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Program in Religious Studies and Education |
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Mentor Teacher ProfileTore KapstadFor the past four years, Tore Kapstad, a mentor teacher to PRSE students, has taught ninth-grade humanities-history classes at New Mission High School, a pilot school in Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood. Tore's classes look at history through thematic questions such as "What is culture?" using literature and film; this past year, his students studied ancient Greece, comparative religion, Islam, and Nazi Germany/the Holocaust. New Mission High School emphasizes depth over breadth; as Tore says, "We're trying to create the building blocks to get the students to become lifelong learners." Classes number 20-24 students from all over Boston. "If kids are asking good questions, then the answers are going to follow. The best learners—or the most aware learners—are the ones who ask questions," Tore says. Religion is an important component of Tore's teaching of history. "We all have these things we take as givens or facts about how the world works, and behind those facts or those givens are assumptions. A lot of those assumptions are cultural, and those cultural assumptions come from a variety of sources, but a main source is religious views, religious thinking," he says, explaining his inclusion of religion in history. "Understanding religious ideas and specific religions makes it so much easier to understand all other aspects of history. It sets a nice groundwork for other parts of history. The way we do religion is not from a theocratic standpoint but from a historical standpoint. While you're doing religion, you're also doing politics." Tore, who was born in Norway and raised primarily as "a nonpracticing Lutheran," considers his religious beliefs today to be eclectic. In fact, he seems to be modeling the lifelong learner for his students when it comes to religion. "My thinking is evolving," he says. "Some of the religions speak to me more than others." Posted July 2005
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