S15 E7: The One About The Importance Of A-Level RE

Think RE is irrelevant in the 21st Century or think it is only for religious people or can only lead to a career as a vicar or an RE teacher? Think again.  RE A-level is dynamic, challenging and essential for life in modern Britain! Just listen and find out.

If you are a parent of a student who wants to take RE A-level, or a student who is thinking of doing it or are not sure, or you are a school leader who wants to understand the value of RE, then listen up!

Young people who are training to be Doctors and Barristers, who work in technology and finance and education speak on how important RE A-level has been in their further study and careers.

To be able to be trained in the art of argument, critical thinking, empathy, out of the box thinking, and much more has enabled them to be successful in a wide variety of careers.

• I chat to five young people who did RE A-level and we discuss;
• Why they choose RE and what they liked about it
• How has RE helped them
• Whether RE is academic?
• Whether you need to be religious to do RS
• Whether you need to have RS GCSE to do RS A-level?
• What advice they would have for someone thinking of doing RS or about to start it

I also chat to Dr. Fazilat Dar, Head of Data Science for TfL about why critical thinking and being able to see things from someone elses perspective are essential skills in industry.

Here are links to the things mentioned in the episode.

Informed Choices

https://www.informedchoices.ac.uk/start

The CBI Scandal

https://www.thecorporategovernanceinstitute.com/insights/case-studies/the-cbi-scandal-highlights-failure-on-every-level/?srsltid=AfmBOooTe5vr-FtGX5-5q36yGs7lrWb-xXTGwxXJe5_kt6qlSjSUOpZ0

David Roden

https://philpeople.org/profiles/david-roden

Simon Jenkins

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/med/staff/sjenkins/

Wako - David Koresh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Koresh

Dunning Kruger effect

https://www.google.com/search?q=dunning+kruger+effect&sca_esv=b703f1cd0674f892&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBGB1101GB1101&sxsrf=AHTn8zqWUAZg47-JSSu3DsRhTnECqw0Jqw%3A1747077462512&ei=VkkiaP-HH-CBhbIP3P7omAM&oq=dunning+kruger+eff&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiEmR1bm5pbmcga3J1Z2VyIGVmZioCCAAyCBAAGIAEGLEDMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAESI0fUJsBWNMQcAF4AZABAJgBWaABlgKqAQE0uAEByAEA-AEBmAIFoALCAsICChAAGLADGNYEGEfCAg0QABiABBiwAxhDGIoFwgIOEAAYsAMY5AIY1gTYAQHCAhMQLhiABBiwAxhDGMgDGIoF2AEBmAMAiAYBkAYRugYGCAEQARgJkgcBNaAH3xayBwE0uAewAg&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

Transcript

SPEAKER_13 0:05

Welcome to the R.E. Podcast, the first dedicated RE podcast for students and teachers. My name is Louisa Jane Smith, and this is the R.E. Podcast. The podcast for those of you who think R.E. is boring, which it is, and I'm going to prove it to you. Now, I must admit, I'm quite excited about this episode, and I feel quite emotional about it, because I think as we were planning it, and I had a co-conspirator that I'm going to introduce you to in a second. We suddenly realised how important this was going to be and how needed it is to have this conversation right now. Who I've got in front of me on my screen is I've got Karen Steele, who is my co-conspirator, who was instrumental in organising and making this episode happen, and we'll speak to her in a second. And then who else I've got are five young people who have all done religious studies A Level and are here to talk about the impact it's had on their life and their career choices and how it's helped them. What we are really hoping is that this episode can be shared with people to inspire more people to do religious studies A-level. I think this is important for society more broadly, that we've got people who are religiously literate, that are compassionate, empathetic, understanding, critically thinking. But also for those that are teaching, that work in schools, that are educators, that are teachers on the ground, that are head teachers, what you know is that at the moment, nearly 50% of our students are being taught by teachers with other specialisms. So what we've got is a bit of a recruitment crisis. Now the reason we've got this is because maybe we've not got as many people doing religious studies A-level. So they're not going on to do theology and religious studies degrees. And so the pool in which we're trying to recruit teachers is much smaller. So what we want to do is inspire young people to see religious studies as a really dynamic option that opens up many doors into their future. And so that's the reason for this episode. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna ask each of them to introduce themselves so you know who it is that we are speaking to. So Karen, could we just start with you? Okay.

SPEAKER_06 2:17

So I'm Karen Steele. I have taught A-level religious studies for 25 years. I did a little bit of math, I mean there are well over 300 people out there that I've sent through A-level RS, which is something I'm incredibly proud of. And I taught up until very recently, and I currently train teachers at the University of Worcester, one of whom we have with us today.

SPEAKER_13 2:36

Brilliant. Thank you so much. And I'm just going to kind of go around my screen. So, Helena, can we start with you? Who are you and what do you do?

SPEAKER_10 2:44

Sure. Yeah, I'm Helena. I actually was taught by feels weird saying Karen, but Mistele in A-level RS. I'm a policy advisor, and I should also say I studied theology for my degree at Durham.

SPEAKER_13 2:57

Brilliant. Thanks, Helena. Sophie.

SPEAKER_12 2:59

Hi, I'm Sophie. So I also studied, well, I did philosophy and theology at uni, graduated a few years ago from Oxford, and I now work at the FD, so the Financial Times, where I do something pretty different to theology, I suppose, but I work in commercial media and strategy, which basically means helping brands tell their own stories, whether that be ads, sponsorships, content, to engage FT readers. So a bit between creativity and logic. Okay. RS Gophia and Ice Gateway team.

SPEAKER_13 3:26

Yes, no, absolutely. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Sophie. Will.

SPEAKER_09 3:31

I I'm Will. Last year I graduated from UCL having studied philosophy after having done A-level religious studies. And I'm the one who's currently training to be an RE teacher at the University of Worcester with Karen.

SPEAKER_13 3:45

Okay, come on. The future of RE is in this room. This is fantastic. Thank you. Rhea.

SPEAKER_04 3:51

So hi everyone, my name's Rhea. I'm a fifth-year medical student at Oxford.

SPEAKER_13 3:55

And you did religious studies A-level, but then studied. I did medicine, that's the degree, isn't it? Brilliant.

SPEAKER_14 4:01

And Imogen. So I graduated last summer from a degree in theology and religion at the University of Birmingham. And now I work for a multi-academy trust in their communications department.

SPEAKER_13 4:13

So what you can see already is that people that have got this grounding in religious studies go on to do a wide spectrum of careers. So we've got medicine and we've got work in the Financial Times and we've got education. We've kind of got this wide net that we've casted. And I think this maybe highlights this problem with misconceptions about this subject. And the misconception is if you do RE, you've got to go and be a vicar or an RE teacher, and that's it. That's kind of your only thing. And what this shows is that there's a diversity of careers you can go into. And so what we really want to think about is why this is the case. How does RE prepare you for such diverse careers? So let's think about now going back to doing your GCSEs and you're making your choices for A-level, why you chose to do religious studies. So let's start with Imogen.

SPEAKER_14 5:04

For me, it was just one of the subjects that I loved the most. I loved, I don't know, being able to be creative with my words in a way that felt like it was making a like an impact in some sort of way. It wasn't making up a story, it was making an argument. And so yeah, I did it because I loved it and I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_13 5:23

Yeah. Can you remember any sort of specific things that you enjoyed kind of creating arguments about, any particular topics?

SPEAKER_14 5:30

Oh, I remember when I was in in school, I really loved thinking about what happens after we die and like, does God really exist? And can we prove it? You know, like the really big questions.

SPEAKER_13 5:42

Yeah, so actually the sort of more philosophical side about questioning existence and why we're here and where we go when we die and things like that.

SPEAKER_14 5:50

Yeah, definitely started out in philosophy.

SPEAKER_13 5:52

Yes, brilliant. Thank you so much. Ria, why did you choose religious studies? What do you love about it?

SPEAKER_04 5:59

Okay, so I chose it probably for two reasons. The first was because I'd taken it at GCSE and our RS teacher was amazing, genuinely just showed us that there was an insight into this subject where you could study philosophy and ethics, which wasn't kind of explicitly done before that at GCSE, you know, we'd never had the chance to learn anything like that before. And I suppose similarly to Imogen, you know, you get the chance to think about creative ways to tackle really big questions and also listen to and appreciate a lot of different people's arguments. But for me as well, taking two other sciences and a maths, this was a welcome break. This was like such a good chance to actually, I would say, use your brain in quite a profound way. You know, you can learn as many facts as you want to, but RS probably was the one where I did the most kind of organic thinking, if that makes sense. So that was a really important skill, I suppose, um, yeah, moving forward. So that's why I picked it.

SPEAKER_13 6:55

Yeah, and later we'll kind of come back to how it was sort of complementary in terms of the overlap of what you were doing, particularly in the career that you're doing now. Will, what made you choose religious studies as an A-level?

SPEAKER_09 7:08

Well, in the GCC, I was the student that was constantly putting the hand up and arguing with the teacher about things like the arguments for God. So that there'd always be a little debate between me and the teacher in the class, and yeah, I just wanted more of that. And A-level in that just sounded perfect to me.

SPEAKER_13 7:27

And actually, you're the student that we absolutely love having in the class, but actually, we often don't have enough time to invest in you enough, you know, that actually because we've got so much content to get through, that natural curiosity that some students have, those people that are naturally philosophical and ask questions and challenge things, you often have to silence them because you're try just trying to get through the content. And so, you know, I think it's really great that a lot of you are talking about the ability to kind of discuss and debate. Because I think what we're really calling for to the Department for Education is the space to do that in the curriculum. So I think this is kind of our unique selling point, isn't it? Sophie.

SPEAKER_12 8:08

Yeah, so I actually didn't initially take RS for A level, controversial. I actually did five weeks of my first term not doing RS, which is crazy given that I then went to do it at uni. I love it. I still stand there and say I absolutely love RS. Um, even now I do something pretty different. But I think Rhea picked up on something which was spot on, which was what I missed, which was really obvious. I took it for GCSE, was that I didn't want to just remember facts and just regurgitate information. And even when that came to the classroom, I used to love going to RS because it was kind of yeah, I didn't have that challenge of how I was thinking or really encouraging me to talk to people about just what we thought and thinking about how we came to think of those things. Yeah, and I think sharpening how you think, I don't think there is another subject that can really do that as organically again, like Rhea said. And RS gave me that, and I'm oh yeah, obviously no regrets at all. I'm I'm so glad I made that U-turn and did it.

SPEAKER_13 9:02

Amazing. Thank you, Sophie. Helena.

SPEAKER_10 9:05

Yeah, I guess like mine's pretty much a mix of everybody. Like I did a bit of biology as well, so it was like very, varied A-leveled, and primarily probably because I was interested in it so much, but also because a little tiny bit through the GCSE, I was exposed to this, but maybe more so in like exploring whether I would take the A level. I had this feeling with RE that like there's scope for stuff that's not on the curriculum, there's scope for like me to say things in exams or say things in class that wouldn't have necessarily been on the specification. Whereas even with English or biology, that's not the case. You kind of you stick to your specification. I felt like I had a lot of opinions about stuff that I felt like everybody needed to hear. So that was probably one reason, but like it felt like it was an A level that wasn't kind of constricting my like worldview or constricting the way that I would answer questions and stuff. So yeah, it was exciting to me, I think.

SPEAKER_13 10:02

Yeah. That's really interesting. And I think that's the challenge for us as teachers sometimes because RE is so broad, it's very, very, very difficult to teach anything without taking it outside of the remit of the curriculum. And so actually, what we've got is a real sense of cultural capital that you're not just understanding an exam spec, you're understanding the world that we live in, the context we are in, society, humanity, plus all these big questions.

SPEAKER_06 10:31

And if I can just say, Louise, that I think that's one of the absolute joys of teaching A-level is that you've got a room of young people who have got that enthusiasm, that they want to be there, they want to do this, and you've got that time and space to go on this incredible journey. And I just think the A-level spec that I did, you go all the way from the ancient Greeks up to kind of looking at Christian responses to secularism and so on. It's just such a broad and varied, there's something there for everybody, and it's just really exciting to do that with young people. It's just a a great place to be in an A-level RS classroom.

SPEAKER_13 11:05

It's fascinating because I think it then challenges, you know, who we are, our place in the world, you know, what we are capable of. I think it just broadens our mind, but in a way that allows us to achieve so much more. So, what I want to think about now is how religious studies A level has helped you in your career. So, Rhea, let's just start with you because obviously you've gone into medicine, and I think a lot of people make that distinction between the sciences and the humanities, and they might not necessarily see that religious studies would be complementary to the sciences and the math that you were doing. Has that been your experience or not?

SPEAKER_04 11:41

I mean, to me, it's been entirely complementary. In terms of sort of the practicals and the logistics within the field, I mean, we have to have teaching on ethics and law. It's super interesting to see that some of the stuff we're taught now and think, oh my gosh, the first time we were talking about euthanasia laws or things like abortion or end-of-life care was in my RSA level. That would be sort of the practical course content type thing. And and if you go to medical school or just anywhere really where you have to maybe write some scientific essays, they actually really, really like the fact that you've had a foundation in learning about knowledge. So, right back at the beginning when it was all the epistemology as well, that is really, really good to get a flavor of because I suppose you get this appreciation that when people started learning, they learnt as polymaths, you know. No one was really doing one discipline on its own, and that couldn't be more true, I suppose, in this degree as well, because suddenly you're like, okay, to me, spit cringe, but like medicine is life, but in the same vein, philosophy is life, so it's quite it really aligns well to have studied something where that kind of matches up to sort of most domains in life.

SPEAKER_13 12:56

Yeah, I think that's really interesting because I think a lot of people don't necessarily it's just never been explained to them, that in the past scientists were the mathematicians, were the philosophers, because it was just about knowledge, it was just about knowing things and understanding the world around them. And so, therefore, that's why people like Blaise Pascal, you know, will feature in your mass curriculum and will feature in philosophy, or, you know, any of those kind of big natural theologians or anything like that, that there's a big crossover. And I think we quite like in our society now is to divide everything up separately and categorize it, where you're right in the past, knowledge was knowledge, and everything kind of fed into one another. And therefore, I think that's when we kind of had our greatest kind of revelations about the world and made the greatest progress in terms of human history. So, yeah, that's really interesting. Helena, talk to us about how sort of religious studies has helped you.

SPEAKER_10 13:56

Yeah, so there's a very like basic answer in the sense that as like a policy advisor, I will write like submissions and things like that, and the way that you can structure arguments is like fundamentally what I learn, I guess, at A level, and probably more so RS, because again, like my opinion mattered. It wasn't the same as English, where it was like just my analytical skills, it was my opinion as well. But I think this is going to sound really weird, but the way that it's helped me the most is something that you kind of touched on earlier, Louisa, in the sense that it gave me a lot of cultural capital, it gave me a lot of confidence to hold my own in conversations at work. Like I'm quite young compared to some of the people at work, and young people will know this when they go into the workplace, it can seem quite intimidating. But to be able to hold my own and to be able to understand what people are saying when they talk about like Schrdinger's cat or Jeremy Bentham and stuff like that, it sounds so random, but it gives you that sort of cultural capital. And it also, like I said before, it's not necessarily the stuff you learn in RE or RS. It's like you learn something which makes you want to go and research something else, which makes you want to read something out. And that sort of like inquisitive sense that the RS A level instilled in me is so fundamental to my work now. Because if I don't question things, things stay the same, and it that's not great. So I think in terms of government, civil service, policy work, it's a really crucial A level to maybe think about and have because those skills are really essential, and like keep questioning things and don't just let things lie, sort of thing.

SPEAKER_13 15:32

That's a really interesting answer. Because actually, you know, what you're saying is the content almost gives you a bit of like social capital, but actually it's the skills that you can then use in your work, and I think that's what sometimes people forget is that RE is not just about the stuff, it's about the skills that you you know it's what to do with that stuff. And I think particularly if we're moving into an age of like sort of AI, much more dependent, being able to know what to do with the stuff is really important.

SPEAKER_10 16:03

Definitely, yeah. I always say I loved my degree, but obviously it was very content-heavy. If I didn't do RSA level, I don't know where I would have got those skills from. Like I didn't get it from an English A level, I definitely didn't get it from a biology A level. So that was the only place I could access those skills. So yeah, it was definitely fundamental in what I do now.

SPEAKER_13 16:24

Brilliant, thanks, Elena. Imogen.

SPEAKER_14 16:26

So I work in communications now, which is a little bit of a sidestep from theology and religion. But what I have found is that my general sort of knowledge of religion has been really helpful in the workplace in informing maybe what events we do, as well as because I'm in charge of sort of social media day-to-day posting, being able to just easily know that today's Eid, I'm gonna post something to celebrate, or whatever the case may be, and then being able to pass that knowledge on to all of the schools that are in our foundation and then say, Oh, that's really helpful, I wouldn't have thought of that otherwise. So, yeah, having that sort of general background knowledge has been one of the most helpful things. And like Helena said, it's that sort of cultural skills and social skills in being able to be more aware and uh inclusive in your practices in the workplace. That's definitely been one of the most helpful things I've found.

SPEAKER_13 17:28

Because actually, that almost has like commercial connotations, and actually your businesses will be much more successful, much more profitable if you want to be crude, if you understand the diversity within your customers. If you're seeing everything through your own worldview, your own lens, you're only going to appeal to people that look like you or act like you. Whereas if you can have the understanding of the diversity of people's lived experiences, you can then target your product to be, you know, it's blunt, it sounds horrible, but you can target your product to be applicable to them and therefore make more money. And that's really interesting.

SPEAKER_14 18:06

Exactly. And frequently when I apply to new jobs, I will mention my background in religion in being I have a unique insight into the cross-section of this population and the different ways in which they might operate, as opposed to just seeing it from one direction, and it gives me that extra little thing to talk about that maybe not everybody who hasn't studied religion would otherwise have.

SPEAKER_13 18:32

Karen, can I bring you in? And I've got a couple more of the young people I need to speak to, but actually this links to something we were talking about before we spoke, about things in terms of what people are looking for. So, in terms of if you've got religious studies A level on your CV, why that might be attractive to potential employers.

SPEAKER_06 18:52

Well, there's just so many reasons, it's hard to know where to start. I think there's something about the critical thinking that I think people have talked about, the ability to deconstruct things and to put an argument together and to do that in an informed and balanced way and so on. I think whatever you're wanting to do, those are going to be really important skills. I think that kind of religious literacy that Imogene was referring to there is so important. And that there's a couple of things I was thinking about. In 2023, a Bloom report was published, which was a report commissioned by the government of the day to look at the role of faith in society and how government should respond to faith. And it was a really interesting report. It looked at all the positive things that faith and faith communities contribute to society, but it didn't shy away from the problems. And it came up with a number of recommendations. You know, one of those recommendations was that government should, I've got it here somewhere, should encourage all of its agencies and so on to it says that everyone on the public payroll, including civil servants in Whitehall and local councils, NHS and public health staff, teachers in schools, colleges and universities, and police, prison and probation officers, should be provided with consistent quality-face literacy training. So, you know, this report was saying that government needs to be aware of and needs to be equipping all of its agencies and so on to have that awareness. And actually there are financial and social reasons why we should be doing that. And I think we see that reflected in the current curriculum review as well, where things like AI, um, environmental concerns and so on are very much shaping and informing the way that this review of the curriculum in England is going. And I think people who do A-level RS are perfectly equipped to think about those things in all sorts of ways. So, one example I often used when I was trying to recruit for open evening was driverless cars. You know, um we need our techie people, we need our scientists, we need our mathematicians, of course we do, to make these things happen, and they are really, really important. But once the tech is sorted and once we've got that, the AI or whatever it might be, we need people with these soft skills who can think in creative, nuanced ways, who can look at things from different people's points of view, who can have empathy and think critically to help us to navigate the legal and ethical and cultural implications of all these things that are happening in our world. So there's quite a lot there. I hope I've answered the question.

SPEAKER_13 21:20

But so, Karen, thank you for that. It's so interesting what you're saying, because actually, what I've got now is a little interview that I did with Fazil at Darr, who is a data scientist for TFL, Transport for London, talking about the importance of analysis and the skills that people are not coming to employment with that can be taught during religious studies. So we'll just listen to that now. So, do you just want to say who you are and what your role is?

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Hi, my name is Faz Darr. I'm head of data science profession at Transport for London.

SPEAKER_13 21:52

So can you just tell us what skills it would be helpful for potential candidates for jobs at TFL to be able to demonstrate. In order to stand out from other applicants?

SPEAKER_00 22:02

So apart from the many technical skills that people need to have, in my area, that's data science. So these are skills around good mathematical, statistical, computer coding skills and problem-solving skills. That aside, in order to really stand out, what we look for is evidence of critical thinking and being able to put themselves into the customer's mindset. And customers can be internal customers for the business as well as obviously the many customers that we have on our network.

SPEAKER_13 22:35

And can I ask why those skills particular are so important?

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Well, in particular for the being able to do critical thinking, the issue is quite often in data science, people often think in mathematics and stats there's a clear answer. Often there isn't. Especially when you're dealing with the vast volumes of complicated data that are generated across our network. So actually, critical thinking skills involve the ability to really discriminate between what a realistic answer might look or and dare I say it feel like sometimes, as opposed to just believing what the algorithm or the code or the spreadsheet spits out. So critical thinking is super important. And also as part of critical thinking, it's the ability to understand the context of the answers, the context of the data, the limitations of the data, being able to interrogate the source of the data. So being able to basically approach the problem and the data from multiple angles.

SPEAKER_13 23:35

Okay. And this idea of getting into the customer's shoes and being able to see the world through their eyes, why is that particularly significant?

SPEAKER_00 23:44

That's really important actually, and that's really important for data scientists and I would argue for most professionals, being able to really look at the issues that the customers face from different angles. Because in order to become the good problem solvers that we expect data scientists to be, you have to understand the problems from your customers' perspective in order to solve them. Quite often there's a famous phrase that we use in data science is where we chuck things over the fence. So the idea is that a data scientist will sit in a meeting with a client, sit there, catch a glove-like, waiting to catch a problem from the customers, then take it away, go away, you don't see them for a month, they beaver away, then come back and chuck it over the fence to the clients. And it's by that point things have moved on. By that point, you haven't checked whether you were on the right lines in the beginning. You haven't even stopped to consider what they're wanting, is what they actually need. That's that critical thinking aspect of it. They haven't actually engaged, they haven't seen things or tried to see things from their perspective as well. So that's why critical thinking is, I would argue, the most important skill for a data scientist. I'd actually tend to prefer to seek out those sort of skills, critical thinking, because it's harder to actually teach that sometimes.

SPEAKER_13 25:02

Amazing. So for your doing a career that doesn't necessarily scream religious studies, but try and talk us through kind of how that background in religious studies has helped you in your career.

SPEAKER_12 25:14

Yeah, of course. And I think bridging from that, actually, I I recently just did a like a second work into data strategy off the back of AI. I think that's a it's a buzzword, right? I think RS has not only made me enjoy thinking in grey areas, but like nurtured that. And I think thinking well is a really rare skill in the age of AI, for example. I think it's whether that be, you know, biases when it gives you answers. If we're talking Chat GPT or, you know, prompt-based LLMs, you know, when you put things in, it's being able to spot something that might look off, that might be, you know, a cultural bias, or even being able to identify whether that is just a piece of language that's persuasive but could be stronger. I think RS has really set me up very nicely for this new AI generation. And I think a lot of people, like you say, in that space are I couldn't precedent that, right? So I went to uni, I was at school when AI was absolutely not a thing. So I have no training, I did not interact with any of my education even after I graduated. It had only just come in about a year after I was in the working world. So it's weird that it set me up in such a way where I've kind of had opportunities to really get involved with technical teams because there is that kind of demand for having that thinking subject, right? Just being able to see things from a totally different perspective, be quite abstract, be creative, think about things that piece together, spotting patterns. You can join dots that people would never put together, right? It brings driverless vehicles together with religion and God, right? Like it's very odd to put those things together, really. But there's actually a very, very much a way where that makes sense, but there's not many worlds where you ever find them colliding. And I think it's gold dust in the career land. I really do. Like I think the ability to put completely opposing ideas in a space where you can convince people it makes sense is a skill that you know AI won't be able to outcompete that because it will be predicting things that are normal that people don't put together. And I think it's really important, and I think it will become increasingly a big differentiator, people who are able to think like that. Yeah, I think that's how it helps. And I couldn't precedent that, but I can precedent it now. So definitely RS.

SPEAKER_13 27:20

So that's really interesting because actually the more AI can do, the less humans are gonna need to do. So the humans that are gonna succeed are the ones that can do things that AI can't do. And they are the ones that are thinking outside of the information that AI has available to it. That's a really powerful statement. Yeah, that's really interesting. Will, I want to ask you a very slightly different question because I think it's almost too easy to go, how has religious studies helped you because you're training to be an RE teacher? What I'm interested in is why you've chosen this as a career. Why, for you, is this something that you want to invest your time in, i.e., teaching RE to others.

SPEAKER_09 28:07

So yeah, there's there's a few reasons. I mean, you know, first and foremost, I enjoy it. So simple as that. But also I think it's a subject that's underestimated in how important it is at school. You know, it teaches people tolerance, I think. Um understanding you know leads to tolerance, I think. So if students are being taught about different ways of seeing the world, different religions, but also just any different ways of thinking, then they can better tolerate those in the future, which I think is absolutely crucial when educating our youth.

SPEAKER_13 28:42

And so actually, what you're really thinking about is what do we want our students to leave school with? Do we want them to leave school with a head full of knowledge, or do we want them to leave where they can meaningly cooperate with the people within their society to create a better world? And actually, for you that's huge. It's that creating people that can live amongst differences in a really comfortable way.

SPEAKER_09 29:08

Yeah, because I think it's not just about the knowledge that the students are given at school, it's about the skills and the attitudes that are instilled in them.

SPEAKER_13 29:17

So my next question kind of follows on from that, which is that one of the misconceptions of RE is that it's easy, that it's not an academic subject. Has this been your experience of RE?

SPEAKER_09 29:30

No, absolutely not. I I don't think so. I'd say it's a yeah, it's a very academic subject, really. You know, you're studying books and you know texts that have been written throughout all of history that have had massive influence on the world. I mean, obvious ones like the Bible and the Quran had huge impact on our lives, very important texts. But also philosophical texts like John Locke, massive influence on the US Constitution. So there's all sorts of hugely important texts that you're gonna really look into in detail, and I don't see what could be much more academic than that, to be honest.

SPEAKER_13 30:10

And that almost links to what Helena was saying earlier about understanding the context of things and that sort of like wider, broader curriculum that actually that's what good academia does. It's not linear, it's kind of spread out, and you're seeing the connection between things. Rhea, how about you? Did you find religious studies an academic subject? How did it compare, I guess, in terms of academia of your other subjects?

SPEAKER_04 30:36

Yeah, incredibly academic. Thinking sort of back to what I was saying before about what I found was the subject where I was doing the most organic thinking, it had to be RS by far. I mean, I think with my other subjects, there's an element to that which you know you can learn, you can practice, you need to have an aspect of skill. But I would say in this, there are actual concepts that are challenging to understand. So when we were right at the beginning learning about Plato and Aristotle, actually understanding some of the premises of that is conceptually challenging. And I think as well, a weird one that sticks out in my head is always like Descartes' dualism. I don't know because we've just sort of redone it in some aspects of neurology, but um that is hard, it's a hard statement to understand, and it's actually hard to understand a lot of the arguments against it as well. And if you want to write about it, you're gonna have to have a semblance of understanding. And so I think working through that with you know with your peers by reading and engaging with other viewpoints and kind of with teachers makes it academically rigorous, and it comes up all the time in loads of things you read and you see in the news. So I think yeah, it's definitely academic, really, really academic subject.

SPEAKER_13 31:50

I mean, I don't even know if I'm gonna be able to remember Cartesian dualism. It's been a long time since I've taught it, but there's essentially almost two of you, isn't there? There's kind of like the physical you and then the sort of spiritual you, and they're kind of like living together and sort of I don't know, is that it's going you might know this more than me. I can't remember, I just remember he had the mind and the spirit or something. I think Will's the man for this, really.

SPEAKER_09 32:18

Okay, yeah, that's that's about right. It's about mind and body and how they interact. I think it was Descartes that thought there was the pineal band in the brain, which was the key to the interaction of the physical and the spiritual.

SPEAKER_13 32:32

So what Will has just done there is proven that this is an academic subject. Uh Imogen, how about you? Do you feel RE is an academic subject?

SPEAKER_14 32:43

Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends to some extent on how people perceive what people perceive academia to be or being academic to be. Um, for me, it's always been really important that I'm not just learning facts, because to an extent, anyone can just learn a load of facts and regurgitate them. And for me with RS the true academia of it was being able to to construct my own argument or to be able to put an argument against another argument in a way that moved towards a conclusion rather than just, well, obviously this is the best thing because X, Y, and Z, and I learned these facts, so this must be true. Being able to put together arguments that are more nuanced than that, for me, that's really the height of academics.

SPEAKER_13 33:44

It's kind of what's missing in society, isn't there, that there's no nuance at all. There's this kind of black and white thinking, this polarization of ideas, because I think that's simpler for people. It's much more simple to have right and wrong and yes and no. It's much harder to have nuance, but that's the thing that makes something academic is that you can sit back, analyze, look at things from different angles, recognize the value in those nuances. Great. Sophie, I think you're the last person I need to come to.

SPEAKER_12 34:14

Yeah, I I think just building on the rest of them, I think that to be RS about it, what does academic mean? No, you know, I had to do that rhetorical one. I think it's that, right? I think people think it's it's a narrow-minded view that it's it's maths, it's hard maths, it's equations, it's puzzles, it's black and white answers, like you say. And I think people are quite uncomfortable with the idea of holding two opposing opinions at once, or the idea that you can have two right answers that are completely opposite. And I think because it doesn't fit that box, it's just dismissed. And I genuinely think that is the only reason. I think if academic does mean you get an answer, you can revise that, you can just put that every time. It isn't academic if that's what you want to call academic. But I think what academic does mean is that it challenges you to your best abilities, it makes you think, it pushes you. And I think, yeah, genuinely does that in a way that no other subject will. So I'm gonna call that academic, in which case it definitely is.

SPEAKER_13 35:11

I think that's do you know what I what is something I was gonna say in my head, if none of you did, which is actually that people say it's not an academic subject, but if you then ask them, well, what does an academic subject mean? What does that word mean? They'll probably be a bit stumped. And you're like, right, this is why RV is an academic subject, because I'm the one that's thinking of asking that question. I'm questioning the question, which is kind of what RE does a lot. So you can kind of like use their argument against them, which is why RE is an academic subject, because you learn how to effectively argue your point.

SPEAKER_10 35:48

Helena. Yeah, I was just like for me, it's I really struggle when people say that it's not because I can't see a subject that isn't within RE. Like I can't see maths not in it, I can't see biology and physics not in it, maybe chemistry a little less, but I can't see languages not in it, like I can't see history not in it, it can't I can't separate them. So if people are holding that all these are academic and these are fine to take as your A levels, then I struggle with the jump that then RS isn't because I don't know a different subject that gave me all of that knowledge that's supported my other subjects that supported me in just when I'm reading a book at home. Like so if you hold that all of those are academic, you almost have to agree that RS teaches you something about everything, whereas your other subjects teach you everything about one thing.

SPEAKER_13 36:36

That's really interesting, isn't it? Karen.

SPEAKER_06 36:38

Can I just say when I'm asked this question? And I have to say it's usually by parents rather than students who've done RE lower down in the school because they get it, they understand what RE is about. I always say, well, where does the word academic come from? And when it goes back to Plato's academy, you know, he's one of ours, he's one of our guys. Where where else in the curriculum do you study him? And by the way, we do cant. Now I define to find anybody who's more challenging in terms of trying to work out what they're saying and what it means and and so on. So I think it's an easy one to dispel, but it's it's there, it's persistent. But once you talk to people, they can understand, they can see just how academic and rigorously challenging it it is. And a lot of my students who've gone on to do all kinds of wonderful things at really high levels say it was my harder subject, you know, because it really challenged me in lots of different ways.

SPEAKER_13 37:26

Actually, that's a really nice sort of point to sort of move on to some voice notes that I've got from other students who weren't able to be on the recording today but kind of wanted to give their thoughts. So we're gonna play those now. So we're gonna listen to Jess, to Eloise, to Megan, to Scarlett, to Liz, and to Lucy. And then what I'm gonna do is ask my panel in front of me to kind of pick out one thing from them. So not one thing from each, but one thing from any of them that kind of resonates. So then we can see that there's a bit of a shared experience between people who study religious studies.

SPEAKER_08 38:02

I'm Eloise. I'm currently studying in Australia as part of my bachelor's in philosophy, which I normally do in Edinburgh, but I'm doing a year abroad over here. And there is no chance that I would be doing this year abroad and studying this degree if I hadn't done RSA level. It meant the world to me to study a subject which cultivated my own thoughts and cultivated essay writing that had a personal perspective and a personal instinct that you can carry through the paper. I have always been far more interested in writing something that I actually feel passionately about, and that is what RSA level gave me. It was the first time I engaged in big ideas in feminist thought through feminist theology or in moral philosophy, which has carried me right through to my dissertation. So studying it was absolutely instrumental in my life.

SPEAKER_07 38:58

Hello, my name is Jess. I'm a finally a student at Cambridge and I'm studying history and French, and I'm also a volunteer at a couple of local museums here. So for me, choosing RSA level was a pretty easy decision to make. I'd really enjoyed the subject at GCSE and I knew I wanted to look more deeply into some of the topics we were studying there. And it was all kind of confirmed for me by going to an RS outreach event in Cambridge with school and just finding everything really, really exciting. I remember there was a talk on Aristotle's ideas about friendship that I just told everybody I knew about for absolutely ages. It just felt like the right subject for me. And it was definitely a really good decision. I really enjoyed the A-level, and I used a lot of what I learnt during it in my degree. So I'm really interested in medieval French literature and in early modern European and colonial history. So knowing my Plato and my Aristotle, and then also some of the big names in theology like Augustine or Aquinas has been super helpful. And having that background in religious studies and philosophy has led me to some of the topics that I like most now in my degree. So I'm really interested in religious reform and beliefs about the supernatural, and that led me to writing a dissertation on Canadian witch trials and also doing this research project on beliefs about werewolves during the French Wars of Religion. And then much more broadly, the skills that you learn are as like expressing yourself clearly, constructing a coherent argument, and engaging with lots of different perspectives are all really important. I'm hoping to work in public education through media or museum outreach, and that ability to communicate and see things from different people's points of view is going to be really helpful for that.

SPEAKER_11 40:44

Hi yeah, I'm Liz. I did RSA level between 2018 and 2020. I then went on to do History and French at Oxford, which I graduated from this last September. I'm about to start a new job in development with the English Touring Opera for a year, and I have a deferred place to study art history at the Courtauld Institute in London. So I initially chose A-level RS because I figured it would work well with my other two A-level courses, which were history and French. I knew that we were doing the French Revolution in history, and I knew that Enlightenment philosophy was sort of a thing that would probably be relevant. I kind of knew who Kant was vaguely, and then I think I'd seen a picture of Simone de Beauvoir on Miss Steele's walls somewhere, and I knew we were doing Camus in French, and again I was like, okay, that'll probably work out. I didn't really know that much about it, but I'm so glad that I made that decision because it really ended up meshing all of my studies together so well, not just at A level, but all the way through my university studies as well. Doing a joint honours course, I would just grounded myself in the things I learned in RS so much the whole way through. I found it difficult a lot of the time. I would compare it to the feeling of doing really good, hard exercise, but we were never without support, and it was really satisfying to be able to think about these massive questions that the greatest minds in history had also tackled, and to be able to trust our own brains and powers of argument and put them to paper. And I also found that it was a very different style of writing. So I have obviously been doing very humanities-based academic work for the past six years, but especially I found the ethics side of the RS course encouraged a much more analytical and structured approach to essay writing, which was very helpful to remind myself of in my university studies and helped me become a much more clear writer the whole way through. It's benefited me massively the whole way through, in every single one of my four years at university, there were modules where I would go back and dig up my old RS notes from sixth form, more so than my history or my French work. It was really the RS that I ended up leaning on the most, I would say, whether it was an enlightenment module, in a history, or even just the sort of classical philosophy. These things are often referenced very passingly and vaguely in academic work, and it was really satisfying to have the grounding to be able to understand what these academics were talking about without having to look it up. So it was just so useful. And even now in my postgrad applications, I have definitely relied on not only the content but also just the skills and the techniques that RS has given me, the confidence in my own reasoning and in my writing ability that I picked up in the two years of the A level. To anyone who's planning on doing an RSA level, my main bit of advice or suggestion, I guess, would be just enjoy the really unique way that RS makes you think. It's very different to other essay subjects that you might take. But it is such a useful way of using your brain and it stretches it in the most unusual ways, even when it seems completely impenetrable. But it will always take you down really satisfying and fascinating routes. And just enjoy that, even when it's maybe a little bit difficult, because that's the most rewarding part of it. And yeah, I really hope this has been useful. I loved RSA level and I know it's going to be something I think about and use for the rest of my life, hopefully.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

Thanks. Hi, my name is Megan, and I'm currently studying for my master's in psychological research methods after doing my undergraduate in psychology, both at the University of Exeter. I chose A-level RS because I adored the subject at GCSE and was particularly interested in the ethical debates such as euthanasia and a death penalty. At A-level, I also study biology and psychology, so I wanted to take on an essay subject as well to give myself a break from all the science. Surprisingly, I found RS my hardest yet most fulfilling subject. When my other two disciplines were so focused in facts and figures, at times I found it alien to write in essays again. Also, as a woman with a lot of opinions at 17 years old, I struggled at first to write in a balanced and nuanced way, but not for long. Going into my university degree, that was one of the greatest gifts RSA level gave me. The ability to balance arguments and argue cases from multiple perspectives as a fair and neutral third party. Having done RS at A level and faced those 12 markers head-on, writing an essay at uni felt like a piece of cake. Even in my postgraduate studies, I used skills that I learned in my RS class to write, to research and to form theory. I went into my A-level studies a brash, loud, and opinionated young woman. I left a balanced, nuanced, and still wildly opinionated great listener and scholar. I planned to take my studies into user experience research in the tech industry, shaping and creating technology with a specialism in ethics. If I could go back in time, I would take RS a thousand times over. But I do think that it's important to note that when I say RS isn't easy, it really isn't easy. But I do believe that the effort you put in is directly proportional to your success, and it's such a satisfying subject. You just have to be ready to put the work in.

SPEAKER_03 46:07

Hello, my name is Scarlett. I'm currently undertaking my postgraduate degree in Bar Practice Studies in order to become a barrister. My undergraduate degree was in law. I studied religious studies at A-level, and I initially chose to study RS because I always loved philosophy and tackling big questions like morality and existence, and I was really interested in what it means to live a good or meaningful life. I found that the A-level gave me the opportunity to explore all of those ideas, but I also found that the content really went beyond all of those questions. We covered such a range of ideas from ethics to the philosophy of religion and also the study of religious beliefs and practices. I found that even though we covered all of this content, there was still space for deep philosophical discussions, and at least in the way I was taught it, it wasn't just about memorising facts, but in fact there was a real focus on developing skills that were necessary to succeed in the A level, and that meant time to practice reasoning skills, analysis, and of course essay writing, which for me in the long term has been incredibly valuable. Moving on to how religious studies has benefited me, I would say that learning at such an early stage in my education how to structure arguments properly, back up my conclusions with evidence and logic, and also communicate complex ideas has been invaluable. Being able to do that before your undergraduate degree is going to set you in such good steed, especially if you're doing a social science degree. And of course, from the perspective of a law student, it has been really, really helpful. I also wrote my undergraduate dissertation on legal ethics and Aristotle, and I'd say the inspiration from that definitely came from the learnings I had in my religious studies A level. I also found that interview panels are so interested when they see RS on your transcript. People love to ask about philosophical questions and different ethical issues, especially in legal interviews, and so having that background has helped me enter those conversations really confidently and be able to bring in different theories to back up my ideas. More broadly, as I mentioned earlier, it's going to give you a solid grounding in a wide range of philosophical and ethical perspectives. And I think that's really helpful if you're going to undertake a social science degree. It's probably helpful if you no matter what degree you're going to undertake, but especially from a social science background, I found that all of the things we covered in A-level religious studies were also covered in my sort of first year of undergraduate philosophy, which I did alongside law at that time. Looking ahead then, I'm aiming to become a barrister and work in the criminal justice system, and that will mean dealing with issues of ethics and integrity and equality. And I think that my background in religious studies has given me a really strong foundation to deal with all of those issues. And I would say if you're thinking about taking religious studies, my advice would be just go for it. It's such a fascinating subject. It's something that I'm still interested in six years later after my A levels, and it has equipped me with such an amazing skill set to succeed in both my degrees and also in my career. And I think that advice would be applicable to such a wide range of degrees and careers. I would also say if you love discussing big ideas and thinking critically about the world, then you're definitely going to thrive in religious studies A level and hopefully get a really great grade, which is obviously a benefit on top of all the other things you're going to gain from taking this A level.

SPEAKER_05 50:09

Hello, my name is Lucy. I'm a current medical student at Imperial College London. Thank you so much for having me on your show, and sorry I can't make it live. I did religious studies both at GCSE and A level, and I think A level is when I really started falling in love with the subject. I loved the interconnected curriculum, learning about faith, ethics, and philosophy, and just really going into depth about different principles and where they came from and wider effects on other beliefs and viewpoints. It really showed me a new approach to understanding more multifaceted issues of the world, like politics, cultural norms, and also the ethics part of the course was very useful for me as a prospective medical student back then. Learning about discussing current issues like abortion, euthanasia, and the arguments people have for either side. It definitely helped a lot with medical school interviews. And I think the most important thing is that it helped me learn how to better express myself, which is a really transferable skill that's so, so crucial to basically anything you do. To be able to organise your thoughts and say things concisely, get to your point and make your point. And that's definitely something that's honed through lots and lots of essays and exam timings. But overall, I think RS has had a really important role in developing me as a person. And that might sound like a bit of an exaggeration, but it's really, really very worthwhile. And I hope people listening to this might decide to give it a go.

SPEAKER_13 51:57

Right, amazing. It's just so interesting how many overlaps to things that we've already spoken about there is that kind of really corroborates kind of your experience as well. Well, let's start with you. Is there one thing from what we've just heard that kind of really stands out to you?

SPEAKER_09 52:12

Yeah, it was in the first one. Uh it was a point about how there's a personal element to RS. You don't have to be cold and objective about what you're writing about. You don't have to accept things as they come. You can give your opinion and you can take an expert that you're studying and say, I think they've got it completely wrong, they're an idiot. You can't do that in any other subject. Whereas in RS, that's perfectly valid. And I think that's a really appealing thing about the subject.

SPEAKER_13 52:47

So empowering for young people to say, Well, what do you think? And for them to be able to have opinions and actually those are validated. But also we're giving them the skills to be able to create those personal responses rather than it just being kind of a random gut feeling. Because I think that's really interesting. Thank you. Sophie, what was the one thing that stood out to you?

SPEAKER_12 53:07

Um, I think werewolves for multiple reasons. Um but I I think what it what it was about werewolves was it it's so random, but it's about belief. And that's exactly the thing, it's not about religion, right? We're literally talking about mystical creatures, mythical, mystical, I think they're both. But that thread was about exploration of belief, and it's kind of it's what people fear, what they fight for, what they follow. There's war, camus, you can see so many different parts. I think it threaded that through, right? It was the randomness of it, and it's about learning to live with many different truths and many different beliefs because true is so different for so many people, and you have different frameworks that are actually really personal that people really validate that through. And I think werewolves was the one that I don't know why, was the particular part that I hinged that on.

SPEAKER_13 53:58

That's so interesting. I think where you've got again this mythical kind of sense, this sense of belief, the impact of belief, but also that like what do we mean by human and who has moral kind of preferences and how do we treat people and what is the sort of relationship between humans and animals? So I think, yeah, some great things. Helena.

SPEAKER_10 54:22

I think it for me it was in something Jess said, werewolf lady. She, not that she is a werewolf, but they interested. She said that it was exciting. And like in terms of picking the A level, I'm not gonna lie, A levels are the hardest thing that I've ever done. Like they're hard, they're tricky, and it's two years of like pure study and you're going into depth. So if you can pick a subject like RS, which is exciting, and like I promise to whoever's listening, it is definitely exciting because it's brand new, you are gonna give yourself that little bit of freedom, you're gonna give yourself that little bit of like, oh, I don't mind going to my RS lesson today because whatever I'm learning about it's new and it's interesting and and it's exciting. You're not necessarily building on old content like Shakespeare. I love Shakespeare, but it's exciting. And if you can give yourself that little bit of like, oh yeah, and I'm actually super interested in this double lesson, you should do that in A level because it's it's not easy. So yeah.

SPEAKER_12 55:21

Thank you, Elena.

SPEAKER_10 55:22

Imogen.

SPEAKER_14 55:23

Elena kind of stole my point a bit there, but um I was gonna say the thing that I picked up on and that really resonated with me is people saying that they chose the subject because they enjoy it or that they enjoyed it at GCSE. People are so often concerned about choosing the right A level and the one that's gonna lead to the best career or whatever. And the truth is that it doesn't really matter what you take, you'll end up somewhere great as long as you are willing to put the work in. And so if you can apply that work to something that you already enjoy, it makes the fruit of your labour tenfold. And for me, that was really key in in choosing RS as an A-level because I think, like a lot of people do, I had reservations at first, and my parents definitely had reservations of well, that's not going to be any help for anything. And lo and behold, I ended up doing a good degree in it, and and those concerns were amplified. But being able to come back and say, Well, actually, no, I've learned how to argue rationally, I've learned how to tolerate and understand all of these different cultures, and you know, and the list goes on, being able to feed that passion in academia, and and like you were saying, being, oh, I don't mind going to this lesson because it's enjoyable and it's exciting and it's new, and you get to use your own brain, that's something that was really important for me.

SPEAKER_13 56:50

Yeah, and I think Imogene, what you've kind of picked up on there is that sometimes people think I have to do a useful subject or a subject that I like. And actually, what we've got in religious studies is potentially both. It's a subject that people love that's really, really enjoyable. But as we can see from talking to you guys and from the voice notes we've just listened to, it actually can lead to something really meaningful in terms of your career as well. And so you've kind of got both. In the same way, a lot of people think you've either got to get a job that you love or one that pays well. But if you can find both, then actually that's the sweet spot. And it's almost that sense of contradictory ideas being able to exist together, which is what RE is about. Ria.

SPEAKER_04 57:35

Yeah, so mine's gonna link up a little bit with what Will's kind of spoken about and others as well as well, with tolerance. I think in whatever field you're in, thinking about tackling kind of modern-day ethical or philosophical dilemmas, I think you need a subject like RS. Because to be honest, the tolerance you're gaining from exposure to these kind of things, curiosity about these issues, holding some scepticism, and just engaging with lots of different points of views, lots of different arguments is really, really important. And I think, as people have previously said, you don't have to agree with all of those, but I think you should be able to have an appreciation of all of those, and you should be able to judge and discuss, and those skills are the skills that are the things you want to have honed and practiced because ultimately I think when you're engaging in those kind of dilemmas, you know, that's a privilege and also a responsibility. It's important that that's a practice skill, and that's something that I think is unique to this subject and makes it so worthwhile.

SPEAKER_13 58:38

Do you know? It's really interesting. I was listening to something the other day, and it was about the strong man argument, which I'd not actually heard of. So I've heard of the straw man argument, which is where you misrepresent someone's idea in a way that makes it look stupid or ridiculous. What religious studies allows you to do is to make a strong man argument where you can represent someone else's opinion in a way that truly reflects what they think. And actually, this is such an incredible skill that we don't have as a society. We don't have the ability to hold the space of a different person's point of view in a way that they would recognize. And that's such an incredible skill. What we often do is make their argument look rubbish by misrepresenting it and therefore showing that our argument is better. Karen, I want to bring you in at this point because I know that there's a lot of things that we've spoken about, and I wanted to ask you at this point what you sort of want to bring to the surface, what you want to highlight. Oh, so much I want to say, but I'll try and limit myself.

SPEAKER_06 59:40

I mean, for me, just listening to those, firstly, I taught many of those young people, and it's just how incredibly proud I am to have been part of their journey and been part of them being exposed to RS. And they talked a lot about careers and degrees, and that's all really, really important, absolutely. But I think just listening to them and listening to the other young people that we're talking to today, there's something about what they have got from doing A-level RS in terms of them growing as people. It makes me think about Aristotle and flourishing and so on. And I often get emails from past students when they're on holiday. So, miss, I was in Rome and I went to the Vatican and I saw this painting, and it made me think about this. Or uh miss when I had um a couple of years ago was I was in Greece and I saw a yacht, it was called Amenesis, and it took me straight back to doing the ancient Greeks and so on. Doing A-level RS, you know, really shapes their whole lives, it informs their whole lives. You talked about cultural capital and so on, but in everything that they do, not just their careers and so on, this is something that is going to give them something extra. And I think what a lot of these young people have is they have a USP, don't they? They have a really unique selling point. I think people have spoken about this. You bring something extra to the table that people see on application forms, that people see in the way you conduct yourself, that people see in terms of the potential of what you can bring to a job. So I think that's one thing I wanted to raise. The other thing that hasn't been spoken about, it's kind of been alluded to, but I know it's something that is often a concern is do you have to have done GCS C RS? Do you need to have a good grounding? Now, obviously, you know, that is helpful. You're not going to suffer doing A-level RS from having had good key stage three and key stage four, but it's not absolutely necessary. So I have had many students. There's one student that hopes would be with us tonight. Unfortunately, she's abroad doing all kinds of wonderful things that couldn't join us. But she has had very little, if any, RS at her school. And she came to our open evening and she just happened to be walking past my classroom. And she heard me talking and she came in, she stood by the door, and she listened. And anyway, cut a long story short, she fought with her parents and she did A-level RS alongside A-level physics and maths, I think. She absolutely loved it. I think she's planning to do, um, she's taking a year out, she's planning to do philosophy and physics at university. We had to do some work with her. I got her to go away and look at the GCSE spec and to look at the A-level spec and to work out what were the bits that would be useful that the other people in the class would probably know. She got an A star, so you know, you can do well at you need to put the work in, but people who haven't done GCSE RS can be very successful at A-level RS with the right support and with the right work ethic. So I think that's two key things I wanted to say.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:18

Well, I think that's really important that you don't have to have done GCSE religious studies, but it's undoubtedly gonna help if you have, but it's not essential. The other thing maybe, and actually I want to do this kind of as a bit of a show of hands. Actually, I'll I'll ask you the question first. I'm gonna ask you all to come onto the mic. I'm gonna ask a question, you're all gonna answer at the same time, okay? Do you need to be religious in order to do religious studies A level after three, one, two, three? No, right. Scientific proof there. Put your hands up, and I'm gonna count how many hands. Put your hands up if you do have your own personal religious faith. Okay, I will tell you how many hands were up. Zero. So nobody on this episode has a religion. Now I've got a 14-year-old son, and he said to me on Sunday, we're revising for his RE mock, which is on Thursday, and he said, Mum, if you are religious, it must give you an advantage in studying religious studies. And I said, Not necessarily, not necessarily, because actually you're trying to fit your lived experience and your faith into the parameters of an academic subject. And that can cause quite a lot of tension. And so if you're doing, say, a 12 marker in GCSC that shahada is the most important pillar, a Muslim's gonna go, no, it's not. And that's it, they're done. They've answered the question in a way that's authentic to their lived experience, that's their truth, but actually they're not gonna get a very good mark for that. Or if you're a Sunni Muslim trying to write about Shia, that can sometimes be quite difficult because you're trying to see your own personal faith through perspective of someone else. So I think it's a massive misconception that we've got to say. I think that sometimes having a background, if you've had a religious faith or upbringing, it provides little hooks for you to hook new knowledge onto. But Ari, as we've said, it's so broad, it's so much bigger than religion. It's about worldviews, non-religious worldviews, ethics, philosophy, culture, art, history, human experience, big questions, that it is in no way better if you are religious. It makes no difference whether you're religious or not. And it always comes down to whether you love the subject, not whether or not you are religious. So that's and what I want to think about now is advice that you would have. So a lot of those voice notes that we have just listened to, there was advice for people that are maybe thinking about doing RE or advice for people that have decided to do it. What advice would you have? All right, let's start with Rhea. What advice would you have for someone thinking of doing religious studies A level or having decided to do it? What advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:05

Yeah, mine's really easy. If there was one thing I could go back and change, let's say if you've chosen to do RS, don't stop reading, but like reading actual stuff, like making time to engage with things that you find interesting and actually running that alongside whatever you're doing, because they're a big two years and you've got a lot else to be getting on with, namely other A levels, applications and and whatnot. But the amount of enrichment that can do while you're learning about something at the time and just the extra kind of the extra viewpoints, the thoughts, the ideas is something I I really wish I could go back and and do that again. But yeah, so that would probably be mine.

SPEAKER_13 1:05:42

Brilliant. Thank you so much. Imogen.

SPEAKER_14 1:05:45

I think my advice would be if you've even got the slightest inclination that I really want to do RS, but forget the butt and do it.

SPEAKER_13 1:05:54

Because Right, that's gonna be our tagline. That's it. Forget the butt, do it. Come on. taking that.

SPEAKER_14 1:06:00

Because for me, and I don't know, some people might disagree, but for me, like the most important thing when you're learning or pursuing a career or or whatever it is, the most important thing is that you have a level of enjoyment in it. And so if it's something that you enjoy, if you enjoy big questions, if you enjoy debating, if you enjoy you know, all of these subjects that we've talked about, history and art and language, and you've got the, yeah, but what if it's not this, or what if it's doesn't get me anywhere? Forget about it. Do it anyway, because if you're gonna love it, it'll take you somewhere.

SPEAKER_10 1:06:35

I love that. Thank you so much. Helena. I guess this is actually probably a nice tie between rears and Imogens in that everything that you're doing whilst you're doing your A level, just think about it. I'm not saying don't watch reality shows like I am obsessed with Big Brother because I love 1984. But think like when you're watching Big Brother think how it links to RS. When you're watching Love Island think about like the ethical dilemmas if you're getting on a plane, if you're learning to drive like just keep thinking does it just because you're not in the classroom just because you're not reading Plato doesn't mean that the things that you're doing don't link to RS. So yeah read but also what you're already doing you never know if that's going to be useful in your exam or life.

SPEAKER_13 1:07:16

So keep thinking I think brilliant that's a really good piece of advice.

SPEAKER_12 1:07:19

Sophie just all of those echoing all of it and I think it's the question like what am I going to learn or what what's on the curriculum? I think it's more like what will you like unlearn? Like you're gonna break down so many assumptions about so much stuff. The amount of crazy things that I had just assumed to be true. And I think particularly like social media you see so much stuff online it's increasingly more important to just go back to the basics and just like challenge why you come to believe certain things. So I think you should ask those questions about what are you prepared to change when you go and do that A level think what do I want to know more about from the start rather than what's new.

SPEAKER_13 1:07:55

I think that would be the advice I give I reckon that's a really good piece of advice Sophie it just reminds me my experience of teaching A level is that students will always have their point of view challenged. So if they come in as an atheist there'll be a moment in the course where they're like I think God exists and they kind of run with that for a little bit and we'll do like you know the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the ontological argument we'll do miracles, religious experience and they're like and they're like, okay, I think I might be converting to a theist then we'll do the problem of evil we'll do like you know new atheists or something like that and they're like oh no no no no no I'm with them guys. And so they go full circle they come back to what they originally thought but they now know why they think it and they've explored the other side. And the same thing with theists they'll come in they'll have a little moment of a lapse of faith when we're looking at the problem of evil or when we're looking at sort of the atheist movement or anything like that. And it will really challenge their faith but they will build it back up. They'll come back to that faith but they are now much more secure in it. And so I think you're right Sophie to come in with an open mind it won't necessarily change who you fundamentally are but it will add to what you know about yourself and about the world.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:16

Will my main point would be to stress the value of discussion and debate in RE. Nothing would pain me more than to see an A level an A level class where they're all just sitting in silence, you know, writing taking notes they need that discussion you sort of dive into your ideas and find out what other people think and challenge each other even if you're not sure what you believe just say what's on your mind and you'll benefit from it hugely I think.

SPEAKER_13 1:09:45

Yeah brilliant Karen I've got a slightly different question for you. If this episode was being shared with her teachers have you got some facts figures statistics that are kind of really powerful that we've talked about the people here and their lived experience of doing RE and how beneficial it is to them personally as human beings and also in the careers and the futures that they've chosen but actually if you are running a school what is important to you is the numbers so what can you tell us?

SPEAKER_06 1:10:17

Okay so I mean in terms of I suppose one of the things that head teachers are going to be concerned about is where does this get them? What is this going to look like on paper in terms of you know outcomes, you know, universities, places secured that kind of thing. So Nartra the National Association of teachers of RE have collated various data some really interesting data about breakdown in terms of region and gender and all these kinds of things that if you're interested you can get hold of but one of the things that I found on there was that the Russell Group Universities have a website called informed choices and this is where you can put in what you're thinking about doing and what kinds of degrees and so on that might lead to. So if you put in religious studies and the third most popular is religious studies, biology and chemistry, which I think is quite surprising. You don't often think about that combination. And when you put that into informed choices it comes up with a whole array of careers like rear, you know, medicine, veterinary science, these kinds of things as well as theology and philosophy and so on as well. So I think the fact that Russell Group University is not that they're the be all and end all but they are often seen as an indicator they clearly can see the value and see RS A level leading to all kinds of degrees. Yeah I think that was the main thing I wanted to say. One area we touched on it earlier was about business. Now I think we live in a capitalist society and business is big and I think religious literacy is huge. I collect examples of companies just getting it horribly wrong. Like for example the£99 luxury rumadan calendar did anybody see that a few years ago with really expensive you know complete misunderstanding of what it's all about. But one situation that really interested me is I don't know if you remember Louisa um a few years ago the CBI which is a kind of confederation for British industry had a lot of scandal attached to it and they were really in the headlines about this and lots of companies were abandoning them because they didn't want to be associated with this scandal. And in all the newspapers they talked about how the CBI had approached an organization called Principal Advisory set up by a guy called David Roden who is a philosophy graduate from Oxford and it's absolutely fascinating what this organization does is they go and work with executives and big companies and do moral philosophy with them and help them to really unpick their kind of ethical thinking and frameworks within their businesses. This is huge you know businesses they really are afraid of scandal they need to be ethical they need to be thinking these things through and it's people from the world of RS really who have got those skills. Another example is a fantastic guy called Dr. Simon Jenkins who's come in and spoken to my students many many times he is a philosopher who works alongside other philosophers at Warwick Medical School. So you know this is a medical school employing a number of philosophers to work with their medics or their medical students. So I can just give you so many examples of where the skills that we start developing in RS and take into our future careers as we've seen with all these other students really, really do have all kinds of potential.

SPEAKER_13 1:13:14

So almost what you're saying is the challenges find me a career to which religious studies is not helpful. I've never found one yeah that it is the people's challenge out there I'd struggle to find one. I mean even if you're working in a supermarket don't put pork on half price deals for a Jewish festival you know just know your audience and so actually that religious literacy is so important for a successful business which we mention which I think is really important.

SPEAKER_10 1:13:43

Yeah can I say something extra on that because I think like Karen says it is like really essential for business but also I have this feeling and I think it's from something that I studied at uni in that like it's actually a life and death situation sometimes. So we talked about like the Waco tragedy and there was no religious literacy in the way that that was handled by the US government and if there was hundreds of people would have lived so sometimes it's this life and death situation where you do need religious literacy because there is cult there is like different sects going on and that's obviously on the extreme end but you can save lives and it's very dramatic and Rhea will also save lives in very different way but you can save lives with this sort of like religious literacy and it is super important.

SPEAKER_13 1:14:29

So that sounds dramatic but it's true I think absolutely no no I don't think it is at all I don't think it is at all let me just open it up then just as we close is there anybody else that would just like to say something that they haven't had the opportunity to say just before we end?

SPEAKER_06 1:14:45

I've got something just to get the ball for rolling something I'm really really interested in is intellectual humility.

SPEAKER_13 1:14:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:51

And I think we live in a world where there's a lot of polarization a lot of people talking before they're really thinking and really under understanding. I don't know if you know something called the Dunning Kruger effect but the less we know the louder we tend to speak and I think without being too grand I think the world would be a better place if we had greater intellectual humility and I think what we've sent you know in this recording this podcast this evening is just people with incredible intellectual humility who understand how much they don't know and how important it is to listen and understand and to try and break down our prejudices and our preconceptions and actually that makes us more informed people and the less we know in some ways the more we know and the more of a positive impact we can have in the world. So I think for me intellectual humility kind of underpins all of this.

SPEAKER_13 1:15:38

Karen thank you for saying that because I had a beautiful moment today where I was teaching a class and I'd never taught them before because in my job I don't have a timetable I just kind of fly in and teach random lessons all over London. And I was teaching this year nine class and we were looking at religion and culture. So we're looking at how religion is expressed through culture and we were looking at architecture and we were looking at masjids and eco mosques and we're looking at like design and geometry and all those beautiful things. And this one student stayed behind at the end of the lesson and goes Miss I need to ask you a question I was like you can ask me anything he went actually I don't think I can ask you because I think you're gonna take offence and I said this is a safe space you can ask me any question you like he said Miss if Islam is the true religion why are some people still Christians? And I was like I said that's really interesting I said Islam is the true religion for you but for other people Christianity is the true religion and we live in a world where you can both be free to have that opinion. So Islam is true for you and Christianity is true for other people we have religious freedom so people can choose the religion that is true for them and he went oh now I get it so it wasn't a facetious thing it wasn't like intellectual arrogance to say Islam is the greatest it was literally a very logical question based on the knowledge that he had I didn't like you know say how dare you say that Islam is not the true religion I just gave him space to ask that question but then gave him a different way of seeing that question and he was completely okay with that. It's completely okay that you have your own true religion other people have theirs and you both coexist in a world where you're both free and he loved it and he walked out and that was done. And I just thought that kind of shows what you're saying is that RE provides a space where people can ask questions to allow them to be intellectually humble. And that's really powerful because if he had asked that question to you know maybe a fundamentalist Christian it could have gone very very differently. So I think it's important that we provide that space. Any final thoughts from anyone?

SPEAKER_09 1:17:54

Will yeah on a similar point of this intellectual humility in asking these questions I think something that I'd say to anyone that wants to take whether is taking RE or anyone really is be prepared to give up your beliefs if you have sufficient reason to do so. If the evidence is there don't cling on to a belief just because you know you're attached to it. You know it's important to accept the evidence where it leads and if you don't do that it can lead to all sorts of horrible issues in the world.

SPEAKER_13 1:18:33

I went to university as a fundamentalist evangelical Christian and I remember I went to Birmingham University so oh Imogen you you went there didn't you yes I went to Birmingham University and I remember being in there was this little theology reading room in the library at the university and I remember sitting there and I was reading this story about pluralism and how truth was like a mountain like you know you get to it at the top of this mountain but that everyone's taking different paths up and I was like okay this changes everything. Suddenly for the first time someone said something that was so different from the way that I'd been brought up which was quite a fundamentalist Christian I'm the way the truth and the life no one gets to the Father except through me all of that kind of messaging and I suddenly saw the world in a very different way and it completely changed my life now for me I lost my faith because of that really and other things as well just like the ethical side of things and the position on sort of homosexuality the problem of evil and all of these kind of things but there was that moment where it was like one of those light bulb moments where suddenly I saw the narrowness of the view that I had and what was possible if I thought about things in a different way. And I don't think I've ever changed back since then and that was what 1997 so you know we're talking a long time ago and I still remember that moment. I'm gonna ask each of you now if you could wake up tomorrow and one thing was different about the world what would you want it to be and it could be anything it doesn't have to be related to RV at all but it might be because you know it's life changing. Kevin I'm gonna start with you if that's okay. If you could wake up tomorrow and one thing was different about the world what would you want it to be what can I have that more people do A-level R S would be the obvious one you absolutely can.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:28

No I think I'll go back to my intellectual humility I would like for there to be more intellectual humility in the world and I think that would make the world of difference.

SPEAKER_13 1:20:35

Yeah and actually Karen I would say I want the barriers to people doing RE to be removed so that they can not choose it for the right reasons.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:43

Absolutely so they're doing it I've always said that come and listen so that if you reject it you know you've rejected it for the right reasons because so many times I've actually had people whose friends had convalescent you know when they've had a free period because they wish they had chosen it because they've heard their friends talking about it. They say but I didn't know and now it's too late. So you know like anything in life do your research be well informed and reject it for the right reasons not because of misinformation and preconceptions that you might have.

SPEAKER_13 1:21:12

Yeah and then that takes intellectual humility doesn't it it's moving out of your fixed mindset. Helena what would be your one thing?

SPEAKER_10 1:21:21

I am going to avoid getting on a feminist soapbox so there's very many things that I could say but one thing that I will say that's kind of more general is for every single book whatever it's about just to be free and accessible for everybody. Yeah just make books free. Ooh sorry if you're an author and I've just ruined your entire career but make them free.

SPEAKER_13 1:21:46

That's okay I'm gonna be thinking about that the impact of what would happen tomorrow if every book was free to anyone to read and actually financially free but also freely available because actually there are you know lots of stories and books that are taken out of circulation because of the knowledge that it contains. Will if you could wake up tomorrow one thing was different about the world what would it be?

SPEAKER_09 1:22:11

I think I wish that people would listen to each other more and that's something that Ari can teach. But so many of the debates and issues in the world are people talking past each other and not actually understanding what the other one is saying and could be solved if we all just take a moment to listen.

SPEAKER_13 1:22:28

Yeah absolutely so what we're talking about is ORIC skills and Orisy skills isn't just the skill of talking as much as it is the skill of listening. You know coming back to that idea of a strongman argument can you listen to someone else represent what they've said and then say what you've got to say and I think that is so powerful. You know I watch the House of Commons and I'm like oh my goodness all of them need to do religious studies they have no idea how to have a conversation and a debate and listen to each other is crazy.

SPEAKER_12 1:23:04

Good one will Sophie I think there's a lot of things but I think there's one thing that I noticed which is just learning for the sake of learning is enough. Like I think we've all touched here obviously grades, jobs, salaries it's all important right but I think we all talk about outcome and what we've really highlighted here is like the ability to think deeply just for the sake of wanting to hear what other people say and we spoke about that humility of having an opinion saying I don't know I don't know when in the timeline of history it became a weird thing to pause and say I can actually just think for a moment for some reason now if I don't immediately react that's seen as a weakness or that I don't know what I'm talking about. I mean that's another thing I'd change but I think it's part of that same thing which is just genuinely be curious for that and just be able to think freely just for the sake of thinking without thinking about what having that opinion is going to lead to. And I think that would have huge consequences across loads of problems you do see in good ways.

unknown 1:24:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 1:24:01

So yeah that's what I say.

SPEAKER_13 1:24:02

And I think that's the challenge for us educators, Karen, isn't it? Is that actually we do allow space for people to think or do we ask questions and then expect an answer straight away. And I think holding space going right we're going to have 30 seconds of silence and you're gonna think about your answer you know we need Quakers, we need Quakers in our life because we need to be comfortable with the silence for thinking and the space to think because actually how again can we decide what we actually think about what we believe unless we have space to to think about it. And I love that word curiosity. It's one of my most important passions in life is that intellectual curiosity emotional curiosity asking questions. It's a very Buddhist idea just observe what's going on. I think it's so important. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_14 1:24:52

Imogen this really springboards off what Sophie's just said but it would be the prioritization of critical thinking over just learning facts and knowing things and I think this is especially with the rise of AI and I mean even just Google I remember thinking at school what's the point in learning this fact when I can Google it in five seconds and so I think the prioritization of critical thinking over anything else would yeah a bit of a dream come true.

SPEAKER_13 1:25:21

Absolutely I'll tell you I do a lesson on the ethics of AI and we do a Google search which is what do Jews believe about eating pork? And the question was very the answer that AI gave was very nuanced was like some you know avoid it and it's not really allowed but it was quite soft language. And then if you put the word Muslim instead of Jew, what does a Muslim think about eating pork? It's forbidden it's haram they mustn't do it. There was no nuance whatsoever and so actually what we need is the critical thinking skills to analyse what AI is telling us so we can decide whether it's correct or not because AI is drawing on information that's implicitly sometimes explicitly biased. And if we don't have those skills then actually it's going to reinforce stereotypes and false binaries and it's going to reinforce misconceptions and the sense of knowledge and truth is going to kind of become obsolete. Rhea if you could wake up tomorrow and one thing was different what would it be?

SPEAKER_04 1:26:27

It's too hard going last it's gonna have to be a big one. If you uh yeah if you're asking about globally I'd probably say if you could wake up tomorrow and every kid had the chance to go to school, engage with some form of education properly I think that would be amazing.

unknown 1:26:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:46

It's pretty I mean I think most people wouldn't disagree with that but we're a changing world in the society that we're in we can do things like this which is like discussing about getting more people into a subject in one specific area because of how much it brings to the world I think the the world's a big place and there are so many people who who we can learn from and who can come up with organic and independent thought all on their own and that would be really really exciting to see. Hopefully we'll see more of it in our lifetime. We definitely will.

SPEAKER_13 1:27:16

It's almost a human rights issue isn't it is that actually there's a reason why we have a right to an education and actually I think Rhea I maybe disagree with you. I think there are people out there that don't want people to have an education because education is so powerful because it allows us to unpick things and question things and challenge things and and actually the more educated you are the harder you are to control. And so people in power don't necessarily want that. So you know we are disruptors I think the more educated that we are guys this has been absolutely incredible and from the bottom of my heart I cannot tell You how I can't even find the word for it. I would say this has been empowering because I've spent 25 years dedicated to this subject to see how much it's impacting the next generation makes it worth it. Because Will, you're discovering this. Teachers work incredibly hard. And so as RE teachers, we've had to fight against the tide, constantly fight for our right to exist, you know, constantly having the same conversations where we're trying to fight for space on the curriculum, you know, and actually, I think the tide is slightly turning. We seem to have a government that appears to be listening to us and investing time and resources into this subject, which we've shown so clearly is so dynamic and so impactful and so necessary in today's world. So I want to thank you so much for re-inspiring me and empowering me in terms of just feeling very proud of what we as a community have created. So thank you so much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:05

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share this because I think it's really important and I think it's going to really help teachers and young people who want to do this subject. So thank you.

SPEAKER_13 1:29:14

Yeah. So I think if there's parents listening and their children are making decisions, get them listening to this episode. If you're working in a school and your school leaders need a little bit of convincing that this is a dynamic subject relevant for the 21st century, share this episode widely with as many people as you can because I think that this message needs to go out because I think it's a powerful one. Wow. Thank you guys so much. My name is Louisa Jane Smith, and this has been the R.E. Podcast. The podcast for those of you who think RE is boring. But it's not. It's about werewolves, and we didn't even know it. But thank you so much for listening to us or the life out of you.