Berkley Center

Background: As part of the Education and Global Social Justice Project, in May 2011 undergraduate student Conor Finnegan interviewed Leanne te Brake, a religious education teacher at De La Salle Holy Cross College in Johannesburg, South Africa. In this interview, te Brake discusses her perception of the Origins Center’s presentation on evolution and the response and feedback she received from students who attended.

To begin, could you tell me about your journey to your present position, and why is it that you do the work that you do? What inspired you to do this work?

To be a teacher here? Originally, I wasn’t a teacher; I was in the business management field, and I just never felt completely fulfilled. It was six years after I finished school that I thought of studying [for] my first graduate [degree] in education—I was always involved with kids in one way or another, whether it was teaching extra-curricular or coaching sports. A friend was leaving DeSalles High School and asked me to send in my C.V., and I did. They needed a substitute teacher for a term and told me, “We need you; we want you.” So I actually came in as the business studies teacher. After I was here for three months, they actually wanted me to teach religion. So the following year in 2009, I taught religion and business management [to the older grades] and accounting and business mixed together for the younger grades. They added library orientation, another subject, so now I teach four subjects. I just have a passion for teaching kids. I think the religion side is a challenge for me to teach, but it’s so inspiring to hear the students' points of view and just to see them grow and develop in all sorts of different ways. I don’t think I could just teach the business thing—I think it would get too boring. And I don’t think I would want to teach only the religion. I like the mixture of two.

I also run the youth group at the school—all these kids here belong to the youth group—where we have over a hundred students that meet weekly. We take them on camps and [do] faith-building [activities], and we’re now moving into missionary work. We help underprivileged schools and orphans. We do all kinds of collections and drives throughout the year. This all inspires me and keeps me going here, at a Catholic school. I don’t think I could teach at a non-Catholic school actually.

Because of the lack of religion?

[Yes, because of] the lack of religion. First of all, being [part of] a religious school only enhances my personal spiritual life, [as does] being able to go to Mass here once a month and being involved in the school and church community. [It is] the ethos of our school, when you speak to the kids and you see how they interact. It’s like a family orientation; parents get involved in everything we do...just having the holistic child. Some aren’t religious, some are, but you still have the majority—about 70 percent Catholic students. I find them personally inspiring.

Where do you see religion influencing, motivating, detracting from, or otherwise affecting your life and the work you do?

I definitely see my personal religion enhancing the teaching. It definitely doesn’t negatively affect us. I’ve learned so much teaching religion myself—especially the Catholic doctrine. The more I teach the more I learn, but then the more I feel sometimes I’m underqualified or underprepared for the type of work that I do. I think I’m always inspired that God’s using me, right now, where I am. I see a spiritual counselor once a week, and I speak with a lot of priests. So from that perspective, I’m getting a lot of nourishment to be able to give to the kids. My personal religion has definitely grown and is being enhanced by teaching here.

So before getting into the actual program itself—the Jesuit Institute program—would you like to share any more of your background? First, where do you stand in the creation-evolution debate? Where were you before the presentation, and did the presentation change anything?

I saw the presentation last year. It was first presented to a couple of Catholic teachers; they’re called the Teachers Inn. That really opened my eyes a lot to what this weird evolution actually means, [to] what the definition actually was. I then saw it last Saturday at the [religious education, RE] teachers’ conference, and then it was presented at the school. So I’d had a bit of background with it; it definitely helped seeing it before, [rather than] just seeing it with the kids the first time. My understanding of evolution-creation definitely changed a lot. It was obviously good for me to understand and follow this talk because I’ve had the previous knowledge.

The ideas weren’t something you grew up with then?

I definitely grew up with the creation side—that’s always been part of Catholicism. But for me, evolution always meant evolving from monkeys. So this has kind of given me a bit of understanding that all organisms evolve and everything changes with time and adapt. Now I understand that that’s what they mean by the evolution part. The link between creation and evolution has still has never been made by any of these institutes or talks that I’ve been to.

Besides this one?

This one was even worse.

That’s a very interesting point. In my studies, I have come across that almost a majority of South Africans believe in biblical literalism—they take the Bible and the story of Adam and Eve as actual fact. Why do you think that is? What do you think informs the majority of South Africans’ opinions on that topic?

I guess when you’re young, you were taught it as a child, “This is Noah, this is his ark, this is Adam and Eve.” For kids to understand the story, we need basics, we need pictures, and we need visuals. I don’t know if it’s from primary through high school, but I think even for me, you stay with the Adam and Eve, apple and the snake story, and the garden. I don’t think there was a point that was revealed to young students [that taught them] what the truth behind this story actually is. I don’t think that goes into much detail. I don’t know if that’s just in the RE classes, or if it’s general.

Do you think other factors such as race, religion, or poverty influence that belief at all?

I’m not sure. I haven’t thought about that. Poverty could be a fact. I don’t think that race has anything to do with it. Maybe, on the poverty side, [as] it is in our country, the race plays a huge role. It could definitely be poverty because those people have never been exposed to religious studies or been taught religion at a young age. I think people know a lot of stories in the Bible, but a lot of people haven’t actually sat down and read them and studied them—including myself actually.

My talks with the students were very interesting because they think [these beliefs] are an old South African thing, that it’s Afrikaners who think like that. Would you agree with their idea—that it is an older generation idea? And that this new generation doesn’t share the same belief?

Definitely. I do think that, and I think technology plays a huge part in this. I think our young people are not lost, but they’ve gotten a lot further off the trail due to technology, society, the media, the influence of Hollywood, movies, and all of that. I think you can say the older generation wasn’t exposed to that kind of thing. They didn’t have the TV and the media, so they didn’t have as much influence from society and from the world.

When you say “off the trail,” do you mean becoming more and more immoral?

In a way, yes, but I think that’s probably all due to the fact that in the past, as for the older generation, there were certain laws and certain rules, and everybody followed them—especially from the church side. The church always said, “Here are the rules, here’s the Bible, and we follow it.” So a lot of our kids grew up like that, and I don’t think there has been a good transition between this modern way of thinking, especially from the student side. And I don’t think there’d be much of a link.

So having this belief, you might have students who still have this biblical literalism with them. Do you think it disadvantages them in any way—inside the classroom or outside the classroom? If so, how?

It depends on how old the students are I think. I think a lot of students need that biblical literalism because they’re not old enough or mature enough yet to understand the real meaning behind the story. And I think that maybe at a certain age, or even when they leave school, they need to do their own research, their own studies, and find out for themselves. I think it’s quite dangerous at the school level to be teaching kids to sit down and read into the story in the Bible. I think that might be too open-ended. Young kids have got lots of imagination. They’ve got things going on and that’s fine to let them think and let them be open-minded, but if it’s not controlled properly and brought back properly—that “this is still the truth” by the teacher—I think that can be a problem. I think young teenagers need so much guidance. I think that because of all those external pressures that they have, they need that constant guidance. A lot of them are not mature enough, emotionally or spiritually, and I think if you’re not mature in your own faith or religion, it’s going to be so hard to understand those truths in the Bible. Does that answer your question?

Yes. To press this a little further, do you think the biblical literalism that even the older kids have (where perhaps they should have learned otherwise by that point) disadvantages them?

In what way?

In terms of them perhaps not doing as well in their matric or making it more difficult for them to get a certain job or, this is a little extreme, but living in poverty for the rest of their lives?

I don’t think so. I can’t see how taking the Bible literally could have those negative effects on a child. I think they do need to understand that it’s all truth—that it might be factual, and it was written in different times. I think that is so hard for our kids to understand that back in the day, some guy sitting on his horse wrote about what he thought. I think it’s very hard for them to understand that, and I think that a lot of in-depth biblical study would be needed for that. It’s not just something you can cover in a few RE classes. Again, the teacher then needs to have that full understanding and knowledge of the Bible before being able to teach that.

Regarding the talk, was it you who invited the speakers because you had already seen it two or three times?

I saw it last year with all the teachers and again at our RE teachers’ meeting in January. They said, “This is what’s happening: we want to get it in schools. Did you want to book us? Please book us.” And I had heard it, as well as the biology teacher—we had both heard it last year. And I said, “That’s a good idea. Let’s get them out.” It’s good for the kids to have the exposure, to make the link, and especially to link science with religion. I thought that that was quite important for our students to see that. They do link—they do see that ultimately God does create everything, with the help of science.

What was your hope in bringing the institution’s program?

My hope? That they would have shown them exactly what they did in the biology science. It was great for them, by the way. Seeing literally how things evolve and explaining the definition of evolution was great, because I also misunderstood that before. My ultimate goal was to get the kids to see the link, but also see that ultimately, faith is the reigning factor here. You need faith to believe that God creates everything. In the talk that I saw, they explained quite nicely how faith is the “why” and science is the “how” it all happened. And that link was never made. I was hoping that that would be the link, and that the kids would see this and go “Okay, so God did create everything; we just used science, and science explained how things happened.”

Was the link missing in the presentation last Tuesday?

There are two presentations. One was for the grade 11 (two girls) and one for the matrics (two boys). I sat in on the matrics’ talk, and then I spoke to a couple of teachers afterward in the grade 11 talk, and they said that the link was made. In my talk, there was no link. God wasn’t even mentioned. So that’s a big problem because it opened a lot of questions for the matrics class, [and] they’re already 17 and 18 years old. They’re leaving school. They’re already very impressionable, but they are very open-minded. If things aren’t brought down to religion and faith and God, you can lose kids very, very easily.

So on top of not making that link, what didn’t you like specifically about the program? What could they have done better?

The fact that a priest came in and spoke about religion, then never mentioned God, and never tied the link in with religion. I think that was a huge, huge mistake. Because students see a priest as like the pope; whatever he’s talking about, we can trust him—we can believe in him whenever he says “We believe” kinds of things. And I think that was a problem, because you think that from a priest, and the priest never delivered that. It got a lot of kids questioning—myself, as well. [I don’t know] why the priest came in for the religion side if he’s not even talking about God and bringing it back down to “God is the creator.”

Is there anything else that you think the program could have done better?

The fact that he also brought up the whole Adam and Eve thing and told the kids that it’s a myth—to kids it must mean fairy tales. It doesn’t mean what the true meaning is; that was never explained. So it was kind of like a rude awakening when they realized, “Oh, some stories in the Bible aren’t really real.” [It wasn’t explained] that it is still true—it’s a story, an analogy, poems and things. It was just kind of dumped on them. “Adam and Eve never happened, that wasn’t true. Sorry for you.” That was a big problem for me.

Was there anything that you enjoyed about the program? Something you thought it did well or a place where it worked best?

The one that I saw on Tuesday—Merrill [van der Walt]’s presentation—was brilliant. She kept them so involved and enthused. She interacted with them. She really got down to their level, which is important in any speaker, whereas the religion side didn’t do that—it was quite above their level. She really got it well; [she had] an active presentation and active facts. She had the slides, and she explained things. Again, she also never really made the link. She spoke about how there was evolution, creation, and somewhere in between. There’s something missing—what is that? Otherwise, her [presentation] was really, really good.

You mentioned Tuesday’s presentation—was there something else about the other presentation that you didn’t enjoy?

Yes. On Saturday, it was given by another Jesuit priest, Peter Knox. We had Peter Knox, and the kids all had Anthony Egan. Peter Knox started off with the kids' slides of, “This is faith, this is science, this is the how, and this is the why.” That, to me, was awesome because then you saw where his talk was going, how the two really, really connected, and I think the kids needed that. The kids need to see things written down in layman’s terms, really, and see how the two link together. Those are a few of the things I can think of.

Can you expand on that?

Someone asked, “Can you please define religion, and can you please define science?” And he said, “No, I can’t define it. I want to put it in a book.” He said there hadn’t been a document yet because what religion means to me could be something completely different from what it means to you, and that’s the sort of problem—I think even for kids as well. [We teachers] had a big debate where some agreed and some disagreed. Then the Adam and Eve thing came up, [and] some said it isn’t in the catechism; this is what we need to teach. Some teachers were [saying], “Well, how do we know we’re all teaching our kids the same thing then?” A lot of us felt that we then need a textbook, if you want to call it that. So there was confusion there.

So in the classroom and just in society in general, who or what constitutes the biggest challenge or the biggest opposition to the program and the idea that religion and science can go together? Where do you think so many children’s opposition to this idea comes from?

Probably both the religion and the science classes—probably in the education. I think when the science teachers are teaching, a lot of them will give the scientific facts—“This is biology, and this is how things work”—but religion is not brought in there. I think the same can go for religion, where religion is spoken about and the Bible is emphasized. Maybe not enough science and theory and history and proof are brought into that as well.

So when you are challenged in the classroom, how do you handle that? What sort of tools do you use to try to use to break these issues down for kids?

I think the first thing was to clarify the misunderstanding, because there were a few misunderstandings. I know from teaching that kids can take one word that you say and twist the story; so it was clarifying the misunderstandings—“No, this wasn’t meant—this is how it was meant.” And I knew straightaway that they had misunderstood the word [lackma?]. They misunderstood a couple of things that were said about the Bible. So first [it’s important] to clear up any misunderstandings and to reassure them that that they mustn’t put a person, like a priest, as the Catholic church—that they don’t see the individual but rather the institution because there are different people who have their own agendas. And everyone, including myself, we all push our own agendas. Just to make them aware of that is important. The third thing was to get them to do research, to say to them, “You guys need to do your own research, find out things, speak to people—don’t just believe everything you hear.”

Along the same lines, what do you see as the greatest challenge as a religious education teacher? What is a very difficult subject?

A huge challenge comes from the media side, from society, the peer pressure that the kids get. At the moment, our teachers are teaching morality, Christian morality: what is right and what is wrong. Kids are so confused about that nowadays. They don’t see that harming someone is wrong because they always try to justify it by thinking, “Well, it’s okay if this-and-this-and-this, it’s okay if that…” Christian morality is a big challenge.

With this particular topic, what’s the greatest challenge you face as a teacher?

I don’t really teach that much at all because I teach grade 10 level, so my stuff is very much like the morality, the Ten Commandments, reconciliation, and I do the whole sex education.

Is creation taught at all? Probably to younger children now?

Probably more to the young children. Actually, it comes in—because I run a sex education program called Theology of the Body that is based on John Paul II’s speeches and on creation and Genesis (chapters one and two). So creation definitely comes in there. I don’t really have many challenges with kids from the point that God created them. The main challenge I do have with that is a lot of them will say that a little zygote is not alive, so abortion is fine because it doesn’t have a heartbeat, it doesn’t have a brain. That, for me, is on the creation side. It’s a big thing where kids see whether it’s a human life.

But not necessarily evolution.

Not necessarily evolution. You might get one kid who will say, “What about the big bang theory?” But it doesn’t really come up much.

Another question I have is about Jesuit identity. How did the fact that it was a Jesuit priest coming in affect the talk? Did that affect anything at all?

For me? I’ve heard a lot of things that have happened, or people who have been lectured by Jesuit priests. A lot of things happening at our university here next door, our Catholic university. So for me personally, I’ve heard a lot, and I know quite a bit about the Jesuit Institute. A lot of people are quite against their teachings, especially the New Age thinking of the priests, so I was quite concerned about that. But I thought, “Simon’s a priest. He’ll definitely be on the religious side, definitely be saying that God did create us.” I’ve had so much negative input about the Jesuit Institute as a whole. You just even mention the word and people all laugh. “They’re a bunch of this, or a bunch of that. They’re too New Age.” And a lot of them are very intellectual; they should be teaching at post-graduate level. To be coming to a high school is very different, and I’m not sure they know how to teach teenagers.

So they have a reputation. My university is a Jesuit university, and they really play up the Jesuit end and their Jesuit ideals, like caring for the whole person and being men and women for others. Do you think any of that came across in the talk? Have you heard of any of those ideas?

Mention them again?

One is called cura personalis, which is Latin for care for the whole person, care for the soul. The other is men and women for others.

What does that deal with?

Your education is supposed to make you a man or a woman for other people.

I’ve never come across that personally, but this whole creation-evolution is some exposed talk that I’ve been to at the Jesuit Institute. Our Catholic school office—the office that runs all our Catholic schools—they’re very involved with the Jesuits, so at our conference, a lot of the speakers now are from the Jesuit Institute. I can see that they’re trying to push that a lot more, and also, they’re very aware about not offending anyone. But in terms of that, they weren’t teaching the truth as much because they’re worried about who’s going to be offended. Does that make sense? Especially from sexuality—men being equal to women. So they’re very cautious when they talk about that. They don’t teach the truth so much.

So you mean they’re afraid to offend people outside of the church?

Yes. Because I think that a lot of RE teachers—in all our Catholic schools—some of them aren’t really Catholic or they’re not Catholic, but they’re still teaching religion because the primary schools, the younger grades, need to be taught all the different subjects. So they come to all these meetings, but a lot of them aren’t Catholic, so they’re trying not to offend anyone—non-Catholic [or] Catholic—it doesn’t matter. “Let’s not offend anyone. Let’s beat around the bush,” not really giving the truth. And I think that’s the problem.

Part of this assignment is discussing social justice issues. Do you see this as a social justice issue at all? Are there structural inequalities, like poverty, or specifically in this country, race, that would hold the student back in terms of their education?

I’d say race and poverty are still quite linked and with us now in this country. Young children aren’t educated correctly, or don’t have the money, or don’t have the capability, or teachers aren’t being educated properly to be able to teach. I think from that perspective, the students definitely are still disadvantaged.

What do you think education around the world could learn from the program? Can they learn anything from this program?

If it’s presented in a different way. I feel coming into a school like this [for just] two hours—I think that’s a huge disadvantage. I don’t think it has done anything for, never mind the Jesuit Institute, it hasn’t really done much justice to the subject as a whole. Because I think now, when students hear about it or something comes up, they’re either going to negative sources or [are] more interested because it has opened questions. I feel that something like this is quite big. It is a big topic, and it needs to be presented, either in classes over a couple of weeks, as a full course. Maybe there needs to be a manual that comes with it, maybe a copy of slides. The kids walked away with no hard copy, so if there were any misunderstandings, they can’t go back and read up about what was [presented]. So I really feel that some sort of material would really be better. And then yes, I think it can have a lot of value if done properly.

Are there any final comments or stories that you would like to share?

I don’t know if this has anything to do with your interview, but due to some of things being said in the talk, kids come up with a lot of questions. There’s one question, and then there’s another question, and then he answers something that led to somebody else asking a question. The kids were asking questions that had nothing to do with the evolution-religion topic.

Yes, they mentioned prayer at one point.

Which is good, because they’re asking questions, but it wasn’t done in the right forum. There were 15 minutes for questions, and there were loads of questions. And I know that you can’t give but one line on something like that, so I can see that there’s a huge need for our kids because they asked so many questions. And it’s good that it came from a priest because sometimes they want that, not the RE teacher’s answer. By the way, I feel that the priests are performing a good service to our school. So I think, my suggestion would be that if someone is coming to present to students, that they really get down at their level, that they know how to answer questions, and that they keep the focus of the talk on track. Those questions could have been avoided [by saying], “We have not yet discussed that now,” or, “I’m available; I’ll be back tomorrow.” That’s kind of thrown at them. They’re left now, nobody talks about it again, and [then] it comes up the next time. I feel that more continuity is needed, more time is needed for something like that, and more control of the speaker. I think as well [that] in a way, what school you are coming into, where are these kids at, and whether they’re mature enough to handle the spiritual and the emotional makes a big difference to the outcome. As I said: this is what we have to achieve, this is the outcome, here’s the solution. I definitely think some of that is needed.

You’re left with the bomb, and what did they just drop? How are you dealing with that?

For me personally, it’s difficult because I don’t teach grade 11 or 12. I teach grade 10.

Do grade 10s have the presentation?

No. They came in for all the students because it’s such a hot topic, which I agree with. I would never have allowed them to speak with the younger kids. Unfortunately, the matric teacher never actually heard the talk here. She heard it with me at the RE conference, and she was fine with that, but what we heard wasn’t presented here. So I kind of tried to clear things up. The grade 11 teacher did hear it, but she also is at a high intellectual and spiritual level. She was fine with it herself, but she also realized how disgruntled the kids were. I talked to two priests about it, and both said that more damage control was needed because we could have lost a couple of kids to the faith, which is very dangerous. A lot of questions need to be answered, so we do need to do follow-up with this and do more damage control.

Are those two teachers following up?

They did speak to their kids last week. We had a matric dance last Friday, and the matric students definitely didn’t want to know about anything else. So she said she spoke to all three classes and did clarify what [she thought] they misunderstood and she brought it back. But I think it’s quite unfair that the RE teachers were left to deal with the damage in this case. A lot of that for the matric was caused. I personally think we need to get a priest in to clarify things—probably our parish priest, just because the kids know him—but they heard from another priest.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Not really, just that I think I’m probably going to do a feedback to the Jesuit Institute. I don’t know if you’ve interviewed other schools?

Not yet. You are the first school so far.

And I hope you can get some sort of varied opinion, but I think it’s important for the institute to know a couple of the issues that came up.

It’s interesting. I actually sat is on Peter Knox’s talk. He spoke at the school I’m going to, so I think they might have a different opinion.

Definitely. He had a very different approach than Father Anthony. It would be interesting to hear how Father Anthony approached it and how the school did as well.

Great. Thank you.