Learning Area Outcomes Framework
Introduction to the Learning Area Outcomes
A definition and description of the purpose of learning within the learning area: |
Religious and Ethics Education aims to ensure that all learners receive a holistic education that:
- Leads students through a process of discovering and reflecting on oneself as a spiritual being and moral agent, that is someone who is an individual but also a member of communities, with the relative rights and obligations;
- Seeks to educate them in the notion of self-reflective responsibility and to making something positive of their lives;
- Contributes towards their moral and spiritual capacity to value, appreciate, percieve and critically interpret the world they live in;
- Promotes the values and cultivates the skills of reflection and active critical engagement with moral issues;
- Contextualizes progress as one occuring within different worldviews (religious and secular), and leads students to understand these cultures and their moral languages;
- Promotes the recognition of diverse religious and secular moral beliefs, traditions and cultures as valuable and something to celebrate;
- Turns understanding into positive tolerance of moral and cultural difference; an essential quality for a society like the Maltese which is growing ever more diverse in terms of beliefs and values, and for which this programme is intended;
- Seeks to educate them in the notion of human dignity and solidarity; the responsibility of each individual towards others to build a better society and a better world;
- Promotes values that include justice, fairness, friendship, undertstanding, tolerance, reasonableness, honesty, and respect for human life. |
| Learning Area Outcomes: |
For Both Curricular Subjects: |
I can learn about and from my own experience of the world and from the beliefs, practices and traditions of others. |
I can understand how religious and secular cultures and belief systems sustain different ways of life and can co-exist harmoniously in societies like the Maltese, where moral and cultural difference is respected and valued. |
I am aware of the basic tenets, rituals and narratives of the major belief systems. |
I am able to understand and value the notion of a human community and the diverse ways it expresses itself in, and to see this as a source of richness. |
I have a positive sense of myself which I nurture through self-care and self-mastery, and of my connectedness with others, with the natural environment (animal and material), and, if I am a believer, with an Ultimate reality. |
I can formulate and express questions that are fundamental to human experience and endeavour to find an answer. |
I am able to understand contemporary moral language and its central concepts and metaphors, including those of rights, virtues, duties, obligations, autonomy, self-regarding and other-regarding acts, side-effects, and consequences. |
I am able to reflect on that language critically but with due respect for those with different beliefs and a different moral outlook. |
I can contribute meaningfully and reflectively to moral debate even on fundamental and contentious questions, duly respecting the right of others to think and argue differently. |
I am willing to give the other voice provided that that voice is not the voice of insensitivity and irrational hate aimed against others, to seek compromise instead of confrontation where possible, and to respect disagreement where this is the case. |
I can collaborate with others in the construction of a shared and mutually enriching vision of life. |
I am committed to be fair and just towards myself and others, to live a reflective life subject to my moral and other values, and mindful of my obligations towards others who form my society and community and towards other beings who form the world community, human and non-human (or animal), of which I am also an active and responsible member. |
Specifically for Religious Education: |
I can relate critically to the Word of God and acknowledge its practical implications for human experience. |
I can reflect and act on situations, both personal and those belonging to the community, in a critical and analytic manner in the ligth of the Christian message. |
I acknowledge the rich plurality of experiences and expressions shown by individuals as well as communities in their commitment to living to apply the Gospel. |
