BBC Religious Broadcasting For Schools

Communicating Across Religious Boundaries
When religious broadcasting for schools commenced the medium was only radio. Today radio is still the main medium for primary schools’ acts of worship, but television and videos have come into their own for supporting Religious Education. The work is well funded with some £3 million from BBC licence fees, and other organisations around the world have co-funded the broadcasts. This funding has enabled programmes to be produced which are aimed at meeting the needs of the whole age range from 5 to 18 years, and encompass most of the key elements that are taught in syllabuses in the UK. The programmes are designed to work not just in non-denominational schools, but also find their place in denominational schools, for example Christian, Jewish, Sikh, Islamic and Hindu schools etc. So the aim was to provide material that is as comprehensive as possible.

A Spiritual Journey
The programmes enable young people to have some choices on their own spiritual journey. The aim of Religious Education is not to turn the young people into any specific form of adherence, be it Christians, Jews, Hindus etc, but to give them a chance to see the world of religious belief and areas of spiritual response that we all think is so important.

Given that the vast majority of young people never go near a place of worship this is again when TV comes into its own, because the camera can take them into a Jewish family for Shabbat or, say, to a Christian congregation where they are celebrating Easter. Recently they filmed people in a church in Liverpool as they received Holy Communion. Normally when young people go on a school visit to a church, the church is empty. What actually matters is not just the building but the people, and what the elements of the services and the building mean to members of that faith community. So the medium of television enables young people for the first time, very often, to see what it means to be a member of a Jewish or Christian or Sikh community. Television enables an opening-up of the whole world of spiritual questioning - and what that leads to who knows? It is hoped that by providing such material it enables young people to make responses and choices that will hold them in good stead as they go through their journey in life.

The Importance of Story
One of the keys is "story". Story is at the heart of the Jewish and Christian experience - not just the great stories of the past but the human story of each one of us. Every boy and girl in the RE lesson or Sunday school has their own story, and somehow we are trying to say that actually around us there are personal stories; people of faith going right back to Moses and Abraham, and coming right up-to-date, to people who are struggling to make their faith work in practice, with all the problems that life throws at us - of health, questioning, doubt or whatever it may be. All these things are stories worth telling, and television can do just that.

Video Clips and Animation
To illustrate the above Geoff Marshall-Taylor showed video clips of stories from the Hebrew Bible. One clip was an animation, and covered Moses’s experience of the burning bush in the desert; an experience that totally transformed him. The dialogue told a story that young people could relate to their own lives if feeling vulnerable, unwanted, totally lacking in confidence, i.e. the attributes manifested by Moses in the dialogue with God, and the reassurance he receives from God.

Animation is appropriate and well received by all age groups and cultures (Geoff Marshall-Taylor suggested an age span of 5 to 105!). There are different forms and techniques which can be employed in producing video stories in an animated format, and different processes were outlined. A video clip of a broadcast, in animated format, showing Jesus addressing a group of listeners was discussed. Jesus was not portrayed as an “other-worldly” blond haired, white-skinned westerner, but as a dark-haired bearded Semitic “down-to-earth” carpenter who was already known to his listeners. The objectives of the broadcasts, which these video clips illustrated, is to give young people pointers to the wonderful things in the Bible which are there to be explored.

Re-enacting Religious Rituals
Very often it would be intrusive and inappropriate to film a sacred ritual as it is being performed, but perfectly acceptable to film a re-enactment. A video clip was shown of a family re-enacting Shabbat, and children in the 5 to 7 age group spoke to the camera explaining what it means to them. Broadcasts which are aimed more specifically at older children (around the 16 to 18 age group) have dealt with a number of contemporary issues. Bereavement, the afterlife and forgiveness issues have been addressed in various programmes, and video clips covering these issues were shown and discussed. Religious Education goes beyond churches, synagogues, buildings etc. It is about people, their personal journeys, their questions, their discoveries, and their life situations.

Real People facing life and Death
The final video clip featured an American couple whose daughter, Amy, was killed by black activists in South Africa. This was at a time when there was violent unrest during the period of transition from apartheid to democracy, and her killers hadn’t realised that she was working with their own community. Her parents went back to South Africa, and over a period of 4 years following Amy’s death they contributed to the building up and welfare of that community. The parents held no hate or anger; they understood why their daughter had been there and they knew the risks involved. The parents communicated their Christian faith in their understanding and forgiveness, and the medium of television effectively told the story.

Opening Doors, Empowering Choices As was ably demonstrated by Geoff Marshall-Taylor throughout his talk and illustrative video clips, Religious Broadcasting for schools provides an effective adjunct to Religious Education in the classroom. It opens up aspects of world religions and spiritual “vistas” which otherwise young people would not encounter, and it helps to empower them to make personal choices on their life journeys.

- Bernard Tiley