The Faith Project: Exploring Critical Issues
The Faith Project: Exploring Critical Issues
Join us for The Faith Project Virtual Classroom where your students and our panelists will engage in lively conversation and debate on the meaning and place of faith and spirituality in our secular world. This event is produced in partnership with The Canadian Race Relations Foundation, Voices into Action and the Canadian Teachers’ Federation.
The Faith Project: A Classroom Discussion on Practicing Faith in Canada, Christopher Romeike, provided by the National Film Board of Canada
About The Faith Project
This is a guest post written by Noorin Fazal. Noorin – a teacher, mentor and researcher – is passionate about interfaith and intercultural education. She’s actively involved in the development of cross-cultural curriculum. Her scholarly work focuses on virtue ethics pedagogy (‘What does it mean to be human?’) and the teaching and learning processes of media literacy.
Questions about Faith
As teachers in the 21st century, we aim to nurture critical questioning skills. Theoretically then, our ideal classrooms are filled with students asking questions. In reality, the excitement of teaching critical questioning is often paired with anxiety. What if a student asks something that I am not prepared to explore? What if a student asks a question that offends someone? In this way, the unrelenting curiosity of our students can be simultaneously inspiring and daunting.
Questions can become especially uncomfortable when related to religious and cultural identity, diversity and expression. The complexity of these questions mirrors the complexity of our students’ lives—they feel the impact of ignorance, prejudice, and discrimination in the school hallways, neighbourhood spaces, and online platforms. The media is full of faith-related issues desperately in need of critical questioning, but opportunities and skills for spirited and respectful dialogue are limited.
Our classrooms are paramount for meaning-making, especially in the turbulence of today’s context.
The Faith Project as a Response
The Faith Project is a timely resource for teachers who wish to cultivate understanding of faith communities through the development of media literacy skills. The film-based documentary project enables students to explore prayer and ritual in the modern world through the lenses of seven traditions: Aboriginal spirituality, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Sikhism.
Through the medium of film, expressions of faith are explored as personal and meaningful dimensions of human experience. Each film features an individual practitioner sharing a glimpse into prayer or ritual within sacred space. Students can examine connections and differences among the seven films as a way to understand broader issues of faith and culture.
The Faith Project app for tablets and web site provide learners with a versatile platform for individual and shared exploration. Teachers can assign students take-home tasks for individual viewing or set up a collective learning experience. In this way, The Faith Project can be customized to a variety of environments and physical layouts.
Using the CAMPUS Learning Bundles
Get more in-depth with NFB Learning Bundles.
Additional videos created specifically for classroom use, downloadable study guides, discussion questions, classroom activities and related films and resources.
- Practising Faith in Canada Today
- Being Spiritual: A Personal Approach to Spiritual Rituals and Faith Traditions
- Understanding our Similarities: Religious Diversity and Working Together Towards Tolerance
Some highlights: In the Discussion section of the guide, a viewing framework (pre-, during, and post-viewing) is described for use with any of the seven films. In the Lesson Ideas section, teachers can extend the learning experience through inquiry and arts-based pedagogy. We have included reference sheets in order to provide teachers with background knowledge for each featured tradition. The reference sheets aim to represent diversity within each tradition without compromising shared identity.
To access NFB Learning Bundles, a subscription to CAMPUS is required. You may already have a subscription to CAMPUS. To find out, click here.
For the best experience, we recommend accessing CAMPUS from your computer or laptop.
Download the app here or visit the web site to begin exploring The Faith Project.
Share Your Experiences
Through these resources, we hope that teachers will find support in addressing critical issues of faith within diverse cultural contexts. Feedback and anecdotal experiences with The Faith Project are welcome here in the comments section. This sharing is valuable—and necessary—for our continued learning at the National Film Board.
Hi Theresa,
Thank you for your interest. We will be holding a free Virtual Classroom about the Faith Project, March 3. Stay tuned for more information and registration becoming available in the coming days. https://www.nfb.ca/education/virtual-classrooms/
Michele
Community Manager, Institutional and Education Markets
How can I join the virtual class?
Hi Theresa,
Registration for our Faith Project Virtual Classroom is now open. You can register for free with the promo code: Spirituality ($50 value). Click here for more information: http://bit.ly/1ShLgb6
Michèle Tredger, Community Manager, NFB Education
What a valuable set of resources and a timely release. Faith-related misconceptions due to a lack of understanding continue to impact the way we experience (react, interpret and/or perceive behaviors and events) life and. I could completely relate to the mixed emotions – excitement/anxiety, inspiring/daunting – when encountering questions about this type of material and pleased to have such resources to turn to. Thank you!
Hi Aalia,
We are so happy that you like the resource. It is timely indeed. We will be holding a free Virtual Classroom about the Faith Project, March 3. Stay tuned for more information in the coming days. https://www.nfb.ca/education/virtual-classrooms/
Michele
Community Manager, Institutional and Education Markets
Hi Aalia,
We are so happy that you like the resource. It is timely indeed. We will be holding a free Virtual Classroom about the Faith Project, March 3. Stay tuned for more information in the coming days. https://www.nfb.ca/education/virtual-classrooms/
Michele
Community Manager, Institutional and Education Markets
A timely and needed idea! I have some struggle with the word “faith” because of the necessary distinction between religions and spirituality… and the historic and current role of ‘faith’ traditions in violent conflict. And yet it is the right word for the app. I am sharing your link with my Transformative Learning students at OISE this week. I am providing them with some pieces on the differences between religion and spirituality in where authority, sacredness and the source of faith lies. I’ll tie that to rekindling human consciousness of our interconnectedness in the sacred web of life and our shared membership in one Earth community.
Hi Eimear
Thank you for your great feedback. We will be holding a free Virtual Classroom about the Faith Project, March 3. Stay tuned for more information in the coming days. https://www.nfb.ca/education/virtual-classrooms/
Michele
Community Manager, Institutional and Education Markets
Noorin, I am thrilled to see this! Timely, insightful and truly inspiring. How wonderful. And so crucial.
Hi Louise,
Thank you for your comment. It is a timely resource indeed. We will be holding a free Virtual Classroom about the Faith Project, March 3. Stay tuned for more information in the coming days. https://www.nfb.ca/education/virtual-classrooms/
Michele
Community Manager, Institutional and Education Markets