Cover story: Simon Webb learns how to share with children

‘A chance to be challenged by unexpected questions.’

When you meet people on Zoom, you can usually see their rooms behind their faces. Until recently, I had a secret contest going on in my head concerning which background I liked best: the bulging bookshelves, the walls full of pictures, or the richly-patterned curtains. I say ‘until recently’ because I have now found a winner and closed down the competition. The champion is the lady I saw Zooming from the fourteenth-century scriptorium of St David’s Cathedral.

I met the scriptorium lady on a free course hosted by RE Hubs, a new initiative designed to support religious education teachers, and others in similar roles. On the same course I got to know, among others, Jewish and Christian education officers, all working to inform schoolchildren about their beliefs.

RE Hubs is trying to build a database of people who are prepared to go into schools to talk about their beliefs. It is also compiling a parallel list of ‘Places of Interest’ for school groups to visit. Speakers and spaces will both be featured on the group’s website.

Friends who’d like to offer their Meeting houses in this way, or are prepared to talk to students, should explore the RE Hubs website at www.re-hubs.uk. The site will give them some background on the organisation, and tell them how to apply for an online course.

Among other things, the course told me what to expect as a ‘school speaker’, and what I shouldn’t do in that role. A visit either to or from a school is not an opportunity to proselytise, nor should any Friends attempt to cast shade on other denominations or faiths. What they should do is share their personal worldview, adjust what they say to the level of the children in front of them, and, if welcoming a class into their Meeting house, provide a safe and welcoming environment.

Of course any contact with schools these days raises safeguarding issues. The course I attended dealt with practical matters like where to find the necessary forms.

To make Quakerism accessible to children, my course hosts recommended that we work with story. ‘Narrative’ has become an in-word again, and Quakerdom is rich in illuminating tales. Think of George Fox telling William Penn to wear his sword as long as he could, or Elizabeth Fry visiting the convicts, or Benjamin Lay weaving his own linen cloth, so that enslaved people wouldn’t have to.

But if a school visit can’t spread the Truth, what might Friends get out of it? A way to connect with the community; a reason to reflect on, and articulate, our belief and practice; and a chance to be challenged by unexpected questions. It might also offer Friends an opportunity to look at their worship space with fresh eyes. Try as we might to keep them plain, Friends, we inhabit some beautiful spaces… though none are from the fourteenth century.

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