Code of Conduct – Religious Education Association

What is the REA Code of Conduct?

The Religious Education Association Code of Conduct is a statement representing the association’s standards, it is an agreement towards just and equitable practices. Therefore, it reflects an expectation that REA members, and any guests of members, abide by the Code of Conduct while attending and participating in an REA-sponsored event or gathering. REA events and gatherings include Annual Meetings and Conferences, Regional groups and meetings, Board meetings, Steering Committee meetings, webinars, and online gatherings, and it covers all human interactions at events and conference of the association.

Why does REA have a Code of Conduct?

The Religious Education Association adopted a Code of Conduct to support members in living into its priorities of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI). Therefore, this document is the twin document to the REA Code of Ethics, which expresses the values of the guild. JEDI priorities include constructing interpersonal spaces (both in-person and online) which recognize and maintain the human dignity and differences of every member and participant. REA seeks to promote spaces where every person may enter, engage, and exist, while experiencing their humanity intact. In this spirit, the Religious Education Association invites all members and participants to build a space that is co-created and co-led, and where lasting relationships are nurtured through mutuality and respect in the association’s life.

Who does the REA Code of Conduct serve?

The Religious Education Association’s Code of Conduct is for members and persons who attend REA spaces hosted for participants and guests. The REA adopted its Code of Conduct, acknowledging that the strength of the organization lies in the many ways that members and their lived experiences represent both the power and beauty of human difference.

REA membership is global, multi-lingual, and multi-religious. It includes people who know and claim different gender identities, gender expressions, sexual identities, sexual orientations, racializations, and ethnicities. REA members have experiences which include being neurodivergent, living with a disability or not, and living with neurodivergences and disabilities that are invisibilized by harmful systems and structures. Our membership includes scholars, practitioners, and persons who hold multiple professions, across different disciplines. Members are students and professionals of all ages, including some who are emerging in the field of religious education, and others who are established leaders in local and global communities.

The practice of recognizing that members are more than their professions is a humanizing and compassionate commitment. Our membership includes people who live into various responsibilities and roles in their families and communities; this is seen as part of their commitment to religious education beyond academe and religious institutions. REA desires to recognize and welcome the membership’s participation in our organization in the fullness of who they are.

Code of Conduct: A General Guide

The co-creation of a welcoming space which honors human dignity requires commitments to the practices that are listed as follows:

As you engage in the REA space, be aware of, and work on examining and dismantling negative biases which might be influencing you and your peer community. Negative biases that can harm others include distorted assumptions, perspectives, and judgements around various human identities and embodiments; these include race, religion, gender expression and identity, sexual identity, sexual orientation, disability, religion, language, and socio-economic location.
Ask for people’s names and identifier pronouns, and make an effort to use them. Avoid assumptions about gender expression and gender identity.
Use expansive language, understanding that different cultural and religious expressions are part of how the REA engages diversity. Do not discount the diverse and varied cultural and religious expressions which co-exist.
Utilize explicit consent. That is, use consent when sharing personal information, including names, contact information, images, stories, or experiences that are not personal. Consent is required in all physical conduct. As a multi-cultural and multi-religious organization, the REA recognizes that different cultural, religious, and personal understandings around physical boundaries between people are not to be crossed without explicit consent.
Embody anti-violence in the interactions in which you are involved, including postures that are anti-racist. Understand that violence occurs in many historical, physical, and verbal forms. For example, verbally racialized violence can seem innocuous to the person who perpetrates it, but can feel intensely violent to the one who survives it, due to histories and compounded experiences of racism. What is a “micro” aggression to one person is “macro” to another.
Listen to one another’s experiences and perspectives with respect, but understand that respect does not mean that one’s concepts or ideas will go unchallenged if they harm and deny the human dignity of others.
Remain open to an exchange of dialogue, including opinions and expressions of belief systems that stem from different life experiences, cultures, global locations, and religious traditions.
Operate in collaboration with other REA members whenever possible.
Imagination and creativity are pillars of the REA. They are an active part of the lives of religious educators everywhere. We celebrate how our guild and its members imagine and activate new teaching and learning modalities; they are creating and sustaining communities globally and locally, and courageously moving into spaces of disruption, renewal, and collective futures. We encourage members and participants to engage in meetings in-person and online in ways which harness and emphasize imagination and creativity, in a guild that is multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and inter-religious.
Resist passive by-standing when witnessing harm, both in spaces that are in-person and online. Silence and inaction are choices that people often make in moments of crisis. Understand that silence and inaction may also exacerbate an injury that was initially catalyzed by explicit violence. Mutuality means accountability, so instead of passive by-standing, disrupt violent and harmful discourse individually and collectively when they occur.

Online Conduct: An Additional Guide

Share your name and pronouns on your Zoom (or alternate video conferencing platform) screen.
Remain mindful of non-verbal communication, and what it might convey to others in the shared online space. Facial expressions and visible gestures on a screen may suggest agreement, disagreement, respect, disrespect, interest, or disinterest.
Use emoji’s, reaction buttons, and other interactive modalities to enhance positive engagement with others in shared spaces.
Respect each participant’s choice of turning their screen on or off in order to honor their different realities and needs. Not all participants have access to a private or quiet space, and may find it easier to leave their screen off, and their microphone muted. Also, not every person who participates wishes to share their background or location visibly, and may find it easier to blur their background, or keep their camera turned off. Screens that are left on or off do not necessarily correlate to the level of one’s active engagement.
Unless invited to turn it on, keep your microphone muted when not speaking, so that others can hear those who are speaking.
As in an in-person space, remain mindful of how much speaking space you assume in a meeting.
Determine the length of the online meeting in which you are involved, and stick to it to honor everyone’s time commitments.
Engage the meeting “chat” space with mutual respect. Understand that the “chat” log is also saved automatically when a meeting is recorded.
Only share files or information in the “chat” space with the permission of others. For instance, before sharing a document or image, ask, “May I share this file with you in the chat?” Ensure that you have received consent to share information that originates from another person.
Ask for consent to record, and/or share and store a recording.
Ask for consent to take photos, and to share photos in the online space.
Use headphones whenever possible to ensure the online space is confidential for those who are participating in the online room.
Encourage breaks as needed. Whenever possible, take breaks every 90 minutes.
Attend to personal and relational needs and responsibilities as part of your participation. REA demonstrates its commitment to members who care for infants, children, partners, and/or elders while participating in meetings and gatherings. Members are welcome to meet those needs and responsibilities as part of their participation.
Understand the difference between the intent and the impact of actions, statements, and silence. While the intent and the impact of an action, comment, or silence may feel harmless to one person or group, the impact of that same action, statement,, or silence may be harm to another individual or group. Bear in mind that emphasizing intent more than the impact of a behaviour diminishes the harm that is caused. This is because it requires the impacted person or group to explain and/or prove the harm they incurred; and this further presumes the labor involved in doing so, coupled with an attitude of violence toward them. At the end of the day, it is impact that matters most.

The Circle Process as a Response to Breach of the Code of Conduct

What is the Circle Process?

The Circle Process is a process of engagement that is built on the concept that, as human persons, we need one another in order to build peace and understanding in times of conflict and grief. Indigenous peoples worldwide practice different forms of the Circle to practice and maintain life together (Pranis, 7), hence, Indigenous traditions of the Talking Circle anchor and inform our REA Circle Process. Community members gather to discuss and process essential issues and histories through stories and careful listening. More information on the Circle Process can be found in The Little Book of Circle Process by Kay Pranis, as well as in many free online resources.

In the REA, we enter the Circle, bringing with us mutual values of respect, inclusion, empathy, care, and honesty.

The Circle Process as Pedagogy

The Religious Education Association operates through mutuality and accountability, to co-create spaces of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI). Mutuality and accountability mean that when grief or harm occurs within our membership, we will strive to address this collectively through our commitment to learn, transform, repair, and restore. Therefore, when harm occurs through a violation of the Code of Conduct, we encourage initiating and participating in the Circle Process as pedagogy, to learn from, restore, and repair our relationships with one another through storytelling and close listening.

How REA Initiates the Circle Process

Any member of REA may initiate a Circle Process as part of our shared commitment to co-create JEDI. A Circle Process can be initiated in a gathering of a few, or with all REA members.

The facilitator of the Circle Process is the REA JEDI Officer. Don’t hesitate to contact the JEDI Officer to request their help in initiating a Circle Process on a particular occasion.

How Does the Circle Process Work?

A Circle includes a facilitator and participants. The facilitator is not the leader, but rather, they are the person who ensures that the agreed-upon processes are followed and shared. The facilitator guides the Circle by employing questions, and mirrors back to participants what is being shared. If shared values are disrespected, the facilitator may intervene as part of the Circle Process.
If carried out in person, the participants and facilitator of the Circle Process sit together in a circle with minimal distractions. If occurring in an online space, participants gather in one online room, and commit to connecting through shared leadership, storytelling, and listening by gathering in a Circle.
Before a Circle opens, the group’s shared values are named, and they are agreed upon through consensus.
Circles are opened and closed by using ritual or activity, to gather people together, and to set a shared intention for the time and space. For example, an exercise which allows persons to attend to bodily sensations, for example, breathing, focusing visually on an image, or on a movement such as tapping a finger, can be used as an exercise in mindfulness.
Using a “talking piece” as a symbol of someone who is currently holding the space, ensures that everyone is heard, and can speak if they wish, or that silence is held if a person wishes to maintain silence. Only one person may hold the “talking piece” at a time, and that person may choose to speak or to keep silent as they prefer. Both speaking and silence are ways we engage in Circle together. In an online Circle Process, the “talking piece” might be a raised hand or a mutually agreed upon “emoji” or symbol, accessible to everyone on the screen.
A Circle may or may not result in a decision or action. It does, however, operate by consensus, regarding participants’ desire to move forward with a decision or action.

Concluding Comments

To provide an ending to this conversation, this Code of Conduct is written to potentiate the ongoing fluid expression of the REA’s intentions to embody Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the life of the guild. As with policies, and the procedures which accompany them to potentiate values and their purposes, our guild intends to support members and visitors who partner with it in becoming image bearers of JEDI values in our work. This is the focus of our document, and it is one that continues to develop over time.