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Teaching with Complicating Views: Beyond the Survey, Behind the Pro and Con
Author(s) -
Locklin Reid B.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
teaching theology and religion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.165
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1467-9647
pISSN - 1368-4868
DOI - 10.1111/teth.12043
Subject(s) - dualism , relativism , epistemology , opposition (politics) , variety (cybernetics) , omen , sociology , sentence , pedagogy , mathematics education , psychology , philosophy , computer science , history , linguistics , law , political science , artificial intelligence , politics , archaeology
In this article I propose a method of selecting and assigning readings in the religious studies or theology classroom, such that these readings complicate one another, rather than standing in opposition or as simple alternatives. Such a strategy emulates key pedagogical insights of twelfth‐century sentence collection, an activity at the very heart of the earliest universities in E urope. It also draws support from the theories of intellectual development advanced by W illiam G . P erry, Jr. and the W omen's Ways of K nowing C ollaborative. Both precedents suggest a principle of “complicating views” that can be flexibly employed in a variety of ways and diverse pedagogical contexts, as illustrated by examples from several classes. Such strategies aim to avoid reinforcing intellectual patterns of dualism or undifferentiated relativism; instead, they attempt to promote students' ability to integrate discordant voices and to appreciate diverse points of view, while also staking their own claims relative to them.