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Toolkit 1: What Makes Us Special? One of the important human attributes is the ability to ask questions about the world around us and investigate those questions. This attribute is important for humanists; it means that we can understand the world and use the answers to our questions to change the world. This toolkit introduces children (ages 5 to 7) to these ideas and to stimulate them to explore their responses.
Toolkit 2: What Do We Celebrate and Why? This toolkit explores a humanist perspective on two key ideas with children ages 7 to 11. The first is that our human relationships and the love, commitment, and responsibility in those relationships, gives us the support we need in life and that there is no god or afterlife. The second is that because this is the only life we have, we should try to live a full and happy life and help others to do the same.
Toolkit 3: How Should We Treat Other People and Why? This toolkit explores with students ages 7 to 11 ways in which humanists make moral decisions. It focuses on two key ideas: the “Golden Rule” and the use of reason. It introduces the ideas that our ability to reflect on issues of right and wrong comes from human nature and that the way to answer questions of what actions are right and wrong is to ask what the effects of those actions will be on ourselves and others.
Toolkit 4: How Do You Know It's True? This toolkit explores with students ages 11 to 14 ways in which humanists approach the question of what is true. Humanists use reason and evidence. They look for evidence, weigh the strength of evidence, look for ways to test the evidence, and look for the simplest explanations of it. The toolkit applies these arguments to the question of whether god exists and introduces more reasons that some humanists have for being atheists or agnostics.
Toolkit 5: How Do You Tell Right From Wrong? Students ages 12 to 14 explore ways in which humanists make moral choices. They look at the ways in which these concepts can be applied to practical ethical decisions and compare the humanist approach to ethics with their own ideas and with those of people from religious traditions they have studied.
Toolkit 6: What's It All For? This toolkit for students ages 12 to 14 explores beliefs about what gives a sense of meaning and purpose in life and why. It focuses on three points: humanists base their ideas about the world on reason and evidence; humanists conclude that this is the only life we have and that there is no evidence for life after death; humanists say that there is no evidence of ultimate purpose or destiny in the universe and that we have to make our own meaning and purpose. We must look to our own human attributes to address the problems in the world and make our own destiny.
The BHA web site suggests that teachers can construct their own lessons by following the instructions provided. Each toolkit contains teaching notes, a lesson guide, worksheets, and a class presentation. We could not begin to capture the breath and depth of these marvelous documents. Instead we present the following two examples:
Introduction. The aim of this toolkit is to explore the ways in which humanists make moral decisions. It focuses on two key ideas: the Golden Rule and the use of reason. Humanists say that our ability to reflect on issues of right and wrong comes from our own human nature. We have the ability to empathise with others. We can imagine ourselves in another person’s place and think about how we would feel. We can see that everyone would want to be treated well by others and therefore we should treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated (the ‘Golden Rule‘). As humans we also have the ability to reason. We can work out from the available evidence the likely consequences of an action, the harm or good which is likely to result from it. Humanists say that on this basis we can judge how far an action is right or wrong.
Humanists say that our moral values have developed along with our evolution as social animals. Our values are based on our common human need to live together harmoniously in groups. We need the kind of rules and behaviour that enable social groups to work well.
Humanists argue that our shared human nature and needs explain the considerable agreement among religions and societies about what is ethical. They believe that the Golden Rule is so widespread across the world and in most religions and philosophies because it is based on our common humanity - we all want to be treated well and we all need to live together harmoniously.
The first two activities in this toolkit give a scenario with an ethical dilemma and summarise humanist ethics in relation to it. The third explores the Golden Rule and compares humanist ethics with some religions and other philosophies. The fourth gives examples of how humanists apply their ethical views in practice.
Learning Objectives. Pupils are able to: (1) understand two key concepts that humanists use to make moral decisions, (2) compare some religious views and humanist views about ethics, and (3) explain their own views on how we should treat others and compare their own ideas with those of humanists.
Summary of Activities. The pupils reflect on an ethical dilemma. They think about their options and debate what they would do in this situation using a ‘traffic light’ discussion. Pupils then investigate, using video clips, what humanists might do in this situation and why, and imagine the next scene with a humanist in their place. The pupils explore, using information on screen and their own research, how far some religions and philosophies share humanist views of ethics and why. They record their research on a writing frame. The pupils then revisit the initial ethical dilemma, thinking about what they would now choose to do in that situation and comparing their ideas with those of humanists. The pupils evaluate the ideas they have studied, using challenging questions and exploring them through drama, discussion, or extended writing.
Preparation
Download the Worksheets and preview the screens.
Introductory Activities
-- Using screen 1, in pairs or groups the students look at the British Humanist Association’s ‘happy human’ logo. They talk about what they already know about Humanism. They then look at the statements on screen and decide which they think is true or false.
-- The aim is for pupils to recap on prior knowledge and start thinking about the humanist ideas they will encounter in this toolkit.
-- Using screen 2, students watch a short video clip in which humanists describe the reasons for them becoming humanists and what humanist values mean to them.
-- Students should discuss whether or not they feel Humanism makes sense to them, and whether humanist values conflict with those of some religions they have studied - and why.
Main Activities
How do you know it's true?
-- Using screens 3, students should first give an answer to the following statements and then run the videos to see what other people think. In each case, the important point made is that the only way to know if something is true is to examine the evidence for it, and to make a reasoned judgment.
-- You do not need to run all these videos, just enough to make the point.
-- The statements are:
- The stars and planets influence what happens to you in your life
- There are such things as ghosts
- Henry VIII had six wives
- Green plants need light to grow well
- If my friend grazes his knee he will feel pain
- There are intelligent beings on other planets
The importance of reasoning and evidence
-- This screen describes how humanists decide on the truth. They use reasoning and evidence. Do your students agree that this is how the truth is discovered?
Is there a God?
-- In this video clip humanists give their views on the existence of God. They stress the need to use reasoning and evidence in their decision making.
-- Ask students if they agree with this approach and ask them to compare it with the 'God-view' given in some religions they have studied.
-- Explain to the students that for many humanists the question of whether there is a god or not is simply answered by saying that, because there is no evidence for the existence of god(s), then there is no reason to believe in them.
-- Next we are going to explain some of the specific arguments that some humanist thinkers have made concerning god(s).
Thoughts on god
-- Using screen 6, students can investigate how humanists have applied reason and evidence to different aspects of the question of whether there is a god.
-- Students drag each thinker into the frame to give their view in one short statement:
- Feuerbach - 'Such as are a man's thoughts...., such is his God.'
- Darwin - 'The old argument of design in nature....fails.'
- Einstein - 'I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures...'
- Hume - 'A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.'
-- Using Worksheets 4b and 4c, the students then work in small groups, taking one thinker per group. They read the information on their chosen thinker. They write down answers to the questions on Worksheet 4b. Using the worksheet to help them, they present that thinker's idea to the rest of the class and say how far, in the group's opinion, the thinker has made a good argument that god does not exist.
Plenary
-- Using screen 7, summarize the key idea in this toolkit: that humanists use reason and evidence to work out what is or may be true.
-- The students choose one (or more) of the examples from screen 3. Through discussion or writing, they explain how a humanist might respond to this statement and how far they agree or disagree with the humanist viewpoint and why. They refer to reason and evidence.
-- Students do some creative work to communicate and apply their understanding of the key concepts of reason and evidence, atheism, agnosticism, and belief: a play script or cartoon/animation of ‘God v Hume’; a letter from Darwin to Thomas Huxley, wondering whether to publish his ideas on the origin of species; a report for the school magazine about the survey of students’ ideas in screen 3, using graphs and interviews to show the results; an essay exploring one of the following questions: ‘Can reason and evidence tell us everything about the world?’ ‘Can your own experience alone tell you what is true?’ ‘If large numbers of people believe something, does that make it likely to be true?’
Extension Activities Introduce the following four hypotheses:
- The earth is flat - The sun moves around the earth
- Cheese creates mice - You can cure plague by putting the herb rue on your windowsill. (These are all early, now discredited, ideas which were proved false by scientists and explorers using reason and evidence.)
The students imagine that they are 16th and 17th century scientists and explorers who have set out to see if these hypotheses are true or false. In pairs they think of some experiments which could test the hypotheses. They use the questions in Worksheet 4a to help them.They write up their experiments, creating some suitably 'antique' documents and using the language of scientific enquiry. Worksheet 4d is a writing frame to help students organize their work.
Find out more about some of the explorers and scientists who used reason and evidence to disprove earlier hypotheses, in particular Galileo, Magellan, Mendel, and Pasteur.
Note: Transcripts of the videos are available to download in video library area.
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These two brief examples from the British Humanist Association are only the “tip of the iceberg.” We strongly urge users of the Kochhar Humanist Education Center web site to view the BHA teaching resources. Again, the address is: www.humanismforschools.org.uk.You and your students will profit greatly from this educational excursion to the United Kingdom.
