Responding to questions in SRE - Part 1

A two part process to help you decide how to respond to questions in SRE.

One of my favourite things about teaching Special Religious Education (SRE) in schools is giving students opportunities to ask questions about God, Jesus and faith. The questions they ask give you an insight into how the students are thinking, what doubts they might have and the things that are important to them.

However, questions can also be something that SRE teachers feel anxious about. Will I know the answer? What if I say the wrong thing?

When a student asks a question in my SRE class, there’s a process I go through in my mind to help me know how to respond. It happens quickly (which is the result of doing this for many years) and it revolves around these two questions:

Should I answer this question? and if so, How should I answer it?

Today I’m going to focus on the first question.

Should I answer it?

The first thing I think about is whether it is connected to the curriculum. Part of the policies of SRE means that we are required to teach from an approved curriculum. The majority of questions that students ask us will come from the lesson we are teaching. In that case it’s directly related to the curriculum and it is good teaching practice to answer. You could answer the question yourself, or open it up for other students to contribute to the answer. Questions related to the lesson can be excellent discussion starters for your class.

But sometimes you’ll get a question that’s not related to the curriculum at all. Is Santa real? Why aren’t there dinosaurs in the Bible? Can Jesus teleport? My parent doesn’t believe in God, are they going to hell?

Here’s three reasons I might decide not to answer questions like these.

1)    It’s not age-appropriate. Everything we teach in SRE must be taught in an age and stage appropriate way. The Bible does have ideas, stories and topics that aren’t appropriate for every age. The best response we can give to these kinds of questions is to encourage them to talk to their parents. We can also encourage them to talk to someone at their church who knows them and can answer the question carefully, without the 30 minutes time pressure of SRE.

2)    It’s not our job to answer. I’m thinking especially of the questions about Santa or the Easter bunny. Our purpose in SRE, in line with the legal policies and procedures, is to teach the Bible. These questions are outside the scope of what we are doing. So, I leave Santa to parents, and focus my class back on Jesus.

3)    It’s too much of a distraction. Some questions have the potential to derail an entire lesson, especially if they require a lengthy answer. If I think that’s a possibility I might ask the student to write the question down, so I can find a time to come back to it. Or I might suggest someone else they can ask and get back to our lesson.

Should I answer it now?

Once I’ve decided to answer a question, I then have to decide when to answer it. A few weeks ago I was teaching an SRE class and about two minutes into the lesson one of the students asked me,

Where did Jesus get his power from?

I was really encouraged that he was thinking about that. The theme of the term was Who is Jesus, and each lesson we had been seeing how Jesus has power over sickness, nature and even death. I knew I would answer the question, but I had to decide when. The lesson I was teaching that day was about Jesus calming the storm. Towards the end of the lesson I knew we would be reading these verses from Psalm 65 to help us answer that question.

You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds,
    God our Saviour,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
    and of the farthest seas,
 who formed the mountains by your power,
    having armed yourself with strength,
 who stilled the roaring of the seas,
    the roaring of their waves,
    and the turmoil of the nations. Psalm 65:5-7

So even though I decided to answer the question, I decided not to answer it yet. I asked the student to write it on the board so we didn’t forget, and we would come back to it later. After reading and talking about Psalm 65, I asked the question, and the student answered his own question.

Deferring an answer like this can be a really effective way of giving the students something to focus on throughout the lesson. Because we had a question written on the board in front of the class, everyone was listening for the answer. You can use this technique if the question is related to a future lesson too. If a student asks a question that I know will be answered in two weeks’ time, I’ll ask them to write it down, and I’ll use that as the big question for the lesson when we get to it.

Think back on a question you’ve been asked in SRE. If that question was asked today, how would you respond?