242 Chapter 7 P2: So what can be perceived as hostility can also be explained as engagement? P1: Yes, and to also just encourage them to go into their own faith so that they know what it means, because if that’s the case, you can also have a more equal conversation with each other. You don’t have to convince, because you keep the faith to yourself and you testify to that. In that way, and also to respect one’s own faith. St1: As a teacher, you really want to testify to what you stand for, I believe that, and not necessarily impose that on the children. And encourage children to also ask questions about their own faith, so that they themselves know what they actually stand for and can enter into conversations from there. P3: That you give them that space, actually. St1: That they also have to have a real conversation at home. P4: Ask about their faith, about what they believe. Because sometimes they don’t know. Their own celebration days, for example, if they can explain them, sometimes they don’t know. So go ahead and ask. From the voice of operant theology, as heard in meetings 12–14, it can be concluded that practical examples show that religious diversity in the classroom can be considered a helpful challenge. More specifically, it challenges Christian teachers to focus on the core of Biblical truth and, through their pedagogical action, it challenges students to deepen their knowledge and experiences of their own faith to be able to interact about it with others in the classroom and the teacher who leads the process. The voice of operant theology in terms of epistemological formation could have been stronger. In its 17th meeting, the conversational community evaluated some guest lectures that members of the outsider group had given as part of DCU’s renewed second-year module on diversity. They presented a series of practical case studies or educational dilemmas that (partly) related to Biblical truth claims and epistemology, as discussed in meetings 12–24. The conversational community did not discuss them separately, but nevertheless decided that it would be good to include them in this module as part of DCU’s curriculum. 7.2.3 The voice of espoused theology What was said within the conversational community by the gathered practitioners on Christian education in religiously diverse classrooms and highly diverse cultural and ethnic contexts about how (trainee) teachers should handle truth knowing and truth claims? This sub-section focuses on the espoused theology expressed by both students and teachers, both regular participants and guests at the conversational community’s meeting(s)
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