Adam and Eve and PinchMe… · Fri Dec 1, 15:41 by Eleri Straker
Today I had my eyes opened.
I was teaching my mixed ability year 9 group (and boy, are they mixed ability!)
We’re in the process of studying Much Ado about Nothing and we were reading one of Benedick’s speeches where he swears that he would not marry Beatrice even if she were the last woman on earth. Actually what he says is that he wouldn’t marry her even if she had inherited everything that Adam had owned before he was kicked out of Paradise. Before I moved on I casually asked the class to tell me who Adam was. If there were a pin to be dropped, you’d have heard it. So I looked up and repeated the question, thinking, “Surely not…” But yes. Not one of them knew about Adam and Eve.
I know that church attendance has dropped radically, but surely they must have been told SOME basic Bible stories when they were little? I mean, they do have RE lessons after all. But I was wrong. None of them knew the story, so I told them the tale and because my curiosity had been piqued I said casually, “So if you betray someone…you’ll understand why you might be called Judas?” Blank stares all around. Actually, one girl said that she knew the story and proceeded to tell it. It wasn’t completely accurate, but it was close enough. When she’d finished, someone asked her how she knew, so I suggested that perhaps she might possibly have listened to someone or even, heavens forbid, read a book!
As a basic knowledge of biblical stories is fundamental to the understanding of a huge part of English literature, I asked a few more questions: like what was the significance of 30 pieces of silver, or the crucifixion or the Serpent or Easter…Talk about being a stranger in a strange land! You’d think I’d been speaking Arabic! All the stories that I assumed they knew something about meant nothing at all to them. In fact, one boy even suggested that wasn’t it an amazingly useful coincidence that Jesus had had the foresight to be born on December 25 and to die at Easter…And he wasn’t joking!
When I tell classes these stories, I’m always asked if I’m very religious, a question that I find intriguing. I’m actually just well read. True, I did have a chapel upbringing and you can’t grow up in North Wales and not go to Sunday School occasionally. But that’s not the point. The real point is that to understand the greats of English literature… or even some of the not so greats, you have to have a grounding in religious texts, simply because so many writers draw upon religious symbolism and mythology to create their work. And if you aren’t familiar with the basic stuff, you won’t understand the complex stuff.
So this brings me to my question. What do students learn in RE lessons? I know that they learn about something called “comparative religions”, but surely, if they don’t know even the basics of the religion that is supposed to be the religion of this country, how can they make comparisons? How can we consider ourselves a civilised, educated society if our children are brought up ignorant of the faith and beliefs that stimulated some of the greatest creative minds ever? I’m at a loss to understand.
Anyway, as for the title of this blog, it’s an old verse I was taught when I was little that goes something like this:
Adam and Eve and PinchMe
Went down to the river to bathe…
Then it gets silly.
