Blending science education and religious education

Blending science education and religious education

Mochtar Buchori, Educator, Legislator, Jakarta, mbuchori@indo.net.id

The Islamic schools or madrasah that have opted for the
inclusion of science education in their curriculum have
complained of the difficulty in making science and religious
education blend into one meaningful whole. This difficulty has
come from the habit of looking upon these two programs as being
incompatible.

Education in science has been only associated with merely
implanting into students' minds knowledge about this world,
whereas religious education has been looked upon as primarily
concerned with preparing students for life in the hereafter.

What has often been forgotten is that both science and
religious education are concerned with guiding students into
knowing the laws of life and understanding the meaning of these
laws. Both science and religious education are thus concerned
with the art of living. Here we can find common ground for both
science and religious education.

It was thought in the beginning that problems arising from the
dichotomist view could be solved by regulating the time allotment
ratio between these two programs. So each of these two programs
was to be allotted 50 percent of school time.

It was later felt, however, that this policy did not give
students sufficient command of the materials stipulated for both
science and religion education in the madrasah curriculum.

The time allocation ratio was later changed -- 70 percent for
science education, and 30 percent for religious education. After
a while, this policy brought about complaints among teachers in
charge of the various subject matters in the field of religion.

They have asserted that this time-allocation system has caused
a drastic deterioration in students' knowledge about religion.
They also contend that in this way madrasah can no longer be
considered an institution for religious education.

What must be done to solve this problem?

To make science and religious education blend or fuse is not a
matter of time allocation. It is primarily a matter of creating
an interactive relationship between the two. This means that we
must devise measures that will make some science education
capable of reinforcing some parts of religious education, and
vice versa.

Such an educational strategy, however, can be developed only
if we are willing to set limits on what students must learn about
religion and about science. If we just teach religion and science
without setting their respective limits, these two educational
programs will never meet, and blending or fusion will never take
place. Time for school education is a constant factor, but
program content is not; it is a variable factor.

What we can and must do is to set, in a realistic manner, the
limits of materials to be covered in both science and religious
education. And within these time and program limits, we must then
lay down the foundation of students' learning capability. It is
this learning capability that will enable students to gain more
knowledge later on about science and education on their own, if
they so wish.

Another principle is the essential difference between science
education and education in religion. Science education is about
guiding student into "knowing" whereas religious education is
about steering students into "believing" or having faith. We need
both in our life.

To paraphrase Einstein -- or was it another genius? --
knowledge without faith is lame, and faith without knowledge is
blind. We must believe in what we know, and we must know what we
believe.

The question is how to make science education and education
about religion interactive. Some knowledge about the basic
features of science and religion will be of great help in this
case.

Science has taught us that with regard to knowledge or
knowing, there are three things in life, "the known", the
"unknown" and "the unknowable". The latter is something that we
cannot possibly know through our human senses. According to a
physician friend of mine, how dogs communicate with cats is one
example of "the unknowable". But that dogs do communicate with
cats is a "known" fact. Derek Freeman, the great Australian
anthropologist, once said that whether there is life after death
is "unknowable" However, the fact that most people belief in the
existence of life after death is "known"; this is "knowledge".

So if we encounter an "unknowable" factor what do we do?
Religious people would turn to God, and pray, "Guide me, oh
God ..." Here is thus an opportunity where a science education
teacher can reinforce one's basic teaching in religious
education, i.e. faith, or trust, in God.

Science education provides opportunities for teachers with
religious minds to reinforce some of students' achievements in
religious education. Conversely, religious education also
provides opportunities for teachers with a scientific mind to
motivate students in their pursuit of knowledge.

As a child a prayer sustained me in my efforts to know and
understand something. Two teachers of religion used to lead us
into saying the following prayer, "Give us knowledge, oh God, and
guide us into comprehending that knowledge." (Rabbi zidni 'ilman,
war zukni fahman.) This prayer always gave me the power to
persist in my efforts to understand what I was learning, no
matter how difficult the topic or subject was.

The reality of all this is of course more complex; but my
point is in the indivisible role of educating, i.e. to guide the
young in cultivating or bringing out their innate capacities.

Science and religious education should not tear apart the
souls of teachers and students alike.