“It is for you we speak, not for ourselves”
– William Shakespeare
Literature speaks to us because the life of the Word is a privileged passport to the higher life of One and the World. In order to promote a wider, deeper, and greater access to the life of the Word, I have oriented my teaching toward the transmission of disciplinary content and skills, the meaningful articulation of human experience, and the inducement of lifelong learning. Since the implied purpose of disciplinary learning (e.g. analysis of language, understanding of genre conventions, and engagement with bodies of knowledge, in the case of literature) is to induct students into a profession, students must attain a threshold level of linguistic competence and cognitive fitness. This is true for literature, and for all disciplinary fields in arts, humanities, and social sciences. However, it is also true that most students who study English language and literature will not become literary scholars. The challenge and the goal, then, is to unite disciplinary learning with the production of meaning to generate relevance and activate inner activity. These reflections, combined with teaching experiences both within and beyond the rigorous Oxford tutorial system, have helped me conceive three converging trajectories for the teaching of English language and literature. And they are: 1) the acquisition of generic skills (comprehension, analysis, rhetoric, etc.) through sustained guidance and feedback; 2) the cultivation of critical and reflexive thinking to propel the consolidation of knowledge to higher orders of learning; and 3) the interrogation of pre-existing values for the fostering of intellectual openness, expanded empathy, and rational agency.
Indeed, literature, like many other disciplines in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, is “heavily value-laden” and is “cored through and through with ethical issues, social concerns, judgment, and the recognition of human agency” (Philip Martin, “Key Aspects of Teaching and Learning” 300). Thus, in addition to the procurement of generic skills and knowledge, the teaching and learning of literature should also be accompanied by a careful and thorough examination of inherited values, ongoing social challenges, identity politics, and rights and freedoms. Recalling my former life as an undergraduate student, the Shakespeare and Renaissance course remains the most provocative learning experience in my entire academic career. The classroom engagements were effective and impactful because the lecturer inspired in us a constant – and contagious – fervour to consider, to scrutinise, to subvert or affirm the store of received wisdoms, conventions, and ethical assumptions expressed in Renaissance plays. As a result of this vigorous interactive process and self-inquiring practice, we aptly and eagerly translated matters of literature into the business of life. Enthused by this experience and the recent “ethical turn” in arts, humanities, and social sciences, I also encourage my pupils to engage in value-based inquiry and reflexive thinking both within and without the classroom.
About four years ago, I created a pilot programme called “Literature and Humanities” to introduce rudimentary concepts of social contract, race relations, and political justice as well as survey their fertile intersections with literature. Admittedly, I was doubtful about the pursuance and outcome of this interdisciplinary curriculum. To my surprise, all the students responded positively to this pilot course, and it became apparent to them that a guided engagement with the works of classical philosophers could afford them critical resources to conceptualise, analyse, communicate, and critique major propositions and pre-existing beliefs in both literary writings and their own minds. The process was doubtless demanding but, even more so, empowering. By synthesising old knowledge and notions with new understanding and theories, the students activated the “Kolb Learning Cycle,” a process which comprises “concrete experience,” “reflective observation,” “abstract conceptualisation,” and “active experimentation” (Heather Fry et al., “Understanding Student Learning” 15). Effectively, the assimilation of abstract concepts in tandem with a correspondent lexicon enabled my students to test, solve or problematise various hypothetical scenarios presented in the course of their reading by means of vicarious experience, role play, personal reflection, internalisation, and self-transformation. More importantly, they acknowledged the need to interrogate their own assumptions and ideological conditioning and extend the range of their emergent agency through discerning, weighing, and co-opting alternative, even competing, ideas about society and themselves. Due to the success of this experimental programme, I have expanded and enhanced the “Literature and Humanities” curriculum over the last four years to address other productive convergences between literature, philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, political economy, gender study, aesthetic theory, and others.
Despite all the positive responses to my teaching philosophy and praxis, I still believe, firmly, that an effective teacher is one who continues to learn with and from the students – a dynamic relationship built upon reciprocal flourishing. To be sure, the most rewarding and humbling part of the whole experience is to know that I am also learning, introspecting, and transforming alongside them. If, as Susan Sontag avers, “Literature was the passport to enter a larger life” (“Literature is Freedom” 209), then teaching literature is to honour my duty as a privileged citizen in the wall-less republic of conscience by making the life of the Word – this larger life of One and the World – accessible to all.