The materials presented on the Solarity website are intended to be used by school teachers or youth group leaders wishing to run out-of school-hours religion and philosophy clubs for primary or secondary age students.
They can also serve as supplementary material for parents educating their children at home, though most of the sessions involve group activities, so it will be important for individual children to meet up with at least two or three others to get the most out of the sessions.
The sessions can be used in lunchtimes or after school or in holidays and are designed to be used in a variety of ways. And if they fit your school’s religious education syllabus, many of the sessions can be used in RE lessons too!
Group leaders can follow the programme in the order presented, or select sessions as seem appropriate to them. Alternatively, the topics can be presented to children in the group and they can select the ones they are most interested in.
There are sufficient sessions presented here for one session a week over a whole school year, or the sessions can be mixed in with ideas brought in by children themselves and made to last for a much longer period, perhaps two or three years.
Each session can be viewed on-screen or downloaded as a pdf.
Why ‘Solarity’?
The term ‘solarity’ comes from an idea spelled out in Don Cupitt’s 1995 book, ‘Solar Ethics’, involving a continual outpouring of the self into the world.
‘Solar living’ is the art of living extrovertly, that is, ‘giving it all you’ve got’; living out your life in an ethically defendable and justifiable way, with emphasis on concern for others and for the world rather than self-advantage. This includes support for such humanitarian movements that are opposed to slavery, racism and cruelty to living beings.
In the term ‘solarity’ we represent the struggle to live the best possible life we can in the context of our temporality, finitude and contingency. The sun warms, but can burn. How can we live well, and ‘give all we can’, in this light? How can we say ‘yes’ to life; with joy and without resentment?
The Solarity sessions provided here are in keeping with these ideas of ‘solarity’ and of The Sea of Faith Network, which ‘explores and promotes religious faith as a human creation’. Nevertheless, they are presented in an open and investigative way, making no assumptions about the answers that students might arrive at. There is no intention to persuade students of any particular religious or philosophical point of view; rather, it is hoped that the topics will encourage independent thought and reflection, enabling students to deepen their knowledge and understanding of some of the most interesting issues and dilemmas of the contemporary world.
