— Elizabeth Fraser, Humanities Educator
On a brisk October morning, Watershed high school students in the “Nature of Good and Evil” course, loaded up the buses to set out on a journey of discovery. For the next three days, the students explored different places of religious worship, and heard from a variety of different perspectives to ultimately answer the question “how does religion guide our morals, values and actions?”
From participating in an authentic Buddhist service which included both walking and sitting meditation, to hearing stories about the Hindu gods in a small Victorian home adorned with symbolic artwork, statues and instruments, to speaking with a Catholic priest, the students began to understand how the teaching and purpose behind religion carries so much similarity; just the way people practice it differs.
In meeting people who follow the Baha’i faith, and agnostic members of the Secular hub, we began to realize that many people choose what religion (or non-religion) they want to follow as they grow older and develop their own perspectives. This caused our guiding question to evolve as we began to ask ourselves, “how do our morals, values and beliefs actually guide the way we decide to perceive and practice religion as we grow older?” The benefit of being able to hear from these different speakers back-to-back over a course of days, caused us to have fascinating conversations as we compared and contrasted, connected to previous course content, and shared our curiosities with one another. We also carried out a reflective group council where we shared how we could unclutter our minds to get closer to the enlightened self we already have within us, and what we believe is our “dharma,” or purpose to carry out in life. Our students really impressed me with how engaged they were with each speaker— their amazing questions contributed to our learning and even stumped some of the experts!
Personally, I am returning from this trip with so much more new knowledge and perspective on religious practice. Although at times it may have felt like a firehose of information, I am excited to take our new knowledge back to the classroom, to debrief, reflect, mind-map, and create new insights, as we think about how our beliefs have evolved from this experience and what moral guidelines we hold that motivate us to be “good” people.
