperative demand and necessity of a democratic society, created a new perspective. All responsible political parties voted for introducing and teaching religion in schools.
It was stated that “in addition to the many aspects concerning the instruction reform and legislation, almost merely technical and professional ones, some new coordinates should be included and stressed, as a pleading for the strict necessity and utility of religious instruction and education, for its implementation with equal rights in the educational system” (Stoleru 1993:31).
It was insisted that religious instruction should be officially re-introduced, refusing rigid and univocal atheism. One can notice that the whole of Romanian culture is impregnated with orthodox values, their being responsive to the influences of Western Christianity. It was underlined that the problems of Romanian nation, consists in changing what was chaotically built, was possible by appealing to the Christian roots. It was also emphasized that besides school, the church represents a real spiritual ferment and fuel
“capable to assure the necessary moral force to democratize the Romanian society” (Stoleru 1993).
The representatives of the Orthodox Church and other religious denominations worried about the youths’ distraction, temptation and tendency of libertinism and violence. They revealed the convincing and penetrating capacity of religious education, its imperative necessity even at primary school level.
One of the first orders of the Ministry of Instruction and Science was to re-introduce religion as an optional and supplementary school subject, in primary and secondary school.
Managerial problems arose especially concerning the teaching methods and qualified staff; consequently Instruction Law 84/1995 brings
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some important notifications. It was specified that religion is compulsory in primary school, optional in secondary school and supplementary in high school. More precisely, paragraph 9 of this law denotes that religion is a school subject, a part of the school curriculum, “primary, secondary, high school and professional school curriculum include religion as a school subject” (Law 4/1995 § 9).
Continuing this notification activity, Law 489/2006 specifies that the teaching staff is established by the corresponding religious denomination. At the beginning, because of the lack of professionals, religion was taught by priests, but gradually the number of teachers of religion has increased to 10514 in 2003-2004; 2987 are professors, 783 have didactic degree II, 165 teachers have didactic degree I.
In Bihor country, in the 2003/2004 academic year, 160 teachers taught religion, 154 secular and 6 priests. Most of the secular ones attended theological university studies (152) and only 2 teachers had high school studies. We can notice that in the same school year, 91 were professors, 60 had definitive degree, 14 didactic degree II, and 1 teacher had didactic degree I. After 2 years, in the 2005/2006 academic year, the situation changed. The number of professors in average increases to 100, teachers with didactic degree II to 20, 2 have didactic degree I. Unfortunately, the number of teachers with definitive degree decreased to 53. During this academic school year we can notice an increase in the number of priests from 6 to 12. Most teachers of religion in public schools have continuous aspirations to get different didactic degrees in order to acquire thorough methodological skills and abilities.
The problem with teaching religion in school as compulsory, is related to the distribution of population according to religion and nationality. Most of Romania’s population, 86.67% were Orthodox in 2002 and only 4.73%
Roman-Catholic, 3.21% Reformed, 1.52% Pentecostal and 0.9% Greek-Catholic, 0.59% Baptist and 0.44% Adventist. There are Evangelics, Muslims, and Jews, but these groups are relatively small in number.
In 2002 there were only 66846 Unitarians (0.3%), 67.566 Muslims (0.31%), 39485 Old ritual Christians (0.10%), and 6199 Jews (0.02%) in Romania.
In north-west Romania, contrary to other regions (Moldavia, Oltenia), although most of the population is Orthodox, there are relatively compact groups of citizens adherent to the Roman-Catholic and Lutheran Church.
The relative confessional heterogeneity of the population, the high degree of dispersion of the members belonging to a certain religious denomination trigger serious managerial problems in teaching religion in school.
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77 Some leaders made an attempt to pay attention to the students’
religion in school, Law 489/2006 stating that “by request, when the school council cannot provide specialized teachers of a certain religion to which the students belong to, their parents can prove the study of that religion by a certificate from the church whose members they are” (Law 489/2006). Most students and their parents prefer to study the orthodox religion. The compact distribution of Roman-Catholic, Lutheran, Greek-Catholic and Pentecostal population in the north-western part of the country made it possible to teach these religions by creating special classes. (Law 489/2006)
In other cases, some denominations, especially Neo-Protestant, Lutheran and Catholic ones have founded their own schools and religious curricula. (Law 489/2006)
We can also mention that the number of atheist students is insignificant, and the lack of classes for minority denominations are due exclusively to their small number and insufficient funding, and some schools just cannot afford to pay a teacher for 1 or 2 students belonging to a minority denominations.
Introducing teaching religion at all school levels generated a lot of managerial problems. Not having a professional managerial specialization, the Orthodox hierarchic leaders became responsive to all problems and succeeded in solving them in a relatively short period of time. The interest in teaching religion in school was revealed at the Teachers’ Conference at Iasi in July 2002, organized by his High Reverence Daniel, Bishop of Moldavia and Bucovina. At this conference, they tried to finalize the school curricula for all 3 (primary, secondary and high school) levels, including the curriculum for schools with the theological profile as well.
Religion, as a school subject, is a part of the ‘Man and Society’
curriculum, and it is one class per week according to this curriculum, both at primary and secondary school level. This school subject is taught at all high school and training profiles.
The teaching objectives, goals, aims, purposes have been accurately established. The Orthodox Church representatives, responsible for the problems, concluded that the main objective of teaching religion is forming students’ personality in accordance with Christian values, integrating these values into the system of Christian moral attitudes, and applying what they have learnt in everyday life.
The curricular documents for teaching religion are structured according to six different standards: (a) to describe his/her own faith as well as his/her relation to other religions. (b) to describe the events and their results, consequences for a faithful life and for the existential problem of man
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presented in Holy Books. (c) to explain religious notions, concepts, values which stand for a model attitude and behavior worth following. (d) to integrate knowledge obtained with other school subjects into his/her religious knowledge acquired during religion lessons. (e) to identify moral knowledge at other non-theological school subjects. (f) to apply religious knowledge in solving personal and community problems (Religion, Orthodox Church, Curricula approved by the order of the Ministry of Instruction/Education 4469/25.10.1999:98).
We can notice a pertinent managerial and modeling effort in the above presented standards. With the help of specialists in pedagogical sciences, authorities tried and succeeded to a certain extent, to elaborate a modern curriculum for teaching religion in schools – not only transmitting knowledge but also emphasizing the moral values. Above all, these standards refer to the direct application of religious knowledge in both personal and community life. The inter-curricular point of view, excellently modeled, improves and stresses the importance of this curriculum.
The curriculum for teaching religion in primary and secondary school is meant to respond to students’ desire, thirst to know the ideals of the Orthodox Church, to form students according to true moral faith. Authorities aim at a systematic assurance of a high level of religious and moral education necessary, indispensable in modernizing our society. Perennial values like affection, friendship, peace, harmony, understanding, mutual assistance among people, are cultivated and educated.
The curricular documents for teaching religion in 1st – 8th grades contain 5 objectives. As we can see, the educational curriculum concerning teaching religion, has both cognitive objectives of familiarizing students with the religious language, with the text of the Holy Scriptures, and affective ones, guiding and directing youth towards moral values in order to consolidate moral-religious habits and behavior. The standards of the European Committee are also respected, including the stimulation of a tolerant attitude towards other religious beliefs.
At the 1st grade, the objective “knowing and loving God,” implies as a direct objective “to form abilities to find out about God’s existence,” this objective, being achieved by observing and contemplating our environment, world. This can be done by using a set of religious illustrations and by interactive dialogues about God’s existence.
As example for the above mentioned objectives we can make a general presentation of Christian religion, faith, texts from the Old and New Testament, for example the creation of the world and mankind or Jesus’
childhood. Reading religious texts, learning carols and poems are recommended.
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79 Although the main objectives are generally the same as in the primary school, the direct objectives are significantly different in the 5th grade.
Knowing and loving God, at this age, refers to the following objectives:
“Students will be able to understand God’s role from the texts studied in this grade,” and this means not only observing and discussing some religious illustrations but also comparing the human and divine duties.
The main objective “educating values of acceptance, understanding and having respect for other religious beliefs” is correlated to the direct objective: students have to accept moral religious values from other religious beliefs. As a learning activity for this objective, can be case study, team work, group discussion, in order to solve problem situations and even the initiation of a mutual assistance activity, helping those in need who belong to another denominations.
We can meet the same modern vision in high school curriculum as well. This one has in view the key competence established by the European Committee. To learn how to learn implies abilities, skills and attitudes. The abilities refer to the formation of one’s religious identity and attitude. The interpersonal, intercultural, social and civic competence refers to knowledge, abilities and attitudes. Among the abilities the most important is assuming and admitting one’s religious identity.
Christian morality prefers, first of all, to the youth’s moral responsibilities for God and for himself. Spirituality and sense of duty implies man’s aspiration to be like Gods own image15 and his call towards Christian missionary.
The visible progress in conceiving and elaborating the educational curricula made possible the elaboration of alternative religion textbooks for all grades. In the north-western counties of Romania the following textbooks are used:
The National Evaluation and Examination Service issue many methodological guides for teachers of religion. These guides contain tests, different types of objective and subjective items. As a method of evaluation, systematic observation of students’ activities and behavior is recommended.
These evaluation materials and guides should correlate with the teaching materials at hand, but especially with the main and referable objectives.
Introducing religion in schools generated inedited pedagogical and managerial problems. The most interesting and difficult to approach is the verification of students’ application forms to join a religious community, the creation of religiously homogenous classes and groups. The situation is simple
15 „God created man in his own image.” Genesis: 1, 27.
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if all students from a class request to study the same orthodox religion. It is not complicated even if there are cases when students demand other religion, because they can be grouped in a certain class in large schools. Distributing students in classes according to their requests for a certain religion implies the collaboration of teachers and managers, and the result is the elaboration of distinct programs and timetables for students’ placement to other schools and the formation of new groups.
This collaboration, despite the difficulties it brings about, assures interactivity, cooperation among schools, which is a positive effect. Both managers and teachers of religion are more and more interested in arranging specialized, equipped classrooms. They provide adequate, proper teaching materials, textbooks, books with religious texts, songs, poems, icons, computers, videos on religious themes. In the case of large schools, inevitably, timetable problems arise because of the planning difficulties and problems of using rooms.
Teachers and managers are concerned about knowing the alternative textbooks and publishing new ones. Methodological and didactic discussions are very useful and helpful in this respect. The teachers are evaluated by the board of directors to get pertinent decisions. Organizing common activities between more schools are very important too: inviting priests, lectures for parents, methodological discussions with specialists in educational sciences from the University of Oradea.
Introducing religion in the public school curriculum has brought about important changes, most of them obviously positive ones, stimulating a qualitative change and renewal of the educational system.
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EFERENCESBOCOS,MIHAIL &OPRIS,DORIN &OPRIS,MONICA (2006): Research in Religios and Moral Education. Models and Appliances. Cluj-Napoca: Casa Cartii de Stiinta
CUCOS, CONSTANTIN (1996): Religious Education; Content and Forms of Achievement. Bucharest: EDP RA
CUCOS, CONSTANTIN (1999): Religious Education; Theoretical and Methodological References.. Iasi: Polirom.
Instruction Law no.84/1995 edited by Tribuna Invatamantului SA.
Law no. 489/2006 Referring to religious freedom and the general state of cults, edited in Monitorul Oficial, part I,no 11/08.01.2007
MACAVEI,ELENA (2002): Pedagogy, The theory of Education; Bucharest: Aramis Print srl
NICOLA,IOAN (2003): School Pedagogy Handbook. Bucharest: Aramis Print srl OPRIS,MONICA &OPRIS,DORIN &BOCOS,MIHAIL (2004): Pedagogical Research in Religious Education. Alba-Iulia: Reantregirea
STOLERU,NICOLAE (ed.) (1993): Teaching Religion in Schools Necessary and Salutary, Law to Instruction Reform (The Conclusions of a Discussion).
Bucuresti: Tribuna Invatamantului