One of the most respected and prolific of speakers and writers about religion and spirituality - Deepak Chopra is also quite a controversial figure because traditional science is not able to cope with his radical philosophy. He qualified as a convensional doctor but went on to explore other forms of healing. I include a biography from Wikki here which includes the controversy, and many good youtube links. There are lots more but this is all I have time to research at the moment. good material to use with GCSE or A'Level classes.

in haste will add more later

This is a conversation from a thread on the Unemployed teacher's forum in which I was inspired to share something of why I think RE is important. I would love to have some responses from other RE people to get a clearer and stronger picture which I think may help us to fight for our subject more effectively. Lat&'s three principles for good RE - engaging spiritual and rigorous offer a great framework, too.

in haste - the prev site is full so starting another. Sorry not a regular blog at the moment, Life is a bit hectic. Bella-the kitten who just caught a mouse at Mums is sitting on my knee purring like a steam engine, very proud of herself. Love and Peace DurgaMata

Songs by teacher Jill Blackadder - sheet music and CD from 'Jill Slee Blackadder' <Jill.blackadder@btinternet.com>, The song I've used most in RE here is &'It&';s Christmas, get cracking' which is a great and humorous way of introducing an exploration of the tensions between our pagan &'yule&'; festival of feasting and indulgence which celebrates the return of the physical sun - lengthening days and hopes of spring to come - in mid-winter and the Christian celebration of the arrival of the Son, the spiritual sun or Light of the World.

My son phoned late last night to say that there are major articles by Rowan Williams and Jonathan Sacks in the New Statesman out today 9th. I've found the article by RW in full and a bit about the JS one. Uploaded here. Great to link RE with our world, our society and the events in our nation. Can you photocopy one big and put it up on a notice-board surrounded by pertinent questions? Good for a corridor where many pass by. Competition for the best captions and answers to the questions?

Life, Death and Funeral Rites - an experiential - spiritual approach - arising from a question on Save RE forum, I have outlined an experiential/spiritual approach which you may like to adapt to your situation. I aim to add background info re some different religions and denominations, some 'order of service&' sheets from real funerals, poems and texts interesting obituaries, music and videos - suggestions welcome. this is such an important topic and not easy to engage with - so I hope this helps. Your comments and feedback welcome as always.

The first of these readings is from my June 27th 2013 blog, reflecting on the pregnancy of my cat I plan to add other inspiring or insightful readings related to pregnancy, abortion, sex and family life. I may also add the group-work / role-play notes I have used with success when exploring this topic with GCSE classes

2 Dec (1) - Nov 28 (2) - 29th (Ma's birthday.) Both with photos 13 - 16 Dec our Nelson Mandela prog, 17 - 21st bit from Deepak Chopra and Christmas Day Radio 26- 28th - daughter in India + Chopra insights on relationships. Jan 7th, update, family, Chrisn/Muslm orgs working with ex-gang-Members 14th work + half-milliion mark 15 - 19 Jan inc sponsors for son? and &'tummy trouble.&'; 9th Feb hospital and poems. 13th - 20th Feb inc photos 23rd a long blog inc resource on Sala/God interfaith events + photos + poems. March 14-18 includes bits from Liverpool RE Confrnc 18 - 21 new job?

This is my favourite of all my sisters songs - and one of the earliest. She composed it at Christmas, in Bethlehem, in 1967 - where tourists pushed and shoved to get to the 'spot where Jesus was born&' and haggled over souvenirs - while snow fell on freezing streets and soldiers arrested her black African colleague and interrogated him three times that day. It is a powerful and moving meditation on the real meaning of Christmas. For the CD &';All Shall Be Well' original songs of peace, of winter and of Christmas, contact - 'Jill Slee Blackadder' <Jill.blackadder@btinternet.com>,

Continuing blog. Will add more later. 12th - Moiza the cat 13th also - Quaker Meeting and visiting Mum's friend B now in a different hospital. 14 - 15 + an outline of my son's presentation on how to combat stress (which finished the College term off in a great way) quotes from Ch 2 of Gita 21st about Camden Market and Tagore 22-3 about gas charges 24th about family and Christmas, love and forgiveness Christmas Day about carols and a wild 'cheerfulness challenge' successfully met. 27th includes poems and readings about love and change from my Teacher's online library

This is not really part of the Meditation-Blog as that was something quite unique, to share my experiences in New York and my my daily meditation at the beautiful Meditation Garden I loved to visit every morning. But if there are any experiences here - back in England - which relate to issues which I mentioned or explored in that blog, I feel it is useful to share these as part of the 'appendix.' For now I feel inspired to continue to share my life in a small way here. The one about 13 - 15th relates to Remembrance Sunday. With love and thanks for all your encouragement. DMC

this is a resource in process, but because it will be good if more people work on it than me - and because, inspired by some videos which my friends brought to my attention I would like to meet people who would be interested in creating some great interfaith discussion videos - I am making it available here at this early stage. True this is not a worksheet or power-point but different articles on an important RE topic, selected over a period of more than a week, is a very useful start. Love and Peace DurgaMata

This is a resource to get classes thinking about many things - the meaning of life, what makes people happy, travel, taking risks and safety, what is pilgrimage? what makes our lives fulfilled? who and what is important to us? Who are the Sufis and how do they fit into the wider picture of Islam and more...

The basic PPT takes pupils through this topic and includes videos. It begins with a youtube link and has another youtube link in the middle. Activities are positioned at the end of each day of the fire. I did this with year 8 students and we moved on to a Group-Work project. Some of my methods and materials for successful groupwork will be included here. After the project I did not want to lose the additional research that had not been used by our class, so I added additional research to make an 'extended PPT' and added colour to the slides. I've added Team Leader Record Sheets, Checklist for preparing the presentations, Presentation and Feedback Worksheet and some completed Presentation and Feedback Sheets. After the informative slides (50 for the standard one and 75 for the extended one) I added some of the displays the groups in my class produced for their Group Presentations.

The main document comes from a thread on Save RE, responding to a website which calls for the subject Religious Education to be renamed. I disagree and set out my views here. I answer others who comment on this. Alongside this I include some articles. In the first document - three articles from the BBC website. 1) from July 2013 when Mr Gove admitted how his policies harm RE. 2) Ofsteds report, criticising the quality of RE. 3) refers to the current report by the Religious Education Council - on a suggested Curriculum content for RE.

This is a series of 11 slides depicting Jesus as Asian, mostly Chinese or Indian. It is in process as many images are not the right shape for a ppt slide so I will have to adjust them in Adobe. But it does give a great idea of the way that Christians everywhere think of Jesus as their Brother, as their Friend, His divine aspect is beyond the confines of one time or place, one nation or race.

I gathered this material in response to a request for a lesson about prayer. A friend has found this really powerful - using it effectively in relation to several problems in school and at home. With the inspiration of the question on a thread about how to make a lesson on prayer more experiential and less theoretical - I was inspired to spend a few hours researching into it. I aim to add to this resource - and especially add more links to videos from youtube which could be used in class. I suggest you introduce this in lessons about - Prayer, forgiveness and the existence of God.

celebrates the relationship between a Spiritual Teacher / students or disciples, a time when Hindus re-dedicate themselves to their spiritual life. There are parallels here Islam during Ramadan and Judaism in celebrating the Sabbath. a summary of Wikki on this, as a separate file, with questions is in process. If anyone uses this and would like to share lesson plan and feedback, that would be great. I aim to create some activities around this information. Happy Guru Purnima.

A ppt slide show of 21 images of Jesus from a European perspective. It is in process as many images are not the right shape for a ppt slide so I will have to adjust them in Adobe. But it does give a great idea of the way that Christians everywhere think of Jesus as their Brother, as their Friend, His divine aspect is beyond the confines of one time or place, one nation or race. They can and they do, wherever they live, whatever their race or culture, claim Jesus as their own.