The Aporia of the Other in Curriculum Construction: A Response to Anna Strhan

Abstract

Strhan examines two models of religious education that have been most prominent recently in Britain. She attempts to show some limitations in these two models and to investigate the possibility of an alternative approach to religious education. Strhan has pointed out very important issues not only related to religious education, but also to secular education, in the degree to which the problem of 'the Other' is to be taken into consideration in the whole field of education. Indeed, as she pointed out, it is inadequate for religious education to address religious issues merely as a matter of knowledge, as long as it is connected closely with the problem of the Other, i.e., the opacity and the otherness of religious traditions. Nevertheless, I have some questions on two different levels: how is it possible to plan engagements with those of different religious traditions as a valuable opportunity without spoiling the opacity and illeity of the Other, and how would it be possible for Strhan to convince her colleagues to follow her suggestions about religious education?