Y7 RE: 'The most important thing Moses did for the Jews was to give them the 10 Commandments from God"

[erebus]

"- Give 3 supported reason why one might agree with this statement.

• Give 3 supported reasons why one might not agree."

DS has come up with 3 reasons in agreements (eg Establishing the moral code for the Jewish people, establishing his right to be their leader, establishing a moral framework on which modern British laws are based)

But as for disagreeing- well, I'm no Biblical scholar (and, far more to the point, wasn't sitting in the lesson, but...!).. the only one DS has come up with is: Leading the Israelites out of Egypt was the most important thing Moses did.

What do you think?!

He gave his name to baskets that modern day babies sleep in too.

Goodness. That is hard.

You don't necessarily have to disagree by saying Moses did more important stuff, can't you disagree with the assumptions in the question.

E.g. If you don't believe in god (or one who writes on stone tablets) the 10 commandments couldn't have come from god.
There aren't 10 of them (there are two versions and neither has 10..)
they are not really moral commandments for life ( I don't think they are the basis for modern law) most of them are about not making graven images etc...
Even 'though shalt not kill' isn't the moral commandment we think of it as, it really meant thou shalt not kill Jews.

the 10 commandments are about subjugation of the poor/uneducated classes and to teach them to 'know their place' and stay faithful to their masters

I think it was Moses who led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt wasn't it? So Yr 7 could argue that the 10 Commandments were not the most important thing he did - but to free them from slavery. God sent plagues to Egypt, locusts, hailstones, errrm quite a few more I can't remember, and eventually killed every Egyptian first born son (nice!) so the Pharoah let them go. Hope this helps - I am sure it can be expanded!

Oops - double post - sorry just realised that your DS already has this one!

Moses led the Jews to the Promised Land (Israel). The 10 Commandments are additional to the Noahite laws (no killing, don't eat a live animal -common in Egypt, don't steal etc.)
BTW, the don't kill law applies to EVERYONE- not just Jews.
Moses can be argued to have been the first leader of a unified Jewish people. Joseph brought the Ha'biru from Canaan to Egypt and ultimately slavery but Moses brought out a people who were no longer an obscure tribe. One can argue that his greatest contribution was as a leader around whom a national and religious identity was formed.

erebus - please tell us what the teacher suggested for the three disagreement ones.

How about the manna when they were starving and the water from the rock (or Horab?) when they ran out? Both miracles though, so not strictly speaking Moses' doing. Or how about re-establishing his leadership over the Israelites after he came down the mountain and found them worshipping a golden bull, which was a god of the Egyptians (among others, a popular symbol) led by his own brother Aaron? Not to mention Moses pleading with God to spare the Israelites after what they had done. The OT doesn't really go into the shenanigans between Moses and Aaron, so he could speculate about the value of having Moses as a leader and no questions about it as they made their precarious way through the desert.

The implied division in the Moses vs Aaron thing sets the stage for later separation of the Northern Kingdom. One message of the golden bull story is that Israel needs to be united under the one God.

Um, I'm not sure how you can give Moses credit for the 10 commandments! I'm sure god could just have easily have handed them to anyone else. The other things he did show his strength of character far better, like never losing faith in god or himself, when even the Israelites thought he was nuts trying to reason with Pharaoh.

How about pleading with God to forgive the Israelites when they turned to idol worship while he was up on Sinai. He reminded god that they were only human.

I do find RE homework so incomprehensible - beyond the factual stuff like 'a Sikh temple is called a Gurdwara' etc.. it seems like an exercise in pointlessness, and learning how to give woolly ideas undue respect.

It's like asking for three points for and against the argument that Goldilocks should be tried for breaking and entering.

Himalaya- I couldn't agree more! Whilst RE is amongst DS's more - ahem- 'thought provoking' homework tasks, being Y7, it's pretty obvious they're supposed to spill back what they learned in class (if they'd been listening...sigh) as answers to these questions. The other thing is I get the impression his RE teacher is a 'happy-clappy born-again'. DS has certainly got better marks when he's spouted stuff along those lines!

Hully- that's the problem! It would appear she didn't come up with any 'againsts'!

Erebus - I was trying to work out why these questions make my teeth so itchy, my DS in year 7 gets the same kind of thing.

The Moses question has got a possibly historical but mythologised character, a supernatural being, a real and still existing population and a modern day value judgement all wrapped up together. I can't get my head round it at all. It's like asking 3 reasons for and against the statement that the best thing St George ever did for the people of Syria is when he killed that Dragon. It's a gramatically correct sentence but it doesn't mean anything.

The only skill i can work out that it teaches kids is the 'skill' of politely
not pointing out bullshit if it is uttered in a pious voice and with reference to a holy book.

'Its like asking for three points for and against the argument that Goldilocks should be tried for breaking and entering.'

Sounds exactly like the ethics tasks we used to get at Uni actually!

Textual analysis is an important part of the critique skills we've kist beena ssessed for on my factual MA course. My degree is RE (and philosophy, lots of ethics in there) and I find I have done far more of that sort of thing than the other students (massively mixed background).

At the end of the day learning to make an argument from a text is pretty key: there doesn't need to be any actual faith element.

Excellent prep anyway for ethics classes such as the one where we had to debate the morals of having sex with a frozen chicken.

Peachy - it's got nothing to do with ethics though (the Moses question, the Goldilocks one ok). Textual analysis is fine when it's Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet or whatever but here where the question is about some real people, a mythologised person and a supernatural being there is no common ground.

This is why there should be no RE in schools. Either teach the development of religions in a historical context or teach a course on 'who wrote the Bible?' but the mishmash as described by Himalaya (and I am a Catholic) really serves no purpose imo from a religious or historical or historiographical pov.

Iconography in Art should be taught in schools on top of the historicalness of organized religion.

I would just keep it simple, Year 7... go back through notes and regurgitate what's been taught in class.

The Three R's... Reading, Remembering, Regurgitation.

However, if it was me, I would likely begin my premise along the lines of Himalaya's comment, "The only skill i can work out that it teaches kids is the 'skill' of politely not pointing out bullshit if it is uttered in a pious voice and with reference to a holy book," and constructively criticize the exercise.

I wonder if it's too hard a question for Year 7? As Peachy says, it sounds to me like the kind of open ended discussion / ethics question you could hold a good debate on at GCSE or A-level, but at Year 7, it may just involve some level of repeating what's been said by the teacher in the class. Or perhaps, the school is hoping that RE will teach them those types of ethics / debating skills that they'll be expected to have for science as they hit KS4 (for and against biofuels, genetic engineering, etc).

I have to say that I would ask the teacher for the 3 against points as I am terribly interested.

GrendelsMum - I think year 7s can handle quite complex ethical discussions and debates, but this isn't one, its just an incomprehensible mish-mash question.

Hullygully I am perversely interested in what the 3 points against are supposed to be too....

No, I think they can handle complex discussions, but they'd need more scaffolding than they appear to have got here. I think it's a perfectly good question for a different context (like Goldilocks being tried for breaking and entering).

Agre Grendels.

Although at our school philosophy has been taught since year 4 so by year 6 / 7 they ahve fairly well honed skills.

And I think textual analysis is exactly it once you take the 'relaity' of Moses etc out of it and treat them like fictional characters. much as you might characters in a Shakespeare play. 'This is a book, these are stories, how does it work/' is exactly the opposite of the type of RE I have isues with (my own stance is Quaker, beleive the OT is a colection of why stories and ancient mythology on a par with the tales of Norse gods, don't believe in faith schools or peddling specific belief system to children, but do beleive that RE as a cross between a social science and historical study is excellent). I studied PRS (philosophy and religious Studies) at degree alongside psych, I have a lot of ASD traits and have studied various 'people' subjects because I am enthralled by them, to me it's much like watching the bees in a hive.

Grendel, Peachy

That's the thing though it isn't an ethical/ critical thinking question at all though it's just dressed up like one with all that 'what's most important'. And '3 arguments for and against' window dressing.

Underneath it is just a read, remember and regurgitate question about the Moses story. I think the honest question it is asking is 'give 3 reasons why the story of Moses and the 10 commandments is considered significant in the Jewish Religion and name 3 other important events in the life of Moses as told in the Torah' or something like that.

That's the thing about RE it pretends to be all universal and deep and a foundation for critical thinking, and it's just not.

Erebus - I hope your DS appreciates all the thought we are putting into his RE homework

I certainly do, himalaya !

To be honest, I can't ascertain how much detail was gone into regarding the story of Moses in the lesson- which makes it harder still to discuss it with him. I can't honestly think of any reason (that could legitimately be spouted by a Y7) as to why anyone might disagree with the statement. He's not likely to understand 'Cos that particular fairy story laid the foundations for much of the conflict in the modern world'- is he?! Or perhaps, not so much 'not understand' as 'not be able to argue his corner coherently'.

IF this is the start of their critical thinking and debating skill tuition- well, OK, but I am a bit irritated about how much of DS's school work isn't 'stand alone'- it always seems to require a melding of different skills. For example, they did a geog. project about a local chalk downland that was scythed through by a motorway in the 90s. The homework project was to present the case via an information booklet with a subtle slant towards the pro- or anti- camps. No individual testing of 'what have you learned about the opposing forces that come into play when a new motorway is planned through a sight of outstanding natural beauty'. OR plan, design and produce an information booklet. Instead, it was a car-crash of both, fine at 15 or 16 but not in the first term of secondary!

Disagreements:

1. He dragged the Israelites around the desert for years and then landed them in Canaan which was under Egyptian control at the time they arrived there.
2. God showed him His bum but Moses never got a picture of it!
3. He was a real killjoy when it came to a knees up!