DİN, AHLAK VE DEĞERLER ALANI SEÇMELİ DERSLERİNDE KARŞILAŞILAN PROBLEMLER (ÖĞRETMEN GÖRÜŞLERİNE DAYALI NİTEL BİR ARAŞTIRMA)

States are considering different factors arranging the religious education in schools and are working to implement suitable models for them. Social, religious, cultural, historical and political nature of the state and international legal regulations are effective in these regulations. The most fundamental principles of international law on religious education indicate that such a courses mainly aims to providing general knowledge and culture on religion could be taught as a compulsory part of the curriculum but if the courses aims to providing and claiming religious application could only be taught as a selective courses. Article 24 of the Turkish Republic Constitution also configure the religious education on the same way. Religious Culture and Ethical Knowledge courses has been taught in Turkish schools as a part of the compulsory curriculum depending on Article 24 of The Constitution since 1982. Also Qur’an, Life of The Prophet Muhammad and Basic Religious Knowledge courses has been taught according to the desire of students or their parents in Turkey Formal Education System since 2012 in addition to Religious Culture and Ethical Knowledge course. These courses which are defined as religion, morals and values field elective courses are new and unusual for the Turkish educational system and for religious educators. Because these courses are embracing sentimental and behavioral dimensions of the religion as well as the knowledge in contradistinction to Religious Culture and Ethical Knowledge Courses which focus on the knowledge and culture. Our observations and limited research on the courses give us impression that the new elective courses are having some problems and seen as insufficient by the students, teachers and parents. But it is clear that the quality and efficiency of education could be provided by continuous evaluation and improvement. In this assessment as well as the predetermined educational goals can be taken as a reference point you can take the fundamental principles of the education which have been obtained as a result of the long term applications as measure. In this study, elective courses are evaluated based on the fundamental principles of education obtained by filtration of ancient educational practices and educational theory of the human. The aim of this article is to define the problems which encountered in the religion, morals and values field elective courses and to evaluate the violation of educational principles by the problems and to develop proposals for improving the efficiency of the courses. Qualitative research methods were used in this study. Data were collected using a questionnaire consisting of open-ended questions and the professional work reports of the teachers were used as the supporting data sources. The study group consisted of 70 teachers working in the province of Zonguldak. Data were collected before the in-service training seminars for teachers conducted by the researcher in the end of the 2013-2014 academic year in June. Data were analyzed by the content analysis methods. Results of the analysis show that problems identified by the teachers could be collected in five themes and eighteen items. The themes are (i) curriculum-related problems, (ii) material-related problems, (iii) teacher-related problems, (iv) problems arising from the academic weight of the courses (v) problems arising from the facilities of the school and planning. Collecting under these themes some of the most intense identified problems by the teachers are: a) Course contents are not adequately address the daily life of the students. b) Subject and concept should be updated as closer to life of the student. c) Because of generality and abstraction of the aims/objectives makes difficult to gain life-oriented results. d) Some of the topics are not appropriate to the student interests, needs and levels. e) Some topics are often take place again in same courses curriculum or in the Religious Culture and Ethical Knowledge course. f) Textbooks are inadequate in terms of content presentation and organization of material. g) Supporting materials for teaching periods are insufficient. h) Teachers are insufficient in terms of content knowledge. i) Teachers are insufficient in terms of pedagogy content knowledge such as special teaching methods. j) Teachers have not got sufficient motivation to represent the religious educator mission. k) There are not suitable places in schools for ablution/wudu and prayer learned in the courses. l) Students are crowded in some courses m) Students from the different levels have to study in the same class. n) Contributions of the courses to the academic success is not understood adequately. The problems in the curriculum and implementation of the courses indicate the violation of main educational principles such as actuality, appropriateness to child, gradualism and openness. However, this principles should guide the education planner and practitioner to improve the quality of religious education as a service presented to students. The actuality principle in education require the planning and implementing of the educational experiences as a period that provide skills to the students to recognize the life, current events and problems and to have knowledge of implications for the problems. The results of our study show that the elective courses insufficient in fulfilling the actuality principle in education by their content, aims/objectives, materials. Appropriateness to child principle in education refers to the regulation of the educational process in accordance with student’s interests, their opportunities (ability, maturity, readiness) and their needs. Our study shows that religion, ethics and values field elective courses are break to the appropriateness to child principle. Because, according to the teachers subjects and concept in the content of the courses need to be updated as closer to life of the students and some topics are often take place again in same curriculum and some subjects are not fitting with interests, needs and levels of the students. According to the gradualism principle it is require to structure contents of the courses in a gradual manner that begins from child's immediate environment to away, from known to unknown, from concrete to abstract, from simple to complex. Our research shows that the courses violate the gradualism principle via some different ways. For example, students from different ages and classes have to learn same contents in same classes and teachers declare that some subjects are not suitable for the ages of the students. Perhaps the most important results related to the gradualism principle is inadequacy of the subjects in addressing to the child’s immediate environment. The openness principle require the content presentation by the materials and educational experiences in a way that framework of the subjects should be drawn correctly, the subjects are classified rightly so as to prevent the confusion and have appropriate language. According to the declaration of the teachers some textbooks’ language is not appropriate to the levels of the students and they have not got sufficient learning activity. In addition there is not enough supporting materials to use in educational process. As a result it is understood that curriculum of the courses, their learning materials, the educators and school facilities need to be improve to avoid and minimize the violation of the educational principles. It could be possible through assessing the newly emerging literature in a holistic manner and sharing experiences of different stakeholders. Therefore, we believe that it will be useful to organize a symposium to collect and evaluate the results by leadership of the General Directorate of Religious Education. So it will be possible to use of the experiences for improving the quality of the courses.