1) Description/Retrieval: Recall your educational experiences in secondary school, junior college, and/or the university. How would you describe the peer culture(s) that you felt most at home with outside the formal classroom? (I, for one, was happily trapped in my nerdy culture of pseudo-intellectual chess players obsessed with playing chess as part of our CCA. Ugh!!)
2) Analysis: To what extent did the culture(s) of learning in your Literature classroom in those days resonate with the peer and home cultures that you were most comfortable with? (Think, for example, about the cultural ways of speaking, interacting, writing, thinking, and feeling that were encouraged at home, among your peers, and in the formal classroom.)
3) Evaluation: How well did your Literature teacher relate the subject to your own and your classmates' socio-cultural worlds?
Readings
Heath, S. (2005) What no bedtime story means. In A. Duranti (ed.), Linguistic anthropology: A reader (pp. 318-342). Oxford: Blackwell.
Gutierrez, K., & Rogoff, B. (2003). Cultural ways of learning: Individual traits or repertoires of practice. Educational Researcher, 32(5), 19-25.
1) I enjoyed my time at secondary school most. I still stay in touch with a number of the friends I had made and we continue to stay in touch through our kids’ birthday parties, Hari Raya and other significant events (like second weddings and such).
ReplyDeleteI felt a keen sense of belonging with this group of friends at a time when every teenager was battling with identity vs. role confusion (Erikson). The fact that we were in an all-girls school also helped with the bonding. It was not so much that the formal classroom activities helped with the fostering of friendships. Instead, the many non-curriculum activities such as putting together class concerts, planning class outings and even decorating the noticeboards (I know it sounds lame now!) offered us outlets for self-expression and opportunities to work (and play) together. These out-of-the-classroom activities were the exact opposite of our home-environment where self-expression was not encouraged and “bedtime stories” (Heath, 2005) were never told.
2) Our English Literature teacher wore the same pair of pants for 4-6 days (or until the areas near the pockets of his pants became too dirty, whichever is the latter) and read Shakespeare to himself. Getting through As You Like It was a painful process. He might have explored various areas of study like characterisation, setting, plot and style but I could not remember. We should be lucky, I guess. In those times, it was rare to have a native speaker teaching Shakespeare in a government school. I suspect this was the very reason my mother chose this school for me. My grandmother grew up in colonial Singapore. My mother, on the other hand, grew up mentally-colonised.
My childhood home was “culturally incongruent” (Ladsen-Billings, 1995) to my Literature classroom. Mother’s parenting practices were not at all “culturally compatible” (Ladsen-Billings, 1995) with the habits and values of ‘mainstream communities’ (Heath, 1996). Like I mentioned earlier, bedtime stories were not read. I am not exactly sure what type of social interactions took place that helped support my communicative competency (perhaps it was my mother’s influence on my peer interaction and my school choice?) Whatever it is, it was definitely NOT my Anglo-Saxon teacher’s didactic teaching style.
3) Very poorly! To be fair, he did the close reading bit and all and for some reason most of us fared not too badly. On hindsight (now that I have some intel on teaching pedagogies), his focus was on mind training so that his students could deal with the intellectual concepts of life? Concept acquisition, logic and precision ranked on his list (Tan et. al, 2009). So, he used mostly direct instructional methods like guided reading and focussed tutoring (the ‘weaker’ students would have a one-to-one close reading session with him). We did not engage in open-ended projects, personal investigations or “conversations about self and self in relation to the world” (Loh, 2009). That said, he help his “literate society” members (Heath, 2005) produce good exam results. Would this constitute what Gutierrez, K., & Rogoff, B. (2003) calls “minority” student failure? But even his non-“mainstream community” students fared fairly well in exams in the absence of “discursive spaces for conversations” (Loh, 2009).
Firhana
1) My time spent in my junior college was the most memorable and I still reminisce those days when we mug for our exams, organise events, spent all our time on cca/studies, training for sports days and cross country run.
ReplyDelete2) When I was a child, my mum will read bedtime stories to me and as I grew older, she will use articles she has read from the magazines/newspapers in our conversations to convey certain points or to discuss about certain issues. My JC Literature teacher’s teaching style resonates with the home culture that I am comfortable with, we will be listening to his lectures as though we are listening to a story. He didn’t use fancy ICT tools in his lesson and still managed to make learning meaningful with just paper and pen.
Heath (1996,p.13) states that the bedtime story “ is a major literacy event which helps set patterns of behaviour that recur repeatedly through the life of mainstream children and adults.” I resonate with this hypothesis, as I still prefer to listen to lecturers who adopt a “story-telling” teaching style and scaffold learning through anecdotes.
3) My teacher taught us Gothic Literature and I suppose it’s quite a challenging task to teach that to 16 years old students since it is heavily laden with all the theories of psychoanalysis and Mise en scène. Even though these theories seem so abstract to us initially, he managed to bring us into his Gothic world by pointing out the various phallic symbols in our daily lives, in the novels and that got us intrigued , and we were fascinated with how much one can explore through close reading. He also helped us to see how our favourite bedtime stories, which we are so familiar with such as The Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White, are actually Gothic at heart. We also did King Lear for our A levels, and we watched the Japanese adaptation of King Lear: Ran, and that really helped us to relate to the characters in Shakespeare’s King Lear through the “ Asian characters” in Ran. It was that lesson that taught me that using the same play, characterisation can differ so drastically in a different cultural context.
I totally agree with you Penny that Heath's hypothesis helps set in learning Literature. It was something that my university lecturer did most of the time and Lit didn't seem intimidating anymore. It was soothing and I began craving for more. That was when my interest in Lit grew like never before.
Delete1)My secondary school and jc days were wonderful. I didn't care about my studies and pretty much did whatever I want. I was in a convent secondary school with a lot of focus on character building. The same sex environment allowed for very "open" talks about relationships, our body, sex, life etc and practically nothing was considered a taboo topic. During those days, I felt that I could speak my mind without fear of being judged. JC was also really fun. I was a part of a tight knit group of girls, all from my secondary school, and it was then I learnt what it meant to be a part of a clique. We dressed alike (everyone wears the red house t-shirt on tuesdays), had recess together and went home together. There was a fierce sense of belonging. (Seriously. I wasn't even allowed to eat with other people besides them.)
ReplyDelete2)My love for reading has a lot to do with my mother. She used to bring me to the library every Saturday and read to me every night. I also vaguely remember a time when I watched plays with my parents so I suppose that was my early exposure to literature. It was only during lit lessons in secondary school that I took reading one step further and began looking at the different facets of a character, their motivation for doing certain things and literary techniques. I suppose the "open" culture we had in school helped us in talking about many topics. My secondary school teacher taught lit with a passion that was infectious. Lit in jc wasn't so fun though. Besides the unseen aspect and utopian literature, I found lit less interesting as we had so many books to cover for the A levels that the lessons didn't allow for in-depth analysis. My utopian lit teacher brought it songs like Go West and movies like The Matrix which I really enjoyed.
3) My lit teacher didn't really relate the texts we were learning to our socio-cultural realms. Instead, she brought us into the realm of the characters in the text. Perhaps she was a great story teller or maybe I have a vivid imagination but I could really feel for the characters in R&J and King of the Castle (texts I did in secondary school). I don't remember role-playing as Shakespearean characters or anything of the sort but I think it was the way my teacher read out the lines with such emotion and charisma that I couldn't help but feel for the characters.
I realize now that my utopian lit teacher in jc did not link the texts we were reading such as The Handmaid's Tale and 1984 to our real-world context which he could and should have. Perhaps he didn't because he didn't want to get into trouble but I feel that he could have drawn links between the Big Brother in 1984 to PAP so that we could better relate to Winston, the main character.
Being in school where boys so called grew up to be “men of grace and polish”, the only ever dominant culture that existed was that of a gladiator-like spectacle that took the form of rugby and football. I vividly recall the school Principal at that time screening the replay of the World Cup Final between Italy and Brazil (Brazil won by penalties by the way) the morning it had been played just to get students not to skip school and watch the eagerly anticipated final clash. Aside emphasis on our academic results, nothing really else mattered as Rugby took centre stage. It was all about competition and rivalry among Singapore’s rugby elite schools. Yes, we were taught to behave like gentlemen but all hell broke loose when we set foot on the rugby pitch. It was all about that prize. Ah, those were the days. It was also a time when Football in Singapore was at its pinnacle, The Lions clinching the Malaysian Cup and paying the ultimate price for its part in a match-fixing scandal which condemned Singapore Football to the pits (yes, I’m referring to the S League). With all that hype in the sporting arena especially in a school that was all about Rugby, there was little to care about Literature.
ReplyDeleteThere was nothing to relate at all. Learning Literature in those days had a distancing effect as teachers came in and rambled about the set texts. Students had little interest in them (the texts and the teachers) and this could have therefore been the cause for many to struggle with Lit. We just wanted to be done with the lesson/period. It was not until I met my university lecturer that my interest in the subject was somewhat rekindled. He fed us with a lot of background information and got us thinking about how the text could be explored through the various themes and apply/relate them to our lives today. Lit had more meaning for me thereafter. Also, it was the manner he conducted his classes, using an array or audio and visual resources and not sticking strictly to the book. When it came to discussions, there wasn’t a wrong answer so long as you justify your point of view. There was a greater appreciation for the text. But then, it does raise the question that perhaps we were more matured to appreciate such works and see how they could resonate in our lives/cultural behaviour.
1. In my secondary school days, I was very much still the same person that I am today (i.e. someone who thrives in Language Arts related subjects and is eagerly looking out for the next big musical number that hits our local shores). Back then, I would often be seen hanging out with my mates from choir, and we would do all sorts of crazy things like (ahem...) lying to our music director and claiming that we require the music room for sectionals (when in reality, we’re just lazing around, telling ghost stories, snacking or staging our own versions of Cats, Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables within the confines of ‘our second home’.) Now, this may seem like a brazen thing to do, but in those days, anything beats having to endure the boring post-exam activities that our school has "religiously" planned for us.
ReplyDelete2. Like Penny, my mum would often spend time reading bedtime stories to me and my brother, as she strongly believes that it is important for children to develop a passion towards books at a tender age. Thus, she would endeavour to read a storybook of our choice no matter how tired she might be. I suppose, this is the main reason why I’m still an advocate of the fact that books are meant to be orated by the teacher to his students. Since, it would not only captivate the vivid imaginations of one's students and attribute a sense of realism for them; I believe that the art of reciting stories actually fosters a tighter bond between students and educators too. Another point that is worth mentioning, relates to the affective teaching style that my literature teacher (Mr Hunt) employed to elicit the desired response from us whenever he does any dramatic reading of literary texts. I’m not trying to sound contrived or morbid with the following statement, but Mr Hunt’s natural charisma and flair for literature is so apparent that he could even make sombre eulogies sound like delightful nursery rhymes.
3. Furthermore, Mr Hunt was also able to help us better relate to unfamiliar or potentially abstract themes by engaging our schemas to real-world examples that were prevalent at that time. For instance, when we were expected to dissect Harper Lee’s, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ according to its critical and thematic concepts, Mr Hunt staged an imaginary court scene and selected a boy (who was notorious as the class bully) to play the role of Tom Robinson, while he assumed the persona of Atticus. Before the start of the ‘trial’, Mr Hunt would explicitly inform us that this activity is called ‘hot sitting’ and Ricky (not his real name) would answer a series of questions from his own personal experiences, but he was required to stay in character throughout the duration of the said activity. Towards the end of the period, most of us felt sympathetic towards Ricky, as we soon realised the core reason why he was prone to acting up in class. Through Ricky’s testimonies, Mr Hunt was able to introduce the genre of Bildungsroman and emphasised that we (as literature students) ought to view any context/situation from a broader perspective instead of jumping into false conclusions that revolve around our personal prejudices. The manner in which Mr Hunt structured this trigger activity, quickly paved the way for our comprehension of other key themes such as gender roles, social stratifications and racial discrimination.
des, i can so imagine you telling ghost stories. share some leh.
Deleteand yes, a good literature teacher makes a difference, no? :)
Peer culture- My upper secondary literature lessons in Secondary school were really awesome. My peer culture... well we were too independent and too cocky for ourselves (ie: Too cool for school). We played truancy, got into a whole lot of trouble, spent all our money on neoprints and hung out at orchard... I think we were trying to behave beyond our years, but at the same time reaching back into our childhood and being carefree even when the O's were staring at us. I was not from the usual triple science class but we did art and whatnot. Still, we would turn up for our literature classes because she was really an awesome teacher.
ReplyDeleteAnyway. My literature teacher was extremely temperamental. Somedays she'd be comedic and crack all of us up, somedays she'd storm into class frowning at everyone. I still remember her breaking down in the classroom -- it was nothing we did or said, it was a personal issue. We loved her for it - she did not come into class trying to impress, but she was honest and real. My friends and I could tell she was passionate about Literature, but more so, into teaching us morals and life lessons.
I still remember our lit text. We did "Twentieth Century Short Stories", a selection of short stories... And I fondly recall Graham Greene's "The Destructors". I guess it was because me and my peers could identify very well with the main character and his gang of rascals. More importantly, I remember what my lit teacher told us. She told us to read our lit text when we grew up, and to not lose the wonder of a child... The book would help us to remember our childhood and innocence! Till this day I still read the book with fond memories, and to remind myself to be less jaded of what we call adulthood. There was no explicit linkage but the stories spoke to me la. And I think that's what's most important/ meaningful.
1) I recall my experiences in JC and University. These experiences are very different. In my JC days, i hung out with a bunch of guys. The guys ate a lot, worked hard but played really hard too. We were often tired and ended up sleeping in class and not doing quite alot of tutorials. We will often sit around the library or benches and talk about life, talk about how Singapore was a wolf in sheepskin (a dystopia appearing as a utopia) because we were studying that for A levels. This went on to the University and the JC bunch and i still kept in touch, we will read each other's essays and go through ideas together. We had countless hours talking over supper after a run around the campus. Having interacted with many British people (most of the time in the pubs over a beer) while being away, i enjoyed how what i study isn't divorced from what i was going through in life.
ReplyDelete2) I had very very good Literature teachers in schools but as i grew to be more competent with forming opinions, i met with for the first time intellectual tyrants. These tyrants seem to be quite similar to my parents. It was hard on me because at JC level, we decided our ideas were good and we argued with our teachers but we were so young then, we were easily defeated and eventually took on our teacher's interpretations. At University, it was different. We knew there were many points of views but we couldn't write point Y because the professor was pro-point X. Why i said this was quite similar to my parents is because, till this very day, daddy and mommy are the most experienced and seen it all in life. Their youngest son (though already 25 years old) is still a little boy to them. It is difficult when among your peers, there is a robust discussion most of the time but as u head to school and home, there is a dominant discourse that you have to adhere to
3) Some teachers did very well to relate Literature to our own socio cultural worlds, they allowed us to form our own ideas about things and helped us strengthen our positions by providing materials and ideas. I have a professor whom i really respect, someone who come to class and speaks for 2hrs with no script and no powerpoint slides. Everyone is frantically taking down notes and collecting his golden nuggets of ideas and he'll suddenly negate everything he just said. We often leave his class provoked and shocked at how he messes with our minds so well just to make us think for ourselves. His assignments were open ended and allowed us to approach a certain subject in Literature via our own socio cultural experiences. That being said, there were also the intellectual tyrants who resemble most asian parents who made the subject merely taking on what big brother wants us to take. I had a fairly balanced answer that is, very well for some, very bad for others.
1) The peer culture that resonated with me in Secondary School and JC had almost nothing to do with Literature save for the fact that Literature was (and still is) the sole discipline that managed to gardner whatever little interest we possessed in matters pertaining to the academic realm. Life in school revolved predominantly around ECAs (yes, it was still called ECAs), friends, football and the occasional panic-induced mugging for tests and exams.
ReplyDelete2) My parents always encouraged me to read from a young age. I guess that translated to them having a firstborn who always carried a book wherever he went; toilet reading is, indeed, one of the most therapeutic processes. Ever. One of the cultural inclinations which I was taught at home was the importance of respecting people and the folly of making quick and uninformed judgements based on biased/incomplete information; in retrospect, that is perhaps, contrary to certain academics who valorize the stand-your-ground-and-defend-your-worldview-at-any-cost philosophy (don't get me wrong; this constitutes a positive attribute, if harnessed appropriately). But I guess that's not the genre of academic persuasion that I subscribe to. I believe that the socio-cultural influence from home molded me into an individual who has learnt to consider polarized views and attempt to sieve out the positives of the dichotomies while simultaneously constructing a conclusive notion that sit wells with my sentiments.
Or so I would like to believe.
3) They didn't. Well, at least not purposefully.
Then again, is there a need to?
I'm all for linking formal education to informal education but I believe that the question still stands.
Hooray for toilet reading!
DeleteToilets, too, are social places where activities emerge and are negotiated! Hence, explains Deborah Hicks (1996) with reference to social constructivist theories: "Learning occurs as the co-construction (or reconstruction) of social meanings from within the parameters of emergent, socially negotiated, and discursive activity" (p. 136).
DeleteHicks, D. (1996a). Contextual inquiries: A discourse-oriented study of classroom learning. In D. Hicks (Ed.), Discourse, Learning, and Schooling (pp. 104-141). New York: Cambridge University Press.
1. Unfortunately, I wasn't a pseudo-intellectual chess player obsessed with playing chess as part of my CCA. In fact, my CCA in Secondary School was being a sexy St John's member, armed with bandages and in a sexy nurse uniform, ever ready to help anyone clean their wounds with sexy alcohol swabs and a sexy, gentle touch.
ReplyDeleteActually I didn't feel at home there. Didn't really like subjecting myself to heat and marching and people shouting into my ear. I guess I felt most at home when ... I was at home, and not at school.
If I really push it, I guess I can say that I sort of enjoyed sitting around in the classroom after school doing nothing while listening to my classmates discuss the colour of other people's underwear.
2. I had really good and passionate literature teachers in JC, but we never strayed very far from what was safe. We spent hours in the lecture hall copying down notes like possessed demons while eating samosas (the food of life) to stay awake. To be quite honest, I was never really comfortable in those lessons and they didn't resonate with my home culture nor peer culture. There was little interaction between everyone, and we all just copied things from each other. None of my friends from my class took Literature as a major in University after that, even though we all did well in A Levels.
3. Mmmm not very well at all. We just saw Literature as something we absolutely had to do well in, because it was clear that we were all going to do badly for Economics and/or Math. Literature had to be our saving grace. We understood every line of Anthony and Cleopatra but felt nothing for the play itself. We were told every theme and every nuance and every important point. There was no time to do anything else.
Desmond, Marly & Penny,
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to know that your parent read to you and even made trips with you to the library (Marly). I'm doing that with my 2year old now and I hope Hud (my son) grows up loving reading and Literature like all of you. This "bedtime stories" concept Heath writes about seems to have much truth in it, huh?
If all elese fails, I'd have to resort to the tiger-mum method my mother employs..lol..and force him out of his favourite CCA to become a librarian instead! (like how my mother pulled me out of NCC and made me join the Library club).
Pris, yes, a good Literature can make a difference. For students who did not grow up in a home-environment where "bedtime stories" were read, all it takes is for a teacher to reach out and make the subject accessible, at least as an entry-point, after that..the possibilities are endless (the teacher need not always have to offer the same 'watered-down version of Literature'..can use the sprial progression technique recommended by the MOE syllabus). Who knows if some of us had Maths teachers who made the subject more accessible at entry-point, we. too, could have exceled in it. I say, those who can, teach.
Firhana
1) University was the best thing that ever happened to me so far. I grew up a lot, met my best friends, got obsessed with writing as a result of falling in love with professors. We loved walking on the thin line that separates fiction and life. We talked a lot about characters in films and books and got obsessed over our literary crushes. I’d say that uni was the most amazing educational experience I’ve ever had--looking upon a beautiful world, clumsily clutching at freedom, pouring my heart to livejournal on a nightly basis - definitely the most creative phase of my life. Fun times.
ReplyDelete2)I think we grew up in a learning environment with amazing professors and cultivated independence. We had a lot to share, coming from different perspectives and personalities, and our professors were pretty much like our friends. I was cocooned in a learning environment where responses were not judgments, but suggestions and ideas from bigger perspectives. Even at home, my siblings and I were encouraged to voice our opinions and be true to our feelings, as long as it doesn’t throw our family values system out of whack. That’s one thing I truly appreciate—the fact that we were never forced to compromise our personalities.
3) I went through a similar experience as Vincent. I can understand completely how liberating it feels to be in a lecture theatre with an amazing professor who throws all kinds of wonderful and mesmerizing ideas to you. But that’s also partly due to the fact that we were young adults with a heightened sense of curiosity. I don’t quite believe lectures work very well with teenagers, due to factors like short attention span and their egocentric behaviour. Perhaps dramatization/projects are more suitable options for our students- allowing them to interpret the texts from their own (socio cultural) perspective, and to share their works with their fellow classmates.
1. Sorry Shao, in Secondary School (we were in the same), I was the one who was shouting into people's ears because I was (no not SJAB) the drill mistress in Girl Guides. I was as loud as anyone could imagine, cooking chickens outdoor with a stick and some tins, sitting in classrooms trying to earn more badges to fill up my already very heavy sleeves and blowing the whistle every Sat morning shouting "WALK SOMEMORE WALK SOMEMORE!" Very at home during those times I would say. Oh and this - even my Sec Sch teachers didn't know (and yes I just confirmed that they didn't know because I just met up with one to ask)- that I was (maybe still am) extremely vulgar, punctuating my sentences with hokkien vulgarities ... I replaced them with English ones when I went to JC.
ReplyDeleteIn JC, I got bored of shouting into people's ears so I joined the Arts Society's Debate Wing hoping that I could end up debating like one of the pros (which I never did succeed in), didn't feel at home there at all. It was crappy and IMO, a waste of my time. My classmates thought I probably wouldn't succeed in Lit because I came from a neighbourhood (and rather Chinese) school (because we had a Chinese version of our school song), and I was spouting Mandarin like it was my 1st language. They were partially right. As such was my experience outside the classroom.
2. Resonate? Nah. In Secondary School, I had a terrifying experience during Lit lessons because my teacher was rumoured to have choke-slammed someone for talking in his class. So every Lit lesson was pretty much stifled with 101% fear and silence, and just listening to him go on and on and occasionally give some (required) responses in order not to get choke-slammed or screamed at for keeping quiet at the wrong time. Fortunately, I was quite good in Literature during those days, 23/25 wasn't a problem.
Nah again for JC. Being the chinese Ah Lian I was, going into the Literature classroom was ANOTHER nightmare. I had a few Lit teachers, and I actually ranked them. I had one who was utterly useless like the one in Sec School, another one who was less useless but I never really learned much from him either, one who tortured us to near-death for Gothic, another one who brought us out for experiential learning in the most emo manner, and another one who was sometimes joking around, sometimes serious. I was devastated at my first ever JC essay graded 3/25 - a drop from 23/25 - What the hell. And I received comments on my scripts in the form of "This is a waste of my time" / "What are you writing?" / "Is that all you have?" - ultimate crush to the mighty ego I once had. For a moment I thought that's it for my A levels, but miracle happened, I got a B! Must be the bell curve.
But I have to say this - on hindsight, I had really good lit teachers in JC, way better than the one I had in Sec Sch. Brain tickled, forced some Literature-flavoured juice out in my essays and taught me how to write/analyse and even find meaning in movies/films which my non-Lit friends would yawn at.
Absolutely didn't resonate with the peer/home cultures I was comfortable with, but definitely brought me out of my comfort zone to one which I didn't think I could survive in.
3. In Sec Sch, sorry, I have nothing to say.
In point 2, I mentioned a JC teacher who brought us out for experiential learning journeys. That made a lot of impact for many of us - maybe not directly relating the subject to our socio-cultural world but rather exposing us beyond our narrow socio-cultural world. Those learning journeys (actually he used it not just for Lit but also GP) probably made up the best learning experience I had in JC.
It was all about the drama when I was in secondary school - being part of the ELDDS, doing plays and moaning in the toilets when we got a bronze (oh the horror) for SYF. JC was much the same, wearing blacks and staying late in the studios making thee-ay-tuh. So.. um English was cool and therefore so was Eng Lit, while Mandarin was, contrary to the 'huayu cool' movement, absolutely uncool.
ReplyDeleteWhich was kind of reflected at home - we never spoke Mandarin. My dad is an ACS old boy who doesn't know how, and my family is quite Cantonese, boiled soups and all. So English mixed with Canto is our dominant mode of communication. Parents didn't really read to us much, but I think the oral culture probably made up for it? Lots of word games, stories, and things to recite. And my parents generally read a lot (my dad with his crime thrillers, mum with her romance novels. She introduced me to mills & boon ugh) so it kind of caught on.
Lit in secondary school was easy. While the texts weren't books I'd choose for myself, they were easy and enjoyable enough to read. I remember reading the lit textbook (that we hardly ever used) for fun. Memorising themes and characters etc also prepared us extremely well for exams. And it was all in English, which I identified with. Expressing myself in English felt very relevant - the culture in the school was rooted in Chinese values, but I'd say we were a very English school otherwise. It was also a way of asserting our identity. We had groups of scholars from China and it was important to us to establish how we clearly belonged to the school and the country by virtue of our good English :/
Then JC. Lit suddenly became a whole lot harder. Teachers (esp the grouchy Mr H) would write frank comments in the columns of my lit essays like: 'you're being too cowardly - come out and say what you want to say!' or 'zzz'. He'd also ask what we were interested in (eg hobbies) and he scoffed at my kdrama love, saying it was for aunties who have sad lives. So umm.. very challenging JC lit education that expanded my mind and forced me to evaluate my life.
In terms of relating it to our lives.. Measure for Measure certainly wasn't taught that way. I recall only the fans whirring lazily above and the tutor droning on and on. He had a lovely accent though. Actually the best part about doing Lit at JC was going on the 2-week trip to England. It was AMAZING! We got to see the Bodleian Library, poke around Anne Hathaway's cottage, visit the Jane Austen centre and even watch Coriolanus at the Globe. It made Lit seem a whole lot more .. tangible? To have set foot on Shakespeare's land, I think, made it more real.
1
ReplyDeleteSecondary school was awesome for me. There were always people to bounce ideas off, people to enjoy talking to, people to learn with, people to have crushes on, people to be inspired by. There were always people. And I liked being surrounded by all these people who are mostly Chinese and who I'm still very close with even today, speaking in Mandarin, and pretending to like F4 and 5566 even though I really didn't care who they were wahahahah. (It was the time of the Meteor Garden craze.) It was mostly a Mandarin-speaking culture that I was immersed in, even though I went to quite an awesome neighbourhood secondary school. But I also enjoyed time on my own. I'd skip eating and sneak away to the library during recess time and sit in a secluded corner between the bookshelves with my notebook or a book, relishing my time alone before my friends finish their food and look for me and then my secluded corner would convert itself into this buzz of activity and we'd spend the rest of recess time talking, in less-than-standard English, about how difficult that stupid Physics test before recess was, and how come Ms Tan* would like Mr Wee* even though Ms Tan* was such a pretty and caring teacher while Mr Wee* was such a sarcastic moron who gave too much homework hahah. Things like that.
* - Names have been changed to protect the identities of these teachers.
2
I've only had 4 years of formal exposure to Lit. In Sec 1 and 2, and in JC. My Sec 1 teacher made me hate Lit, but in Sec 2 I had an excellent Literature teacher who made Lit fun again. In JC it was all about the exams, but because themes and issues (think of love and jealousy and hubris and lying and sex) were part of the exams, Lit was relatable. Also I had a very cool (there's no better word to aptly describe her) Lit teacher whose own opinions greatly coloured the way I viewed texts and life in general from then on. Outside of school, through the years, as a reprieve from life because life gets tiring. I've always liked notebooks and filling them up with words, and sometimes drawings when I feel like it. I write a lot. I write a lot more than I speak. I prefer writing to talking. Talking doesn't allow for reflection.
3
In secondary school, marginally. Sec 2 was fun, with more songs (we looked at lyrics from The Beatles) and drama (we'd to script and perform our own dialogues and monologues) to keep us engaged, but these activities were quite far removed from our actual socio-cultural worlds. Nothing to do here. Moving on. In JC, because we were more mature and more aware of our selves and we'd had more opportunities to interact with people of different backgrounds and demeanours, the muck Iago was trying to pull between Othello and Desdemona became familiar and understandable. I had 3 Lit teachers in JC, each teaching us different texts. The cool teacher taught Frost, Blake, Huxley (Brave New World) and Webster (The Duchess of Malfi). She didn't expend too much effort to make Lit classes fun; she just talked about the characters like they were real people and made us vocalise what we thought about what these people did, and how we would feel if we were in their shoes. It was more reflective than didactic, and that's how I enjoyed her classes. The other two teachers were more old school, although one was particularly fixated on sex. Everything and anything was sexual in Shakespeare (she taught King Lear and Othello); she would tell us about her own dating exploits and advances that men made toward her; also she had these peculiar mannerisms that kept us amused through most of her lessons. The other teacher preferred a more didactic (boring) way of teaching, and who tended to believe that her own interpretations of the texts were correct, which I didn't really agree with.
Sharifah
1.
ReplyDeleteI was arm-twisted into joining the choir by my mother in Primary One, and so it was natural for me to continue as a chorister till the end of my JC days. Perhaps it was Stockholm Syndrome, but I grew to love music and the camaraderie and solidarity of large-group company. It was especially stark when I entered a predominantly Mandarin-speaking girls’ school, and I was grateful to find English-speaking company in my choirmates. We were into the same pop culture, especially American pop, and we read the same books. In JC, the reverse happened: my core group choirmates spoke Mandarin, and I found solace in the drama club which I was tangentially involved in. It was probably because the people involved in the drama club read Literature, so we had something in common to talk about (be it grouses about our teachers or just books in general).
2 & 3.
My friend sent me this comic last week which I thought aptly summed up my Secondary Literature classes: http://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/zits/s-1116552.
This encapsulates how I once felt reading Literature in Secondary School: a lot of books which we read (Things Fall Apart, To Kill a Mockingbird, Julius Caesar) had limited shelf-lives. In other words, while I appreciated the beauty of these books, I failed to see how they were relevant or even applicable to our lives or my peer and home cultures (e.g Things Fall Apart was set in African continent, and even my then Literature teacher admitted that she couldn’t even properly pronounce the author’s name). So even though I loved Literature classes because I love books and words in general, the books did not resonate with me or my peer cultures. Also, the Literature teachers practically led us by our noses through line-by-line analyses of each literary text. While they encouraged alternative readings, there was little classroom discussion, and the only times when I could express my own views were during the timed assignments and tests (which sometimes was to my own detriment).
The culture of learning in my Literature classrooms in JC resonated far better with my peer and home cultures. The lively discussion and debates we had in class mirrored the discussion I would have with my friends outside of the classroom. Also, I think the texts we used were more diverse and relatable; Sylvia Plath’s poetry fueled the angst in me, Absurdist theatre showed me how crazily amazing yet profound theatre can be (which was a refreshing break from the Shakespearean plays we had to read). The discussion also closely resembled DRTA, which also resonated with my home culture of when my father would read bedtime stories to me when I was still really young and would engage me in a discussion about the characters and plot. (That didn’t last though; I had to read to him when I grew older!) In these discussions, my Literature teachers celebrated the differences and variations in the different texts and cultures (perhaps this is Gutierrez and Rogoff’s cultural-historical approach). In short, my JC literature classroom felt like home to me, literally and figuratively, and the credit goes my Literature teachers who related the subjects to me and my classmates’ socio-cultural worlds.
I grew up in a predominantly English-speaking environment, with snatches of Cantonese and the occasional Malay thrown in. My family and friends spoke fluent English, Malay was only used whenever it was required – and Cantonese was usually reserved for naggings and scoldings (my mother tended to slip into her mother tongue whenever she was angry or stressed). I didn’t hang around Chinese-speaking people; my friends were like me, English-bred (so to speak) and even my extended family spoke flawless English. Because of that, my distinct lack of ability to speak any Chinese dialect whatsoever had the narrow-minded calling me a “banana”: white on the inside, yellow on the outside. A derogative term, for sure – but I’ve since learned to wear it with a kind of pride.
ReplyDeleteIronically, my fluency in English and my intense love for reading worked against me in school. I had an active imagination (still do!); unfortunately, none of my teachers were able to engage it. Lessons were boring; chalk-and-talk was the way to go, along with the constant drilling and spoon-feeding. Language and Literature classes were the worst; we weren’t encouraged to think for ourselves or even offer our ideas or opinions about a particular passage or poem. It was all about memorising the correct answers to the questions; nothing to encourage independent thought or critical analysis.
Were the teachers catering to the socio-cultural environment of me and my peers? Not really, because I knew many of my classmates were just as bored as I was during lessons. Did they do something about it, even once they were made aware of the fact that we needed more active and engaging lessons? Well, let’s just say that I’ve seen teacher apathy at one of its worst.
Plainly put, I didn’t really enjoy anything or fit in anywhere until I reached university – but before the pity party can begin, trust me when I say I really didn’t care. Secondary school seemed to be filled with the beautiful, the bitchy and the frequently brainless; weird, nerdy girl like me with bad hair and thick glasses and her nose stuck in a book just couldn’t cut it. Lessons were boring to everyone, true; but I was never part of the “coolly bored” clique, always the “weird bored” one. I wasn’t in the popular clubs, the ones where all the social butterflies hung out; I didn’t play sports (chess and badminton weren’t exactly considered athletic enough!); and I was a debater and yearbook editor, which pretty much confirmed my residence in Dorkville. To be fair, I did feel somewhat at home with my fellow debaters and yearbook staff; most of us were outcasts anyway, so we shared camaraderie because of it – kind of a “Nerds against the World” sort of thing.
Honestly speaking, I thought university would be the same: the same kind of people, the same kind of conservative traditionalism, the same kind of boring lecturer. But to my surprise, the university I went to – more specifically, the faculty I studied under – was a place where the strange and unusual could really thrive. My university professors were a group of wildly fascinating, perversely intellectual oddballs; they somehow managed to create a learning environment where it was possible to gain an education AND have fun at the same time. To claim I could have remained blissfully ensconced in this bizarre, twisted Wonderland of knowledge would be an exaggeration; four years of study (and another extra year where I worked as a part-time tutor), and even I started craving some normalcy. But I would still rank it among the best years of my life.
Sanity is underrated. Lunatics unite!
To be very honest, I am sure my teachers were well-meaning in Secondary school and JC but I am not sure if the strategy they employed was helpful. To be sure, they were personally kind to me. Nevertheless, I remembered when I was in Secondary school, my class consisted of those from the “bottom”, i.e those whose results were poor and thus did not get into the science stream and had to do arts and literature!
ReplyDeleteMy teacher was a nice British lady. I think she did not manage to engage the primary discourse very well. Most of the students were from Chinese speaking backgrounds. We did Macbeth and some short stories. My most memorable incident(s) was my poor teacher waving her hands and saying in a loud voice “you should be taking this down!” to students who did not want to take down what she put on the board (which was actually pretty good stuff).
I think there was not enough scaffolding for most of my peers. Lessons were not too systematic and to be honest, so was it in JC. It is only now that I realize how to organize systematically one’s thoughts on approaching an unseen piece of work! (Gasp!)
I remembered one teacher in JC, a younger chap who attempted to “go down” to the level of one of my friends who was clueless about T.S Eliot’s poetry. He used football analogies and events already familiar to a student of that age. He finally “got” Eliot. Much better than another teacher who used lots of “flowery” language.
On hindset, I think there is a great need to connect the text we are teaching to everyday experiences outside the text. I believe literature is for everybody, not only those who are strong in a particular language. Scaffolding Vygotsky style is the key.
1) Recall your educational experiences in secondary school, junior college, and/or the university. How would you describe the peer culture(s) that you felt most at home with outside the formal classroom?
ReplyDeleteSecondary school was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wasn't the sort who was academically inclined, and was your typical sports appeal case. I never really excelled in subjects that required one to study, and therefore found solace in subjects (such as History and Literature) that required more of an argument than regurgitation of facts. As a result, my circle of friends naturally revolved around people from my CCA in my school as well as certain other prominent single sex schools in singapore.
Then came streaming in secondary two. Coming from a family that only spoke in English, it was a no-brainer to pick the only class in the entire school that offered Literature. From that fact, we created an identity that revolved around the 'atasness' of Literature (we would go to plays together, attempt to draw and quote shakespeare on our class t-shirts and banners, and even gave all our teachers names from characters in Twelfth Night - the play we were studying). Of course, that didn't do much to help us in our Mother Tongue - we were so proud of the fact that we were monolingual!
2) To what extent did the culture(s) of learning in your Literature classroom in those days resonate with the peer and home cultures that you were most comfortable with? (Think, for example, about the cultural ways of speaking, interacting, writing, thinking, and feeling that were encouraged at home, among your peers, and in the formal classroom.)
Well, the culture of learning in my Literature classroom totally resonated with peer and home cultures that was most comfortable with. My parents only speak English at home, my grandmother (who brought me up) was english educated, and I was never taught the importance of enjoying a language beyond English.
As a child, I would be forced to read Peter and Jane books and watch Sesame Street every single night before I slept. Reading Peter and Jane books eventually lead me to the world of Enid Blyton (of course, being able to colour in the illustrations proved a draw), and before I knew it, I couldn't stop reading.
Safe to say, my circle of friends (even those from my CCA) mostly enjoyed the same social culture as I did. It was not until entering JC that I realised that I was quite the minority in Singaporean society. This scared me a little, and made me realised the importance of being able to communicate in a second language. Yet, much as I try, I can never fully master such a skill, and still am firmly trapped in the world of reading English Literature and appreciating the beauty of the language.
3) Evaluation: How well did your Literature teacher relate the subject to your own and your classmates' socio-cultural worlds?
I don't recall my secondary school teacher doing much of that. In fact, the only think I can remember of her is the beginning of each lesson where she would ask all those who wanted to sleep in her lesson to sit at the back (it was actually ok to do so!).
Perhaps my JC teacher did a better job. Both my Lit tutors in JC were British, and did a very good job in triggering our senses to explore a world of Literature beyond the local stage. -> Not sure how this really relates to our socio-cultural world. We were introduced to foreign Literature, and were even brought on a trip to Italy to see the link between Literature, History and even Architecture.
I don't think any teacher really made a distinguished effort to relate it to our socio-cultural worlds, but the exposure that Literature gave us was something that perhaps a lot of other subjects cannot.
Argh the previous comment was posted by Rachelle. I have no idea how to make the profile show my name ): Technology and I aren't the best of friends.
ReplyDelete1) "Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching." - Oscar Wilde
ReplyDeleteSecondary school was, without a doubt, the most fun time of my life. I spent four years in a "mission school", a pretty ironic label given that we acted more like neighbourhood school kids, throwing laksa from one end of the canteen to the other, deciding that soccer had more merit than studies, getting our daily fix of "fresh air" behind the D&T block, et cetera. It was a weird time for me, seeing that one minute I'd be mixed up with the pai kias and the next I'd be reading in the library. And on weekends I'd be running around shouting my head off at my juniors in Scouts - we would build 4 storey high towers, and they would mess up the knots somehow and the structure would suddenly start to fall apart. Geniuses.
Then came JC and I brought my Montfort way of life over to CJC. Bro Paul forced me to pack my bags after two years of tolerating my nonsense and off I went to enjoy the sun, sand and sea at Pulau Tekong Beach Resort. Well, this is not Meranti so the rest of the story will have to wait. I still wonder sometimes how I managed to survive those days, haha.
2) This is where it gets interesting. From the backstory above, you can probably conclude that we didn't care much for arty farty subjects such as Literature (or any subject at all, for that matter). Surprise! We did.
My ELit teacher in Sec 1 and 2 took it upon herself to make the lessons come alive for us. We had to do The Good Earth (yuk) and Sing to the Dawn (double yuk) and as we all know, forcing that crap down our throats wasn't easy. Let's just say that she deserved every bit of her Inspiring Teacher of English Award. I still remember how she made us act like Wang Lung (somehow, it was very easy for us to act as uncultured farmers), or how she made half the class act as Dawan and the other half Kwai and how we had to convince our father (her) that we deserved the scholarship to study in the city.
My EL and ELit teacher in Secondary 3 and 4 built on that and we had class debates on whether Romeo should have dumped Rosaline for Juliet or whether he was just a lovestruck fool who destroyed the peace in Verona just so he could get laid. So yes, ELit became one of our favourite subjects. So yes, kudos to my awesome ELit teachers who managed to make a bunch of uncultured kids (myself included) love Literature at the end of our four years in Secondary school.
Boosted by this, I decided to take Lit at JC level - and disillusionment promptly set in. In those days, Lit in CJC involved copying down everything from the lecture slides and repeating them lock, stock, and barrel at our tutorials. We suffered through "Hard Times" and found no difference between being in Christminster, a la "Jude the Obscure", and being in Lit class. Yes, it was that painful.
But one of my JC tutors stood out - the one who taught us Shakespeare. Mr Fahy kept us on our toes. Every lesson was a race to see who could avoid getting on the wrong end of his temper. I lost the race once and my table, chair, and myself ended up being ejected from the classroom - into the corridor, luckily, since I was on the 4th floor. He became Lear, he became Cordelia, he became Iago, he became Desdemona - and in the process, he defined what a Lit teacher should be - a consummate performer and a master of his subject matter.
3) With regards to my ELit teachers in Secondary school - I guess their secret was to recognise very early on that they had to deviate from the "old school" way of teaching Literature, and instead, engage us productively by allowing us to channel our energy into activities that captured our interest, and activities that we could relate to. Instead of fighting and throwing laksa and other assorted objects at each other, we found ourselves voicing out our thoughts and opinions and engaging in verbal, rather than physical battles with each other. Which led to less mess, and we all won at the end of the day - we all did relatively well for Lit in the 'O' Levels.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to my ELit tutors in JC - This was where I really saw the difference between teachers who taught the content because they had to, and teachers who taught the content because they wanted to. No elaboration is needed on which approach we preferred. That said, however, I have spoken to some of my juniors from CJC and the approach to Literature teaching has evolved quite a bit, as compared to that in 2001-2002. There is an effort to tie what is taught in the Literature classroom to the real world context, and this can only be a good thing for the students.
1.I am from that prehistoric time when "Little Women" was what every girl and secondary school curriculum in India sweared by.I was from an all-girls convent school so naturally we would be obsessed with the sisters in the novel and fancy us as one of them.We would even fight and claim our right to be a certain character and of course nothing could prevent us from flying on the wings of imagination when it came to painting our own dream men while searching similar matches for the sisters in the novel as the reading progressed.Such was the limitless boundary of my canvas among my peers which I exploited and enjoyed to my heart's content.To a certain extent,even fictitious secret clubs like Blyton's "Secret Sevens" inspired me(at home)to open my very own password-secured club with my brother and two of my school friends within the safe(sadly) walls of my unadventurous "room" not atop a tree which however partly quenched our thirst for our little own thrills.We'd put our creativity to play and fabricate complex mysteries for ourselves to solve without truly being conscious of the role of author we were donning on.
ReplyDelete2).At home my grandmother gladly played the story-teller with an inexhaustible collection of folklore.I would anxiously wait for the long and not so unusual power-cuts (which, my Singapore friends should know,my city is known for)in the evenings.This was the time me and my brother were given the liberty to take a break from our study-time and circle around her when she would fan us with a cane hand-fan and churn out one tale after another at a pace which complemented the swing of her hand holding the fan from one side to the other.Another home-culture that I grew up to was the unfailing readings I was tricked into when my mother fed me.I had to read aloud a story to her from my favourite collections if I wanted her to feed me (and trust me,if you are laughing at this,it made the food/meals so much more tasty for me when the balls of rice came from her hands).But I did not know back then that it was just a "way of taking" that she subscribed to.
2) and 3)I would say my school's way of teaching Literature was not completely removed from the "natural" way I acquired it outside the formal classroom.Keeping in mind the curriculum,assessments and time-periods that bound my school and teachers,they did a fairly good job in employing our various senses and imagination besides just our "intelligibility" to read well.A certain teacher,one of my favorites too,by the name Mrs.Praveen,would talk about the various movie versions of the books we'd read in class so that we could be exposed to different print/non-print resources and sometimes we were also delegated to perform skits on an excerpt from our texts.
My secondary school was an all-boys school, ACS. In a lot of ways it was very sheltered. I was aware that ACS was full of "rich" kids, and I knew how much my parents were paying in fees every month ($200 back then), but since the uniform precluded outright ostentation (apart from the ubiquitous G-shocks and Baby Gs that I did not have), I actually did not feel that the peer culture there was as ostentatious or flashy as many outsiders seem to perceive ACS to be. Girls were then absent from the school, allowing me to keep within my cocoon, and look upon the activities of some of my more outgoing peers on IRC with a certain cool disdain. That changed in ACJC, where the peer culture definitely felt a lot more socially conscious and self-conscious.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the culture of learning in my Literature classroom had any great resonance with my own peer and home cultures of reading. Then as now, I read mostly books of fantasy and science fiction, longing to slip the tedious and pedestrian nature of the "real world", perchance to flee to distant galaxies and alien worlds on the wings of imagination. I had my own little group of friends with whom I shared this preference and with whom I would swap books. The Literature classroom was the place for me to eat my literary "vegetables", serving up Shakespeare, Steinbeck, and Catherine Lim, all of whom I regarded as tasteless fare compared to the rich palate and bouquet of Middle Earth, Krynn, and so many other worlds.
My Literature teachers, as teachers will, spent little time on finding out our inner literary sub-cultures, focusing on the lesson. And I don't blame them really, looking back. It seems inescapable that the text you have to study or teach at the moment is never the one that you would really like to read. This seems as inevitable as death and taxes.
Call it the Human Literary Condition.
1) Description/Retrieval: I was happy not having to hand in my work on time because no one else did and always having the luxury of going for consultation with my lecturers during my JC days. I guess it was more than peer pressure-- it was a blessing of sorts that my classmates weren't as competitive. But it is no doubt that the teachers were key to my "success" in making it to university.
ReplyDelete2) Analysis: Besides the slack attitude, we didn't have a lot in common since I wasn't a Literature student in secondary school. Everyone seemed "cooler" than I am. But thank God for British Council, it was not too hard to blend in with the rest of them. I remember being labelled as one of the elites because we were in the pure arts class. I didn't complain.
3) Evaluation: I don't think there was a bridging process because there were a lot of I-say-You-learn going on. I don't remember my tutors relating Othello to us, but she explained every single line of the play to us on top of the themes and quotes to memorise. It worked for me, so to be honest, I am very tempted to do the same. As much as I know collaborative/ independent learning is the 'in' thing now, I wonder how much of it I can do in the classroom which demands the ends result of good grades.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1. Secondary school was a fun time for me. I was heavily involved in my ECA, concert band. Being quartermaster and section leader meant I had more responsibilities. My year had like the least number of band members, thus at senior years some of us were pushed into taking more than one position on the committee. On top of that, I was into online gaming and was playing Counterstrike competitively. Where would I find the time to study? My peers were all very supportive and that allowed for many differences to be shown in school or outside of school. I didn’t care much about being in the ‘in’ crowd, I was happy with whichever group of friends I hung out with. In class, I only did Literature at the lower secondary level. All I can remember now is going through Macbeth line by line. I was curious thou, so I read ahead and was able to understand the story as a whole before we got through a quarter of the text. Some of my friends had no clue what was going on till like 3/4 of the way, thus I think a more holistic approach for young readers of Literature would give them better understanding of the classics.
ReplyDeleteIn Junior college, the same could be said for my activities (omg I really have no life.). Band and Counterstrike. On the up-side, I was able to go on a band trip to Switzerland and Italy. It was in JC that I became more socially aware, as well as enlightened and fascinated by the mysterious creatures that we call women.
2. My Literature history is sorta a weird case. Its like the world at large was against me from ever studying it. I scored better for Geography during my Secondary 2 streaming exams, so I was “advised” not to take Literature for ‘O’ Levels. When I got into JC, I was again “advised” not to take Literature as the HoD of Maths was so sure that I would fail both Literature and Maths if I was in the Arts stream. So I became probably the first person ever to be “kicked” from the Arts stream to the Science Stream. ‘A’ level results weren’t fantastic so NUS FASS didn’t want me, and finally, I ended up in Adelaide studying Literature for my major at last (10 years since Secondary 3).
The modules I did were classified by genre or theme and lessons were laid back while at the same time stimulating due to the discussions. We were all expected to read the text for the week, only certain tutors did a weekly check on this. Thus, for every module, I did around 9-11 texts. For some modules, films or music counted as 1 text *wheee*. Generally the style of teaching is that everyone’s opinions matter, however with proper justification from sources or from a close reading of the text itself. We allowed to have mini-debates in class about the text but the tutors managed to skillfully pull us back on track to her lesson proper. I really enjoyed my time participating in the discussions or just voicing out my opinions. At the end of it all, I gained a better appreciation for Literature and was exposed to many many different authors which I would not have read at all.
3. As I was an overseas student, when ever the topic of Asian contexts was brought into play, I would be like the “typical Asian” example guy. It was fun correcting their misconceptions of Asians as well as Singaporeans, although I must say some of them really do need to get out of Australia and see the world. I guess it was harder for my tutors to relate to my socio-cultural world as most of my lecturers were from the UK or America. But I did like their openness during discussions and discourse which I feel is a part of my own socio-cultural world. I tend to be honest, sometimes too honest with people I am close with.
1) Description/Retrieval: Recall your educational experiences in secondary school, junior college, and/or the university. How would you describe the peer culture(s) that you felt most at home with outside the formal classroom? (I, for one, was happily trapped in my nerdy culture of pseudo-intellectual chess players obsessed with playing chess as part of our CCA. Ugh!!)
ReplyDeleteCould never really 'fit in', and most of my friends are pretty solitary. I had the most fun in JC and met the most awesome people on earth. I took lit, history and art. It was full of revelatory experiences and severe disillusionment. There wasn't much time for 'peer culture' outside the classroom- most of the time after school was spent in the art room feeling frustrated and incompetent, if we weren't in the library trying to write essays. Most of us worked in some way, and in our free time we bummed in Borders/ Books Galore at Far East Plaza, drank beer/ smoked cigarettes in playgrounds at night, went to museums/ free movie screenings, crashed parties and wrote the occasional poem. I suppose I appreciate the autonomy that uni provides. May be lonely at times, but it suits me well.
2) Analysis: To what extent did the culture(s) of learning in your Literature classroom in those days resonate with the peer and home cultures that you were most comfortable with? (Think, for example, about the cultural ways of speaking, interacting, writing, thinking, and feeling that were encouraged at home, among your peers, and in the formal classroom.)
I don't exactly get this question, but will attempt to answer it. I grew up speaking, reading and writing English (never had a problem with grammar until NIE). My mom was considered effectively bilingual, and brought us up as such. I was also exposed to dialect and colloquial Indonesian, because I lived with my grandma. We were not very communicative. There was little connection between my family/ cultural upbringing and lit in the classroom. I suppose that is why I found lit enlightening. Suddenly I saw the world in metaphor. If there was any pedagogical effect my family had on my understanding/ appreciation of lit, it was how family dysfunction could be as poetic as it was profane. (We were doing A Long Day's Journey into Night.)
My friends and I were pretty crazy people. We celebrated and appreciated our differences, which we found mutually invigorating in appropriate doses.
3) Evaluation: How well did your Literature teacher relate the subject to your own and your classmates' socio-cultural worlds?
I generally loved my lit profs. They were all amazing people who really inspired me. They 'got life', and intuitively saw things in a multiplicity of angles without having to consciously use any critical theory. Their dialogue was often fast-paced, high-energy, and peppered with sarcasm. Quotes were dispensed aptly and freely. They were the epitome of wit. The ones we identified most closely with were usually the most honest, yet down-to-earth and humble people you could ever meet.
1. Alas I spent most of my schooling years somewhat detached from my peers (although we did get along <3) due to my unhealthy obsession with all things Japanese and a slight sprinkling of Star Wars. Strangely enough, I somehow always got stuck in classes where no one were into these things :( but never found myself in short availability of like-minded people outside class or school. Being in the top class, I was generally surrounded by high-flying intellectual brainiacs, who were always interested in books, CCAs, movies, sports (the normal human things) I could never quite get into, so I was always somehow detached from the on-goings in class.
ReplyDelete2. Secondary school lit, was mostly just multiple exercises in close-reading. I guess in a certain way it was tailored to our abilities, that of a high-end class in a 'good' school. We were diligent little students who never complained about the boring-ness of certain lit teachers (occasionally we got a couple of interesting ones), did our homework and scored well. Simply put, we just kept calm and lit on. I suppose I would have been a much happy camper if even 1/10th of what we do in class we did at a secondary school level, but thankfully, in JC, my teachers decided that discussion was an appropriate means of learning which suddenly made lit a whole lot more fun~
3. At the secondary school level as far a I remember...NEVER. EVER. To us lit was just this high-brow artsy thingy that only a select few in my class were into. We respected their ability, awe-d at their poems and just generally left it at that~