233 Relational Epistemology and the Art of Living Together 7 Affirmations Score general (N=18) Score students (N=10) Score teachers (N=8) There is no such thing as an absolute truth; everything is relative. 1.42 1.45 md=1* 1.38 md=2 Human understanding (comprehension) of truth is always subjective (and thus differs from person to person). 3.89 3.75 md=1 4.06 md=1.5 There is no one who can say that he or she has truth on his or her side. 2.47 2.00 md=1 3.06 md=4 We, as Christians, can learn as much about truth from a Muslim as a Muslim can learn from us. 2.40 2.20 md=3 2.64** md=3 In classes with a high degree of religious diversity, as a teacher, you should not witness to your own faith. 1.34 1.10 md=1 1.63 md=3 Christian teachers especially should not exude that they hold absolute truth. 2.95 2.20 md=3 3.88 md=2 *MD: maximum deviation between given answers on the five-point scale. **One of the teachers did not respond to this affirmation (N=7 at this point). The scores for the first two affirmations show that the participants believe in the existence of absolute truth—the teachers even slightly more so than the students—although they believe the interpretation of truth to be subjectively different in each and every person. From the scores for affirmations 4 and 5, it is clear that both teachers and students find the Christian faith so truthful that it must be shared with others, even children who are being raised with other religious convictions, for example, Islamic belief. It is their collective opinion that Muslims can learn more about truth from Christians than vice versa (affirmation 4) and that Christian teachers should be free to be witness to their faith, even in religiously and culturally diverse classrooms (affirmation 5). For the latter affirmation, the fifth one, in particular, the opinions expressed relatively strong disagreement. Reviewing the results afterwards, during the 14th meeting, the scores for the third and fifth affirmations especially drew the attention of the regular members of the conversational community. For both affirmations, the student group tended to disagree, whereas the teacher group tended to agree. In both cases, the students seemed to look for more freedom to claim the truth as ‘theirs’ than the teachers did. According to the meeting’s minutes, all of the members present participated in a discussion to identify reasons to explain this difference: Dealing with uncertainty, according to P1, is what both statements are about. P2 thinks that the two groups score differently on this because adults tend to
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw