The Straits
Times
2 November 2015
While the English language retains its paramount importance as a
compulsory first-language subject in all national schools, English
literature education occupies a more marginalised position.
As the nation celebrates its 50th birthday, one key question to ask
is: Will literature education have a significant public role in
Singapore society in future?
Looking ahead, such a question calls for a renewed vision of
literature education, one centred on the ideals of a cosmopolitan
approach that can equip students with the sensitivities and
dispositions for a globalised age. Cosmopolitanism stems from the
Greek term denoting citizen of the world.
Therefore, a cosmopolitan literature education attunes students to
what it means to live, in relation to others in the world.
Its main aim is for students to be exposed to, as well as to
empathise and engage with, multiple and marginalised others in the
world.
This does not mean that literature education should be utilised for
didactic moral training. Instead, literature education provides a
platform for critical discussions about what it means to live the
good life, which is the just life, the meaningful life, and the
ethical life.
Ethics was a significant aspect of education during the time of
ancient Greece and China, with philosophers such as Aristotle,
Plato, Socrates and Confucius calling us to contemplate such
essential questions about human existence and purpose.
The interest in virtue ethics contributed by key philosophers of
the late 20th century has led to a shift away from the self's
preoccupation with living a moral life to the question of how the
self can be attentive to and responsible for others in the world,
particularly those who are victimised, marginalised and
oppressed.
In practice, a cosmopolitan literature education continues to
emphasise equipping students with skills that enable them to
critically appreciate and interrogate language.
However, it perceives language not merely as a means for effective
communication of meaning, but as a means to understand others.
In this sense, it is committed to developing a critical and
hospitable imagination.
One of the most common questions asked in the literature classroom
is "What are your feelings towards xyz character in the story?"
Such questions tap into the affect, the sense of connectedness to
another by sensitising students to other realities and by
encouraging empathy towards others who are different.
Similarly, a question like "Whose point of view are we getting
here?" primes students to consider voices that have been
silenced.
There must be a more concerted effort to invest in literature
education's capacity to interrogate and expand the imagination.
As Columbia University's Professor Gayatri Spivak has argued, one
fundamental role of aesthetic education is to test the limits of
the imagination's capacity to perceive otherness.
This can be encouraged in three ways. The first is by developing
the classroom as an inclusive space that encourages students to
read literary texts (including translated texts) from diverse
cultures, so that they can compare issues from different cultural
perspectives.
The second is by deliberately introducing contemporary literary
texts (even if alongside canonical ones) that allow students to
engage with global issues, such as terrorism, modern-day slavery
and environmental degradation. The third is by providing
opportunities for democratic participation in the classroom.
The open-ended nature of aesthetic language facilitates engagement
with literary texts through inquiry, debate and dialogue.
The push for a cosmopolitan literature education, as well as any
other effort to strengthen arts education in Singapore, should be
considered alongside the goal of the nation's wider culture
policies to be a global city for the arts.
The prevailing view is that cultural development is best thought of
in ecological terms in order for policy to be most effective
operationally. Indeed the discourse of ecology and ecosystem now
pervades much contemporary discussion of arts and culture policy in
many parts of the developed world.
An arts and cultural ecosystem suggests an organic whole of many
interrelated and interdependent parts. In literary terms then, in
order to promote a flourishing and sustainable literary culture, we
would need to do more than just "grow" writers.
Writers cannot be thought of separately from readers, editors,
literary agents, librarians, publishers and literature
teachers.
All these players should be intensively interlinked and codependent
in many ways. Stepping back to take a wider view of a larger whole,
it is clear that literature education in schools has a vital role
to play as the breeding ground for readers and audiences, as well
as other members of the literary and cultural ecosystem.
It is key to the continued development of the cultural and creative
industries to ensure that standards of excellence are continually
pushed by the larger reading public. Indeed, the potential in
Singapore for literature education to enhance students' imagination
and allow them creative expression has not been fully
exploited.
We need to adopt a coherent and integrated approach to encourage
more students to study literature, with school educators working
alongside the arts community, and the Ministry of Education
alongside the National Arts Council.
With literature education policy as well as arts and culture policy
working in tandem and moving in the same direction, we can foster a
conducive environment for a thriving, vibrant arts and literature
ecosystem.
The authors teach and research literature education at the National
Institute of Education.
This paper is a condensed version of a paper presented at the
Institute of Policy Studies round table on literature
education.