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"I plant seeds for children... to think for themselves" Louisa Jane Smith of The RE Podcast - Sentientism 205
Manage episode 429561751 series 3329556
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Louisa is a Religious Education (RE) Teacher and Head of Life Skills at a school in England. She is host of the RE podcast, an RE Subject reviewer for Oak National, a member of the NATRE (National Association for Teachers of Religious Education) executive committee and the Surrey SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education) as well as being a public speaker and author.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and "how can we make a better world?"
Sentientism answers those questions with "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
00:00 Clips!
00:45 Welcome
- Kids today are "The most enlightened generation... so socially aware... so aware of, for better or worse, the bigger picture... so passionate about things that really matter."
- Jamie's appearance on The RE Podcast talking about Sentientism
- "The reason we love RE [religious education] is because we love those big questions... this is like a proper geek out for me!"
- The balance between neutrality and authenticity for RE teachers... how much to talk about your own worldview
05:45 Louisa's Intro
- 22 years of RE teaching in UK secondary schools
- The RE Podcast "little lockdown project... I'd been wanting to do something creative... the first dedicated podcast for students and teachers of RE"
- "I had no idea what a podcast was... the RE community... have been so supportive... now nearing 4 years of doing this... I absolutely love it"
- Religious Education "fairly unique... to British schools... a national entitlement... every child up to the age of 18"
- How RE has evolved from religious instruction "how to be a good Christian" to now: "religion and worldviews - everybody in the world has a worldview... we all stand somewhere... show respect... compassion for people who think differently... religious and non-religious worldviews"
- NATRE exec
- Oak National online teaching platform
09:19 What's Real?
- #catholic mum, #atheist dad, brought up Catholic (christening, school, church)
- "You just accept the reality that you are given by your caretakers. And that was then reinforced at school... reinforced at church... with my friends..."
- Despite atheist dad: "At no point did I really consider that atheism was a valid worldview"
- At 8 yrs old "My dad had this big conversion... from being a complete and utter atheist and hating religion to becoming quite an evangelical Christian... he had a religious experience... he heard a voice... felt a pressure... waves of energy going through him."
- Going to protestant evangelical church with dad "so very different from my Catholic version... quite exciting... my whole family left the Catholic church and went to the Protestant church."
- "It was quite fundamentalist... to the point of it being quite judgmental"
- "University was the first time I really questioned anything... taken out of my little religious bubble... exposed to... alternative ideas"
- "A lot of the things I'd been told just didn't hold up... going to hell... attitudes to homosexuality..."
35:34 What Matters?
46:15 Who Matters?
01:11:26 A Better Future?
01:30:50 Follow Louisa
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!
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