Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

KAREL VAN NIEUWENHUYSE:

My advice to educators about relating learning from RETOPEA to their immediate settings-- first, I would advise them to ensure the significance for the participants. What is meaningful for the learners? This is particularly important with regard to the selection of the clippings. Think carefully about the good and meaningful selection in the light of your specific target audience-- in terms of age, gender, interest, reading capabilities, religious and other backgrounds, and so on.

Take your time to engage with the topic. Because listening to each other, talking with each other, reflecting on such complex issues forming your own opinion-- all this takes a lot of time. So if we mean it seriously with this topic, if we consider it important in the development of young people, then we really need to take the necessary time for it, and not on one occasion but on several occasions.

Create a safe environment because issues regarding religion and religious diversity are very sensitive. They often touch upon young people's personal and social identities. And therefore, we really need to ensure them that all conversation will happen in a safe and respectful way.

Think about apt questions that encourage to draw analogies between past and present. The past never offers ready-made recipes for today and for tomorrow. Because after all, historical context differ and human behaviour does not follow fixed laws.

Mark Twain once said, history never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme. And I think that is precisely what is important for this project. What rhymes, so to speak, do young people recognise today in those clippings about the past? How were things done in the past? What were the consequences of actions in the past? And in this way, their thinking about today and tomorrow will be challenged.