the search for a usable knowledge in religious education: educating reflective practitioners

This article was downloaded by: [University of Glasgow]On: 20 December 2014, At: 06:52Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Religious Education: The official journal of theReligious Education AssociationPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urea20

THE SEARCH FOR A USABLE KNOWLEDGE IN RELIGIOUSEDUCATION: EDUCATING REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONERSRobert T. O'Gorman aa Scarritt Graduate School Nashville , TN 37203Published online: 10 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Robert T. O'Gorman (1988) THE SEARCH FOR A USABLE KNOWLEDGE IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: EDUCATINGREFLECTIVE PRACTITIONERS, Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious Education Association, 83:3, 323-336,DOI: 10.1080/0034408880830302

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0034408880830302

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) containedin the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of theContent. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon andshould be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable forany losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use ofthe Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urea20

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/0034408880830302

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0034408880830302

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

THE SEARCH FOR A USABLE KNOWLEDGE INRELIGIOUS EDUCATION: EDUCATING

REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONERS

Robert T. O'Gorman

Scarritt Graduate SchoolNashville, TN 37203

The dilemma for professional religious educators is that theystand at a point between the kinds of knowledge honored in theacademy and the kinds of knowledge required for daily religiousliving. James Gustafson, in regard to the education of religiousministers, observes that contemporary experience outgrows theconcepts and tools gleaned from a "faithfulness to the ancient andhonorable paths of the fathers."1 The professional in religious ed-ucation quests for a "usable" knowledge, a knowledge to helppeople tap, explain, and respond to their religious experiences.

The education of contemporary religious educators suggeststhat the purpose of the academy is to produce knowledge of whyand how ministry is to take place — theory—and that the purposeof ministry is to apply that knowledge. This education reduces thereligious educator to being a problem-solver, an applier of theright theory. The operating assumption is that there are thosewhose job it is to derive theory out of experience (academics),and there are those who go to school to learn those theories andthen go in ministry to apply them.

The legacy of this education is a person who, as minister, has apoor self-image of being capable of knowing the meaning of whathe or she is doing; or a person who feels that theory is simplyirrelevant to what he or she is doing.

1 Donald Schön. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (NewYork: Basic Books, 1983), p. 81.

Religious Education Vol 83 No 3 Summer 1988

323

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14

324 SEARCH FOR A USABLE KNOWLEDGE

Many have imagined a bridge to describe this point of rela-tionship. They see the field of religious education as that whichgaps the theory of scholars and the practice of those who wouldact religiously. I find this image inadequate. A bridge is not aplace on which to live. With this image, the religious educatornever finds a home: neither respected in the academy nor seen asrelevant in everyday life.

The image of "bridge" arises from a notion of the theory/prac-tice relationship, which dominates the Western world's educa-tion. Feminist philosophers point out that Western philosophyconceptualizes the universe in terms of ups and downs.2 Morevalue is given to things near the top and less to what is near thebase. There is a "chain of being": God over humanity, humanityover animals, animals over plants, plants over rocks, rocks overatoms, and atoms over particles.3 Religious language and religioushabits in our culture presume hierarchies. It is this hierarchicalchain of being in theological education that holds us hostage. Fac-ulties, courses, programs, and scholarly work in the academicfields — the biblical and theological disciplines — are higher upthe chain than those in religious education. The discipline of reli-gious education is forever derived from the "higher religioussciences," lacking its own integrity to make meaning with educa-tional experiences of the people it encounters. We must find newways to think about the universe that will free us from such hierar-chical bad habits; we cannot continue to affirm this relationshipand still be relevant to the wholeness of daily religious experience.

It is Western education that produces the "professional." It re-duces that person to being the one who has gained good theory inschool and applies it, as problem solver, to his or her clients butwho does not engage the new revelations of knowledge in thelived experiences of these people. The anti-professionalism weexperience in the churches today comes from this view, that theprofessional religious educator is the expert. He or she is the onewho brings "salvif ic theory" to the client's experience rather thanbeing the one who constructs, with the client, "salvific theory" intheir mutual experience. This criticism of the professional is infact a criticism of the Western school model. It assumes that stu-

2 Susanne K. Longer. Philosophy in a New Key: A study in the Symbolism of Reason,Rite and Art (New York: A Mentor Book, 1942).

3 Barbara Brown Zikmund. Keynote Address, Association of Theological Field Educa-tors, Louisville, KY (January, 1987), p. 10.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14

ROBERT T. O'GORMAN 325

dents learn best in a setting in which one person is in charge, thatthis one has knowledge to be given out. Through this model ofindividual power, religious educators learn a style of educationthat is then replicated in their ministry. One person, the director ofreligious education, is hired to give the church what it needs fromthe tradition and from the hierarchy but has not been preparedmutually to engage the religious experience of the people.

Reexamining what is usable knowledge for religious livingand how one gains it challenges the traditional hierarchical rela-tionship between theory and practice. This is the task this paperapproaches.

The Argument

To pursue "useful knowledge," the discipline of religious educa-tion must challenge this hierarchical relationship of theory topractice and to do this it must begin with its own self-image.Rather than a bridge that gaps theory and practice, I propose theimage of a crossroads, which unifies theory and practice at itscenter. Picture academic religion as the vertical direction and re-ligious action as the horizontal, both crossing at a point. Picturethe professional religious educator as an agent on die horizontalroad, traversing the intersection. He or she is committed to live(walk back and forth on the street of human experience) with themass of the people, constantly crossing the theoretical street andconceptualizing there with them. In this immersion the religiouseducator is in tune with the source of divine revelation — the reli-gious experiences of the people. Religious education, seen as thelocus or intersection of human experience and religious knowing,is no longer a derived discipline, no longer marginal to theacademy's curriculum. It is now centered in what should be theaim of the whole curriculum — providing r>eoDle with a usableknowledge. So immersed in the life or the people, it provides theacademy an authentic context for theologizing. And it providesthe people with the service of making meaning of their experi-ences.

I really had to struggle with the meaning of the crossroadsimage. I see it requiring a choice for the epistemology of action,rather than for the epistemology of abstraction. And in so doing, itis a choice to be oriented to those in practice rather than those inabstraction.

Thus, the discipline of religious education takes an essential,not marginal, place in the theological curriculum. From the cross-

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14


roads perspective, the Drofessional religious educator is envi-v sioned as a "reflective practitioner"—not one wrib learns theory"in the academy in one to two years and then spends a lifetime in"practice," "technically" applying it — but one who, through en-gagement in religious education, learns how to theorize in action,one who has the capacity to think intelligently about what one is

. doing while one is doing it.4

I will enlist the help of a few guides in this work of reconceiv-ing the task of the discipline of religious education as the devel-opment of reflective practitioners. EdwarH Farley has pursuedhistorical work on the constitution of theological education, ex-ploring how theological education has come to experience thetheory/practice relationship. Second, David. T>acy, who in re-forming the relationship among the fundamental, constructive,and practical categories of theory, has attempted to reshape thistheory /practice relationship. Third, Donald Schfin examines thereconstruction of professional education. In tandem with ChrisArgyris, he has worked on the relation of theory and practice.SchOn offers both an explanation for the debilitating relationshipbetween theory and practice as it exists in secular professionaleducation and theory and strategy for dealing with this problem.

The History

Edward Farley's study of the character of the theological schooltargets the nineteenth-century parceling of theology into thequadrivium of Division 1-Biblics, Division 2-Dogmatics, Division3-History, and Division 4-Practice as the structure which nar-rowed theology to a science for training clergy. This framing setthe stage for a relation of academics to ministry and restrictedtheology to the professional preparation of the cleric (the "clericalparadigm"), preparing the cleric as the expert over the lay personin matters of religious meaning. Farley points out that in this pat-tern the flow of the issues of contemporary experience from thereligious community is blocked. There is only a one-way streetand academic theology speaks to the contemporary community,

4 While, in the elaboration of my argument, I have focused on the professional religiouseducator I want to address the usable knowledge the "student" of religious educationneeds in his or her everyday religious life. Thus, I am suggesting that the ones the religiouseducator teaches should be envisioned as "reflective practitioners" as well as religiouseducators.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14


but the community does not speak to the theological academy.This conception of theology ratified the theory/practice relation-ship for ministry.

What resulted, according to Farley, was a greater lack of realnurture for the ministries of the church (preaching, liturgy, Chris-tian education, pastoral counseling, and so forth), since the experi-ences of the people were now defined outside the scope of theol-ogy. As the various social sciences and their derivatives developedin the twentieth century, the ministries turned to these more rele-vant sciences for their theoretical sustenance: pastoral counselingto psychology, outreach to sociology, religious education to de-velopmental studies, preaching to communication theory.

Farley concludes that ministry suffers two inheritances fromthis clerical paradigm. Each of the several branches of Division 4attaches itself to a nurturing source distinctly different from theother (thereby curtailing dialogue among these areas of ministryand causing them to loose their common identity), and each at-taches itself to a source that is not deliberately and consciouslyfocused on the theological. Thus, the church's ministries do notspeak to each other, nor do they speak to the religious heart of thepeople. There exists a Tower of Babel of ministries.

Donald SchOn tells of a similar nineteenth-century history forthe professions in general: medicine, counseling, social work, ar-chitecture, and management, which supports the Farley historybut also pushes it, epistemologically, a bit further. Schon says thatthe old epistemology of practice is centered on the concern forproblem solving. He calls the model that shapes this epistemology"technical rationality." This is the perception that science (ra-tional, abstract thinking) can be harnessed into tools (technology)to achieve human ends. Professionals, under this perception, arepersons who gain the theories in the academy to apply the tools toresolve recognized problems. This model is characterized by afocus on efficiency. The epistemology operative in this mind-setassumes a three-story approach: an underlying discipline or basicscience upon which practice should rest, then applied science orthe engineering aspects of professional work, and finally the skillsand attitudes that involve the actual performance of service for aclient.

The thesis of knowing in technical rationality is that the teach-ing of principles from research should precede the developmentand application of skills. This way of thinking is the heritage ofpositivism where propositions of knowledge are either analytic

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14


(logic/math) or empirical — certainly not metaphorical or artis-tic. Practical knowledge for Auguste Comte was merely theknowledge of a one-way relationship of ends to means (the recipebook). The ends are decided elsewhere. Practical knowledge issimply a matter of choosing the correct means; it is only instru-mental. The role of the professional in the academy, according tothis paradigm of science's relation to practice, is to provide theacademician with practical problems, who then works on themand returns them to the profession in the form of researched prin-ciples (scientific knowledge). Thus developed the hierarchy ofdegrees: Ph.D. over the M.D., the Ed.D., and the D. Min.

Technical rationality has had its effects in the classification oftheological education. In prime place is the university, where, in"Religious Studies," concern is for the exploration of religious tra-ditions. Here, knowledge — sound doctrine — is key. In secondplace is the seminary, where through "Formation," religious expe-riences shape lives. Here identity, not knowledge, is the primarygoal. Third, there are the institutes or certification programs,popular education where training for the tasks of ministry is cen-tral and the context sets the agenda. The first has its focus on theobjective content of learning; the second is on the subjectivity ofthe learner, and the third is on the practice of ministry. It is inmaking a choice among these three that we encounter having todivide ourselves into the academic, spiritual, or practical camps.

Where Farley criticizes ministry's romance with the socialsciences essentially because they are not deliberately and con-sciously focused on the theological, Scho"n criticizes the episte-mology of a paradigm that has practice as the handmaid of re-search science. His book is based on the conviction that thesciences do not provide the profession with a usable knowledge,and instead of rejecting that situation (as they should) the profes-sions continue to nurse from this dry nipple and they themselvesbecome irrelevant to the society they are meant to serve.

Shortly, I will detail Scho'n's prescription to remedy this ill. Butfirst I would like to spend a moment with David Tracy who isdevoting himself to the concern for a "usable knowledge" forministry.

The Reconstruction of Theology

David Tracy, viewing the history of the construction of the theo-logical academy through the same historical lens as Farley, is con-

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14


cerned that theology does not address the religious in the contem-porary human struggle. His attempt to recast the categories oftheology is done for the purpose of activating theology for a "crit-ical correlation between an interpretation of the Christian factand the contemporary situation,"5 between theological abstrac-tion and life.

Tracy's first work phenomenologically establishes that fun-damental theology's task is to demonstrate that human experiencehas at its heart the religious. His second work asserts that construc-tive or systematic theology is an attempt to express this humanreligious experience in terms of the classic Christian texts or tradi-tion (the mode, then, for him of systematic theology is that ofliterary analysis — hence his call for an "analogical imagination").His third book develops the position that the work of practicaltheology is to construct a model or vision of human transforma-tion — what people "live" when they operate from the Christiantradition. This vision is a synthesis of fundamental theology's as-sertion of the religious heart of human experience (thesis) andsystematic theology's expression of this experience in Christianterms (antithesis). A synthesis according to Tracy's philosopher,Hegel, "preserves, uplifts, and transforms" the thesis and antithe-sis simultaneously.

Thus, Tracy's construction of the relationship of ways of think-ing theologically about religious experience is three-fold: intuitive— (common to human experience), expressive as analogy in reli-gious texts, and expressive as vision in action. For Tracy there isno one-way relationship among the categories of theology or thecategories of theologians. The educator — the "practical theolo-gian" — for Tracy is the one who calls forth the living vision ofhuman transformation which comes by living ethically in theworld. Tracy, in his attempt to recover Christian living as the lo-cus of practical theology, would say religious education does hotneed to look outside itself for the development and expounding otits knowledge, Religious education participates in the theologicaltask by its struggle to formulate the telos or vision of the humanreligious experience, what Tracy calls the ethical ideal.

5 Don S. Browning. Practical Theology: The Emerging Field in Theology, Church, andWorld (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), p. 61.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14


The Question

This history from Farley and Sch6n and the reexamination oftheological method by Tracy set the stage, then, for religious edu-cators to reexamine the answer to the proverbial chicken/eggquestion regarding theory and practice in religious education.The traditional search for knowledge by religious educators restson the assumption that professional knowledge as created by theresearch academy is what helps them perform effectively. Thus,in a period of ineffective performance, they turn to the academyfor better professional knowledge. It was this assumption, how-ever, that achieved the fruitless dichotomy Farley uncovers in thehistory: that the educator is simply the consumer of theory andthus, unfortunately, theory irrelevant to her or his practice. I amcontending that if by professional knowledge is meant the theo-logical institutions' research, then this is a search in vain. Theknowledge from the academy meant for religious education is notadequate to fulfill the espoused purposes of this ministry.

The problem with this epistemology is that the intellectuals'sources are not the primary sources. The t>rimary source is ourown experience, just as the Bible is a record of primary sourcesand theology or religious theory are second reflections on theseprimary sources. We have confused secondary sources for prim-ary sources. The task in religious education is sharing the people'sprimary experiences. The question religious educators need toface is, Do they do this with the words closest to people's expe-riences or do they do it via the ideas of the intellectuals?

Although religious educators will not go back to that futile pastof a subservient relationship to the imperialism of the researchdisciplines of theology, they also cannot remain separated, asDavid Tracy views it, from the religious center of their meaning,which is the focus of these research disciplines. They are dissatis-fied with the present relationship they experience in the academybetween fundamental and constructive theology and practicaltheology. They would agree with Farley: They, too, are uncom-fortable with nursing from sciences which do not consciously anddeliberately focus them on the religious; and like SchOn, they fearthat knowledge from the social sciences seduces them to becomeinsignificant to the faithful they aim to serve through religiouseducation.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14


Knowing Is in Action

SchOn begins his constructive work with the observation that de-spite the gap between science and practice there are effectiveprofessionals in the world today. To paraphrase, despite the gapbetween the academy and ministry there is in existence today ef-fective religious education. Thus, he would contend that there issome art of religious education which is learnable.

The world of knowledge in the model of technical rationalitywas built upon a vision of control and a desire for efficiency in theexecution of practice. Now, however, we are more aware of theimportance and value of complexity, uncertainty, instability,uniqueness, and value conflicts to knowing (epistemology).These conditions that exist in the field are not to be abstractedfrom and dealt with in the "ivy tower," but are the locus of know-ing, in their own context. What is central to someone in practice,says Scho'n, is not theory and its principles of how to solve a prob-lem, but "reflective-practice," knowing in action.

Now, though the old epistemology of practice, as Schon haspointed out, was shaped by a concern with problem-solving, theepistemology of what he calls "reflective practice" is not. It isconcerned with problem-setting. Where "technical rationality"cannot tolerate uncertainty, reflective practice is secure in dealinewith uncertainty; where technical rationality only operates scien-tifically, reflective practice performs artistically; and where tech-nical rationality'is restricted to a single discipline (that is, is ideo-logical), reflective practice chooses from among competingprofessional paradigms.

With regard to the key difference between knowing from the-ory and reflection-in-action — that of problem-setting versusproblem-solving—Scho'n puts it this way:". . . in the process ofproblem solving . . . problems of choice or decision are solvedthrough the selection, from available means, of the one best suitedto the established ends. . . . [Here] we ignore problem setting,the process by which we define the decision to be made, the endsto be achieved, the means which may be chosen."6 But, problems(the heart of knowing), says SchOn, do not exist as givens.

6 SchOn. The Reflective Practitioner, p. 40.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14


They must be constructed from the materials of problematic situationswhich are puzzling, troubling, and uncertain. . . . problem setting isnot itself a technical problem. When we set problems, we select whatwe will treat as the "things" of the situation, we set the boundaries ofour attention to it, and we impose on it a coherence which allows us tosay what is wrong and in what directions the situation needs to bechanged. Problem setting is a process in which, interactively, we namethe things to which we will attend and frame the context in which wewill attend to them.7

The religious educator, then, is the theological practitionerwho has the power to make decisions on his or her feet. It is onlyon the hard high ground where educators can follow researched-based theory and technique; in the swamps it is too messy. Yet it isin the swamps where there are the problems of greatest humanconcern. It is precisely this concern about religion's relevance tohuman problems which has caused Tracy to redo theology.

If theory means that which I slavishly follow, then it is of nouse to the educator. It has to be reconceived as a hunch or hy-pothesis which I employ in an experiment to deal with the prob-lem. Then it becomes, if successful, a theory for that incident.These hunches exist in the educator's repertoire, which have cer-tainly come from study but mostly from practice.

Religious education needs to move the student to see theologi-cal research not just as a product but as a process — something forhim or her to engage in. The operative epistemology here is thatknowing is in action. We have to come to see action as a phenom-enon which embodies thinking. We do not ordinarily, Scho'npoints out, have rules and plans in our minds prior to action. Weneed to accept that we can know in action.

The Strategy of Knowing in Action "

Sch6n, from his research on the way practitioners exercise theirknowing in action, surfaces a discipline for this praxis. The firstdimension is to treat the situation as a unique case: listening for theparticulars of the situation. The second dimension is to reframethe problem where the client got stuck (that is, changing the ques-'tion the person asks). One cannot apply standard theories for un-derstanding a situation but must construct an understanding for asituation as one finds it. The third dimension has the practitioner

7 Ibid.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14


stepping into the situation, turning to his or her repertoire for agenerative metaphor to relate to the situation. In the fourth di-mension an experiment is conducted in the refrained situation.

The goal that shapes religious education is ethical action. Itshermeneutical mode is exercised by the tasks of listening, refram-ing, relating, and experimenting. Listening perhaps is the key one.It requires putting on the self all assumptions, holding in abeyanceall judgments, and emptying one's self, requiring a type of humil-ity. John Dunne calls this a "passing over": a) going from one's"homeland" to the "wonderland" of another's way of life; b) exist-ing in the midst, neither attempting to convert nor be converted,but attempting to comprehend drives and motivations of others;c) returning to one's "homeland," where one sees the familiar withnew eyes.8 Reframing happens when the religious educator andthe people mutually rework their understanding of what theyhear. It happens after initial hearing and listening have takenplace. It surfaces the deeper experience and represents that expe-rience in a new form.

Relating is the time when the educator and the people sharethe images and stories which are analogous to the issue. Here iswhen the educator's resource as one trained in the scriptures andtradition can be helpful.

Experimenting is the construction of a plan of action, thatwhich will express and verify the experiences which were intui-tive to both the people and the educator as the process began. Theexecution of this action will require the people to become orga-nized, to become a union, a community.

Beneath these dimensions of the practitioner's knowing we seethat the educator starts with attempting to frame the problem.That is, he or she works out a way of outlining the issue fromamong perspectives the educator has confidence in. The changesproduced in the experiment are judged in light of his or her values.There is a movement from perception of the issues to a syntheticinterpretation congruent with the educator's fundamental valuesand theories. All of these modes of knowing run contrary to thecanons of knowing established by science in the model of techni-cal rationality, which will not tolerate subjective framing andvalue judgments.

8 Taylor and June McConnell. "Researching Family Ministries Through Cross-CulturalEducation," Quarterly Review 2, #4 (Winter, 1982), p. 80.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14


What separates the educator as practitioner from the aca-demic is that the educator's reflection is motivated by the desire toattend to and change a particular situation, and this desire tochange takes precedence over understanding. For the educator,means and ends, research and practice, knowing and doing arenot separated. Dealing with problems is not a scientific technicalprocedure; practice is not the application of theories derivedfrom controlled experimentation; action is not simply the imple-mentation of a technical decision. The activity of the educatorcannot be reduced to technique. Educators learn to be effectivenot primarily through the study of theological research and edu-cational skills but through long and varied practice in the analysisof educational problems, which build up a generic, essentially un-analyzable capacity for dealing with problems.

For the educator to be a reflective practitioner, there will haveto be a change in the way in which he or she relates to the students.He or she has to become disabused of the self-image of being theexpert to the layperson. If this view of the relationship is notchanged, the educator will not be free to reflect in action but willhave to hide behind the "solid knowledge" that comes from theresearch theologians.

This will necessitate a change in the students as well. Accord-ing to this mode of operation they will place themselves more in apattern of engaging with the educator over the problem, ratherthan having the "black box" approach. The change may be hardfor the educator since the rewards of the old order are unques-tioned authority, no challenge, deference from the parishioners.The rewards of the new order, however, are those of discovery,where research becomes an activity of the educator.

Scho'n does hold a place for academic research on "reflection-in-practice"; that is, he believes there is an authentic activity forthe researcher in the academy with regard to professional reflec-tion, a "meta-reflection," if you like. He spells out four categories.The first is frame analvsis, that is, a study of the ways practitionersframe or structure their practice. For example, religious educa-tors talk about five ways of structuring the activity of religiouseducation: viewing it as instruction, community building, spirit-ual development, political activity, or interpretive activity. Suchanalysis helps practitioners become aware of their tacit framesand leads them to experience the dilemmas inherent in profes-sional pluralism (that is, to avoid the pitfalls of ideology).

A second academic activity is repertoire building research, the

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14


building up of case studies, as a reservoir of exemplars of practicalknowledge. A third is research on fundamental methods of in-quiry and overarching theories, what he calls the development of"an "action science," which would concern itself with unique situa-tions and situations that do not lend themselves to the rigors ofscience. It aims at breeding "themes" practitioners would use todevelop theories and methods for themselves.9

Fourth, SchOn mentions research on the process of reflection-in-action, where there is the academic study oFhow practitionersdevelop and shift theories in their practice of the profession. Butthe nature of all this academic research is not to dictate practiceby elaborating theories; it is to produce thinking about how prac- _titioners develop theories as they practice.

Conclusion

Joan Chittister, O.S.B., in "Divinely Ordained? Religious Crea-tion Myths and the Relation of Militarism to Sexism,"10 provides adescription of religious knowing which I believe contains a state-ment of the goal and tasks of religious education as envisionedfrom the perspective of reflective practice. Religion, she says, issimultaneously mystery and meaning, raising the great questionsof life and claiming to know their answers: the reason for exis-tence itself, our origins, the nature of the divine, what is expectedof us, issues essential to relationships in society, the ethics of ourinterpersonal relationships, and the nature of our institutions. Re-ligious knowing, she continues, addresses two dimensions on life:first it explains its origin, and second it interprets its meaning. Theanswers religious knowing brings to these great mysteries becomethe foundations of human ethics and the basis of human organiza-tion. The goal, then, of religious education is social ethics, and thetask is organizing people for ethical action.11

• Chris Argyris, Robert Putnam, and Diana McLain Smith, Action Science: Concepts,Methods, and Skills for Research and Intervention (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985).

10 Joan Chittister, OSB, "Divinely Ordained Religious Creation Myths and the Relationof Militarism to Sexism" in Winds of Change: Women Challenge Church (Kansas City:Sheed& Ward, 1986).

11 The adjective "public" is key in describing these assumptions about religious educa-tion and its goals and tasks. "Public" designates that the object of religious education man-ifests itself in the formation of a people, the creation of a religious public, the building ofcommunity. Better to understand the "public" character of ministry, contrast it with theprivate preference of ministry — the psychological ministry of therapy and management— versus social ministry of service and advocacy. Public ministry as the central focus ofthe church is community restoration — preparing people through word and sacrament for

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14


My overall concern in this paper has been with the relationshipbetween the theory from the classes in the academy and theknowledge needed to operate successful religious education inthe parish. I have challenged the assumption that formation ofreligious educators should be based on an educational model thatviews the basic courses as theology and educational foundationswhere one learns essential theory for ministry; then appliedcourses; and finally internship. My challenge is that the center ofthe student's education must be action — the internship or practi-cum — and that the curriculum constantly relates the "basic" and"applied" courses to this action.

Dr. O'Gorman is professor of Christian education at Scarritt Graduate School.

Bibliography

Jackson W. Carroll, Ministry as Reflective Practice: A New Look at the Professional Model,Washington, D.C.: The Alban Institute, 1986.

Edward Farley, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of TheologicalEducation, Phil-adelphia: Fortress Press, 1983.

Edward Farley, "Theology and Practice Outside the Clerical Paradigm" in Don S. Brown-ing, Practical Theology: The Emerging Field in Theology, Church, and World, SanFrancisco: Harper and Row, 1983.

Joseph C. Hough, Jr. and John B. Cobb, Jr., Christian Identity and TheologicalEducation,Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985.

Donald Schön, Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teachingand Learning in the Professions, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987.

David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order: The New Pluralism in Theology, New York: Sea-bury, 1975.

David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Plural-ism, New York: Crossroad Books, 1981.

David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope, San Francisco:Harper and Row, 1987.

David Tracy, "The Foundations of Practical Theology" in Don S. Browning PracticalTheology: The Emerging Field in Theology, Church, and World, San Francisco:Harper and Row, 1983.

Charles M. Wood, Vision and Discernment, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985.

God's restoration of communal (that is, public) life. Thus community building, the skills todo that and the theology which informs those skills is what public religious education isabout.

"Public theology" describes the nature of criteria which demonstrates the adequacy ofChristian stories as analogous for the common human experience. Their manifestation is inpublic act, act which is there for all to assent to, to say "yes, that behavior expresses ourexperience." Religious education, then, is the public act, which manifests itself in the build-ing of community. This building of community is the public criteria which as an explicitexpression of Christian revelation is a manifestation of the common intuitive humanexperience.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

lasg

ow]

at 0

6:52

20

Dec

embe

r 20

14

the search for a usable knowledge in religious education: educating reflective practitioners

Documents