Lesson video

Hello there, everybody.

My name is Mr. Robertson and I love RE.

Welcome to a brand new unit of RE learning.

Our key inquiry question is world views, how is our community and country changing? And today's first lesson is all about the concept of a worldview.

I can't wait to get started, and I'm really, really looking forward to hearing and learning with you.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain what is meant by a worldview and how worldviews differ.

We have four keywords today.

I'm gonna say the word first and then I'm gonna ask you to repeat it back to me.

Are you ready? Our first word is worldview.

Fabulous.

Religious.

Incredible.

Non-religious.

And finally, personal.

Brilliant.

All of those words said perfectly.

So what do they mean? Well, a worldview is the way people see, interpret, and inhabit the world.

Religious in this context is a worldview that usually includes belief in God or the divine as part of finding meaning.

Non-religious is a worldview that looks to humans, reason, and the natural world to look for meaning.

And personal is something that relates to an individual.

We're gonna be using these keywords throughout the lesson, so you'll know them all by the end of it.

So our first question in this lesson on the concept of a worldview is this.

What is a worldview? Let's go.

Alex is gonna explain for us how we use social science in religious education because today's lesson, and indeed this unit, uses a social science way of knowing.

Alex says, "Social scientists are interested in how people live and how context like where they live or when they lived affects this.

We could better understand people's worldviews by looking at photographs or analysing data.

We can survey or interview people to find out more about their worldview." Thanks, Alex.

So how is this gonna be relevant in our lesson today? Well, in this lesson we're going to explore the concept of a worldview by hearing from people with a different variety of worldviews.

Let's start with a conversation.

Andeep, Sofia, Izzy, and Jacob are discussing what they think about pasta.

Andeep says, "My favourite is spaghetti.

I like to twirl it on my fork." Sofia says, "I love shapes like the twisty or bow shaped pieces." Izzy says, "I don't really like pasta.

It's always too soft, and I prefer rice with food." And Jacob says, "I've not eaten much pasta, so I can't say what I prefer." So all of these children are discussing pasta, and they all have different opinions about it, don't they? I wonder what you think about pasta.

Is it something you really, really like? Is it something you've never eaten? Is it something you quite like? Izzy says, "The reason I have my opinion about pasta is linked to my context.

In my house we don't really eat it.

So for me, I'm not a huge fan.

Not liking pasta is part of my worldview." So by context, Izzy's talking about her circumstances, and in her house they don't really eat pasta.

Jacob says, "We all see the world in different ways depending on ideas we pick up from family, friends, and others.

The way we see and inhabit the world is our worldview." I wonder why you have the opinion you do on pasta.

If you love pasta, why is that? If you hate pasta, why is that? If you're not really sure? And I wonder where that idea has come from.

Is it influenced by your family, or your friends, or the way you've been brought up, the things you've done? You might wanna spend a couple of minutes now talking to the person next to you or somebody else about your thoughts on pasta and where this opinion comes from.

So did you have an interesting discussion about that? It's quite important because this helps us understand the idea of a worldview.

So a worldview is the way people see, understand, and live in the world about them.

It's made up of their beliefs, ideas, and values.

Everyone has a worldview and that shapes how they think, make decisions, and act.

So a worldview's not just about your thoughts, but it's about what you do as well, the way in which you live.

A worldview shapes how we react to new things like food.

We gave the example of pasta, didn't we? But also new people we meet or new ideas we might learn about.

So a worldview is made up of many different things.

Let's just check our understanding so far.

I'm asking the question, what is a worldview? And I'd like you to choose the best definition.

Is it a, the view we have when we look outside, b, the way we see, interpret, and inhabit the world, or c, whether we like pasta or not? Which of these is the best definition? Pause the video and have a think.

Excellent, social scientists.

It's b, isn't it? The way we see, interpret, and inhabit the world.

Well done if you got that right.

So as we said, worldviews is not just about the thoughts people have, but it's also can be seen in the actions people take and how they live.

Andeep says, "I believe we all have to take action to save nature and the earth." Sofia says, "My worldview has been shaped by TV programmes about our planet." Izzy says, "Yes, Sofia, I agree.

I try to make sure my family recycles properly." And Jacob says, " I haven't thought that much about my worldview, but I do care about animals." So each of these children is thinking a little bit about their worldview, and they're thinking a little bit about what they believe, action they might take as a result of these beliefs, and where some of these ideas come from.

But we can see that their worldviews are not identical.

And some people have thought more about their worldview than others.

True or false? A worldview is just about what you think.

Is that true or false? Pause the video, social scientists.

Have a think.

Excellent.

It's false, isn't it? But why is it false? Well, it's false because we said a worldview is not just about people's beliefs and ideas.

It's about the actions they take and the way they live their lives.

So worldview is about living as well as thinking.

Jacob's trying to summarise what he understands about the idea of a worldview.

This is going to be our first task.

He says, "I've listened to what Andeep, Sofia, and Izzy have said about worldviews.

But I don't think everyone has a worldview.

Some people think a lot about what they believe.

Other people don't really." Hmm? I wonder, is Jacob correct here? I'd like you to think about what Jacob has said about worldviews.

He doesn't think everyone has a worldview because some people think a lot about them and other people don't.

Using the learning we've got so far, is this correct? I'd like you to think of an answer, and then I'd like you to explain your answer.

Can you use any of the things we've learned so far in this lesson to help you explain it? I know you can, social scientists, and I'm really looking forward to hearing it.

So pauses the video and off you go.

Amazing thinking.

Wow, you've really, really thought about this idea of worldview, haven't you? So your answer could have looked something like this.

You might have said Jacob is incorrect.

Everyone does have a worldview.

A worldview, you might want reminded here, it's about the way in which people look at and interpret the world.

Some people would've really thought about their worldview and others won't.

But they all have a worldview.

Some people have a really highly developed worldview.

They've thought about it a lot, and other people haven't thought about theirs so much, but it's still a worldview.

So everyone does have one.

Well done, social scientists, if you've got that correct.

For our next part of this lesson, we're gonna be asking the question, what kind of worldviews exist? Let's go.

Let's meet Noor.

Noor is Muslim and she has a Muslim worldview.

Noor says, "Being Muslim is central to who I am.

This means believing at Allah and the Prophet Muhammad.

I'm learning to read the Qur'an and I try to live by Islamic teachings." So we can see that Noor has a Muslim worldview.

It's important to her.

She has some beliefs like believing in Allah and the Prophet Mohammed, but she's also doing some things as a result of this worldview as well.

She's trying to learn to read the Qur'an and she tries to live by Islamic teachings.

Let's meet someone else.

This is Diane.

Diane is a humanist and she has a humanist worldview.

Diane says, "As a humanist, I think I need to make the most of the one life I have.

I use my reason and experience to make sure I take care of the world around me.

I don't believe in God." So again, we can see that Diane has a worldview as well, and hers is a humanist worldview.

And we can see she has some beliefs and ideas, like making the most of her one life and not believing in God, but there's stuff she does as well.

Like she tries to use her reason and experience to take care of the world around her.

So worldviews can be religious or non-religious.

Noor says, "As a Muslim, I have a religious worldview.

My belief in Allah shapes how I see and inhabit the world." Whilst Diane says, "As a humanist, I have a non-religious worldview.

My views on science and my sense of empathy shape how I see and inhabit the world." So we have the example of Noor with a Muslim religious worldview, and we have Diane with a humanist, non-religious worldview.

Let's just check our understanding.

Got a true or false question for you here.

A worldview is when you follow a religion.

Is that true or false? Pause the video.

Let's have a think.

Brilliant.

It's false, isn't it? Why is it false? Well, it's false because everybody, we've said, has a worldview.

And this worldview can be religious or non-religious, like Noor's religious worldview or Diane's non-religious worldview.

Well done if you got that right.

So worldviews can be religious or non-religious.

They can also be they organised or personal.

An organised worldview is a worldview with a set of beliefs and practises, and they might be religious worldviews like Christianity or non-religious worldviews like humanism.

So these are the sort of things we think about when we're studying Catholic Christians or Shia Muslims. We're talking about organised worldviews with some clearly identifiable beliefs and practises.

A personal worldview is how someone sees and inhabits the world.

It might link to an organised worldview, but it might also have different ideas and ways of living.

So somebody's personal worldview might be really, really close to an organised worldview or it might have some differences as well.

One tool we can use to better understand personal worldviews is by interviewing different people because that way we'll understand their real life and their real experience.

Interviews are useful because people have different opinions, don't they? Just because someone's Muslim, or Christian, or humanist, it doesn't mean they all think exactly the same thing.

Let's have a look at this.

Grace and Niamh both have a Christian worldview.

We can see Grace and we can see Niamh.

Let's find out a little bit more about their Christian worldviews by talking to them.

The organised worldview that Grace and Niamh identified with is Catholic Christianity.

So this is a branch of Christianity.

Grace says, "My family is Catholic.

We all go to Mass in church pretty much every Sunday.

Being Catholic is an important part of my identity.

I go to a Catholic secondary school and I volunteer with the Guides at my church." So we can see that Grace is talking to us a little bit about her life, and we can see some clues about her personal worldview, which suggests that she is really quite involved as a Catholic Christian.

Let's meet Niamh.

Niamh says, "My family is Catholic.

My grandparents still go to Mass weekly.

But with my parents, we go occasionally like for Christmas and Easter.

Being Catholic is not such a strong part of my identity.

It's part of who I am, but I don't go to Catholic school and my friends have lots of different worldviews." So here in our interview with Niamh, we can hear some stuff about her worldview and what Catholic means to her.

Now I wonder what is similar and different about Grace and Niamh's personal worldviews.

Think a little bit about the information they both gave us.

You might want to pause the video here and have a little bit of a think about this.

What did they say that was similar about their worldviews and what was different? Oh yeah, I can hear some really good things here.

I can see you're really thinking about what they both said.

Well, in Grace's personal worldview, being Catholic is a really important part of her life.

She went to Mass if you remember, weekly, she went to Guides and she went to a Catholic secondary school.

But in Niamh's personal worldview, being Catholic is not so important.

She and her immediate family, her parents, went to church a few times a year, but she doesn't go to a Catholic school.

Her grandparents still go to Mass every week.

So it's part of her identity, but it's not so important as it is for Grace.

True or false? Personal worldviews are the same as organised worldviews.

I'd like you to think about that and pause the video.

Great thinking, social scientists.

It's false, isn't it? Personal worldviews are not the same as organised worldviews, but why? Well, organised worldviews refer to religion such as Christianity with organised beliefs, but personal worldviews are how an individual lives their lives.

And we could see from talking to Grace and Niamh that individuals may share an organised worldview, but their personal worldviews might be quite different.

Okay, I've got a task for you now, building on what we've been learning in this cycle about organised and personal worldviews.

This is Daniel, and Daniel has a Jewish worldview.

He's coming in to talk to a class at school.

Firstly, I'd like you to think what questions you might want to ask him to find out more about his worldview.

What kind of things would you want to know which would help you understand his worldview better? Remember, you might want to ask something about the word personal, for example.

And secondly, why is it important to interview people about their worldviews? Why is that important? I've given you some keywords here to help you frame some questions.

So we've got the word organised, personal, religious, and non-religious.

So if we wanna ask Daniel some questions about his worldview, can we use any of those keywords to help us ask some really good questions? And secondly, when we're thinking about why it's important to interview people, can any of those words help as well? Okay, social scientists, you're doing some brilliant work here 'cause you're gonna be applying some ideas into a real case study.

Pause the video and off you go.

Wow, some really amazing thinking here.

So you might have said in terms of the questions you want to ask Daniel, you might have asked him a question like what organised worldview do you belong to? You might have wanted to find out from Daniel what is his personal worldview and is it similar or different? You might want to find out if his worldview is religious or non-religious.

Well done if you managed to think of some questions like that.

In terms of the second question, why is it important to interview people, you might have said people may have a different personal worldview to the organised worldview they belong to.

Not everyone from the same worldview will do and think the same way.

And so interviews are really, really important because they help us better understand worldviews.

Well done, social scientists, if you came up with some answers like that.

For the third part of this lesson, we're going to be asking a question what is your worldview? Let's go.

So an important thing to learn here is that people's personal worldview may change over time.

So we've already established that everyone has a worldview.

We've already established that there are organised worldviews such as Christianity and humanism, but people's personal worldviews may be really close or a little bit different to an organised worldview.

Let's meet David.

So David says, "When I was young, my worldview was quite non-religious.

I didn't think about things like that too much.

When I was older, I had an experience that made me become a Christian.

Now I have a religious worldview and that is important to me." So we can see that David's personal worldview has changed.

He's actually changed from someone who had a non-religious worldview to someone who has a religious worldview, someone who's become a Christian.

So that's been a change over time in his life.

Some parts of a personal worldview will change and others might stay the same.

Let's meet Zoe.

Zoe says, "I grew up in a Christian family.

But as I've grown up, I questioned some of that.

Nowadays, I don't believe in God.

I have a non-religious worldview.

But many of my beliefs about helping people and caring for the planet have stayed the same." So Zoe's personal worldview has changed as well.

She grew up as a Christian, but as she got older, she's become a non-religious person and doesn't believe in God anymore.

So her personal worldview has changed, but some of her core beliefs and values have stayed the same.

She still really cares about helping people and caring for the planet.

And maybe some of her motivations have changed.

She might now think about the world has being somewhere created by God, but she still cares about those things.

And those passions, those ideas, have stayed the same, although her other ideas have changed.

So people's worldviews may change, but not all of it may change.

Some things may stay the same.

You might always love caring for the planet, and that's gonna be a passion all through your life, for example, a bit like Zoe.

Now, organised worldviews can also change over time as well.

So they're not just static things.

Here's someone called Canon Ann Easter, and she's gonna help us explain that a little bit.

Anne says, "When I was growing up, the Church of England," so that's part of a Christian worldview, "did not allow women to become priests.

Then, in 1992, it changed.

I could follow my heart and become a priest.

Now women can become bishops as well." So organised worldviews like Christianity, in this case, the Church of England, Anglican Christianity, they can change as well.

They're not just fixed things that remain the same forever.

And a real example of that was how the Church of England allowed women to become priests.

And so Ann Easter, amazing for her.

She'd always wanted to become a priest and now she has become a priest.

And so because her organised worldview could change, she was able to do something she couldn't do before.

Okay, I wanna test some of that.

Let's see which of these statements is most accurate.

Is it a, worldviews are fixed and never change, b, everyone's worldviews will change into something different, or c, some people's worldviews might change over time? Which of these is most accurate, social scientists? Pause the video and have a think.

Amazing thinking.

It's c, isn't it? Some people's worldviews might change over time.

We've definitely shown, haven't we, worldviews are not fixed.

They do change.

We've seen that with some personal worldviews and with an organised worldview.

But not necessarily everyone's worldviews will change into something completely different.

Some people's worldviews might change a little bit over time.

Some might stay very similar.

I've got a task for you now.

I'd like you to think about what is your personal worldview.

So we've said, haven't we, everyone has a worldview.

This might be something you've thought about a lot, it might be something you've not thought that deeply about, but I want you to think about what's important to you.

And to do that, I'd like you to create a mind map.

If you want to do, you could do that with drawings and colour, but actually it's up to you how you do it.

I'd like you to think about what's in your worldview.

What are the important things that you believe in? Do you have a religious or non-religious way of seeing the world? What kind of beliefs and values do you have? What things do you think are important that you really love? So I'd like you first of all to map those out.

Then I'd like you to think a little bit about where that worldview comes from.

What are the different influences on that? Do you have these ideas and thoughts because of things that your parents have taught you? Are they things that have come from your friends? Are they things that you've picked up from teachers in school? Are they things that you've learned from watching television or listening to music? So I'd like you to have a think about mapping out your personal worldview, all the different bits that make it up, and then also where these ideas come from and how they've been influenced.

Really, really looking forward to seeing some of the ideas that you've come up with.

Good luck and I hope you enjoy the task.

Wow, what amazing lot of ideas you've come up with.

Now of course your mind map is gonna be really personal to you.

So I've had to go at sketching out some ideas, but yours may look similar, but they'll probably look really different as well.

So I've come up with some ideas that are important.

So in this personal worldview I created, nature is really important to this person.

And they've said they watch programmes that inspired them to care.

They think it's important to treat people with respect, and that's something that they've had come from their parents.

This person isn't really sure whether God exists or not.

Some of their friends believe and others don't.

And they've got lots of questions about this, but they're not really sure where they stand at the moment on this.

And finally, they're really curious about travelling and want to go to other countries in the world and find out how people live.

And that's just something they have deep within them.

So you may have come up with some ideas like this.

You may have come up with some other ideas as well.

Maybe you care for animals.

Maybe you're really passionate about sport.

Maybe you really love music and you play an instrument.

Whatever ideas you have in your personal worldview, I hope you've enjoyed thinking about them and thinking a little bit about why you have those ideas.

Brilliant work and for trying so hard in this.

So let's sum up what we've learned today.

We've learned that a worldview is the way that people see, interpret, and live in the world around them.

We've learned that everyone has a worldview.

Some people will think about it more than others.

We've learned that worldviews can be religious or non-religious, they can be personal or organised, and they can change over time.

And we've also learned that we can better understand worldviews by interviewing people to find out more about them.

I've really enjoyed learning with you today, and I can't wait to learn with you another time.

Thank you very much.