bunpeiris Literature

by bunPeiris

“The human heart is a meaning-making organ. Living meaningfully with intention is a fulcrum that can counter the gravity of any predicament.”
 (Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2017)
Jeffrey K. Zeig, The Milton H. Erickson Foundation, Arizona, USA.

The heart of the matter
At best, I am an accidental teacher. The teaching philosophy of mine too is, indeed, accidental. The basics of it began to shape in my mind more than two decades ago at a time a when I had not even dreamt of teaching. In the beginning, it came by way of an air-mailed letter from my father in his effort to sort out a dispute between my wife and I in the first year of our marriage while we were in Qatar, away from all relations, my wife having no one to pour out her side of the story or her grievances and myself being silly to the boot and being unable to see the matters in her perspective. My Father wrote, “Love conquers all.”(omnia vincit amor) (Virgil: Eclogue X) What does he mean by that?  It took a while for me to arrive at the meaning. But then, the message could not have got any better; could not have been better phrased. It simply meant, that since you love your wife, sort out those matters, no matter those are either minor or major, petty or colossal. At all times, you are expected to get to the meaning of matters, the heart of the matter. And in that instance, that was love between husband and wife. It was a jolt, literally: my brain was thrown back and hit the cranium. Over and above this personal experience, during the two decades plus that was to follow, there were a few more personal experiences that were instrumental in fashioning what was to become, in time, the teaching philosophy of mine.
Nevertheless, therein is the first and prime personal experience of mine outside of teaching that was instrumental in inspiring my philosophy of teaching: get to the heart of the matter, get to the theme, the central idea in a complete argumentative statement.

The goal that I set for my students
The goal that I set for my students is to grasp the meaning of the work of literature. Why did the writer write? What was the purpose of his writing? What did he want to tell the world? How does he make use of the language and structure or in other words, literary devices to develop the text and enhance the central idea. As a teacher of literature, It has been my prime concern to elicit, from my students, varied interpretations well substantiated with supporting evidence from the text in hand. Thus all opinions are considered; all perceptions are treated with due respect wherever same is supported with eividence from the primary source; questions are circulated among the students, even those directed at myself since fostering critical thinking is of prime importance. It is readers’ interpretations of the writer’s purpose that matters. Indeed, not all the students in the class can be expected to arrive at the theme of “Love conquers all”, in their interpretations of Romeo and Juliet. The students would interpret the tragedy of “star-crossed lovers’’ in another way and arrive at a contrasting theme: our lives, our destinies are preordained.

Shakespeare seems to argue that we are already pre-programmed; we are simply insignificant cogs of subatomic dimensions of the eternal and boundless machinery of cosmos. You may call it destiny, fate or god’s will or Karma depending on your religious or spiritual upbringing and faith. Whatever you may call it, we seems to have no say in our destiny, it is all in the grand cosmic design. Nowhere in literature has this been elaborated with such skill as in the tragedy of the death of 16 year old warrior Abhimanyu, the son of mighty Arjuna in the great Hindu epic poem “Mahabharata” composed by Maharishi Vyasa’s epic poem which trumps even the classical Greek tragedies and twin Greek epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey. But then again, others might argue that the existence of free will can be seen throughout the in the tragedy. For an example, Romeo had a choice: defending honor of his slain friend or avoid a misdeed that could mar the marriage with Juliet above all. The goal I set my students is to come up with their own interpretations. No matter how illusive it seems, in spite of our insignificance, we being frail and fickle beings, we are yet on a hunt for the truth, the meaning.

How is my teaching expected to facilitate student learning
Arriving at the truth or the theme or the central idea of a work of literature presented in a statement, a complete sentence, calls for analytical study. But then, again such analysis is facilitated or paved the way strictly by means of class discussion: thrust and parry of arguments. Ideally there ought not be a shred of forced learning at all. Study of setting and conflict, plot and characterization, paradox and irony, dramatic irony and foreshadowing, imagery and motifs together with language, form and style and their effects should necessarily be discussed in such a way as to, in the end, on reflection, learning ought to have been viewed as an enjoyable as well as an enlightening interaction that result in arriving at the theme in the definite form of an arguable statement. I do tell my students that together, we are on a drive to make the meaning.

The goal that I have set for myself
The goal that I have set myself is at the end of every learning and teaching session, I should be able to look back and see with some delight, some differences to some extent, from the same content, that is when the same section of the text was discussed in the former session. When I reflect upon the same, I ought to be satisfied that it was at variance in form or style or, the subject being literature wherein subjective treatment could spread wide, in the content too. This was generally achieved since the sessions are conducted on learner-oriented interactive open sessions of question and answer discussion mode. Questions from the side of the students being invariably different from the last time same lesson was discussed, and myself being obliged to respond accordingly, inevitably, the every session of same text is at variance with others. It could well be on another class-a group of learners of same grade in the same semester or a new batch in the following year. Since the questions as well as answers originate from both sides (resulting in raising the level of peer learning), that is, the students’ and the instructor’s, and the discussion being widely free, provided values of humanity has always been upheld, the goal for myself is generally achieved. On some occasions, discussion becomes exceedingly (still a favorable development) interactive resulting in the border between the two sides, that is, the students and the instructor no longer seen at all.

My conception of how learning occurs
My conception of how learning occurs is brought to limelight when the students begin to challenge the false arguments presented by others on works of literature. For an example, while I was pursuing a study course in literature, to my horror, one of the questions of semester test paper Shakespearean Studies in B.A. English ran as follows:
“Macbeth is a drama about crime and punishment” Discuss. Horror, horror, horror. If such is the matter, what is the crime done by Macduff’s pre-teen son who was slayed in cold blood on the orders of Macbeth? I argued ferociously against the statement and said that the theme of Macbeth is, “once one begins killing, there’s no end.” Subsequently, the argument was highly appreciated by the examiner. The modern history of so called civilized world is a black hole of horrors: Hitler and Stalin; Idi Amin and Pol Pot; Mao Zedong & Kim ll-Sung, colonialists and ne-colonists lead the horrors. To hide the regicide, Macbeth had to go on a killing spree until he become weary of further murders. During class discussions, invariably false arguments are bound to spring up any time. It is my turn to monitor the counter arguments to smoothen the process. Learning occurs when arguments are met with counter arguments and then participants see the merits and demerits or even challenge the validity of an argument. Meaning should arrive.

Therein is the second personal experience of mine outside of teaching that underpinned my philosophy of teaching that would evolve when the time was ripe: I was only studying.

Enacting my beliefs and my goals in my teaching
Once during a course of study in literature, the lecturer blundered into make remark that he too would sometimes wonder whether life is meaningless. This was during his discussion on “The Outsider”, the enigmatic first novel by illustrious Albert Camus who went on to become a Nobel Laureate. Notwithstanding the view of the protagonist, Meursault, who places no value in his life and seems to believe that life has no meaning, the teacher should have no hand in it. Such an interpretation is invalid, runs against the common sense and is detrimental to the humanity. Meaning of life, is as one makes it for himself: shelter, nourish, educate and bring up his children so that they could contribute towards their motherland; make a contribution to his nation; nursing the deceased or wounded in battle; running an orphanage, or any of the zillion tasks that one can immerse himself in. Meaning upholds all.

It has always been my intention to drive a sense of purpose into the minds of the students. Thus whenever I come across ideas that are detrimental to the humanity, I run an extra mile to make certain the students would not be misled. For an example while teaching Romeo & Juliet for Literature in English for Cambridge OL, I get the students to discuss Mercutio’s argument. In his Queen Mab fantasy, the life is nothing but a dream. Nevertheless, in the end, I strive to make them realize on their own that life is not a dream, but the meaning of life is what each person makes out for himself. We are in humanities. The expectations are of the highest caliber. Each one ought to have his own purpose in life since everyone, being benefited by the contributions of those in the past and present, owes to the humanity. Meaning matters.

Therein is the third personal experience of mine outside of teaching that was to develop my philosophy of teaching in time to come in a definitive mode: I was only studying.

A reflection of why do I teach the way I do
A couple of centuries ago (now it looks so far in the past, since I have this feeling that I have come a long way- in fact, it was a couple of decades ago), when I answered negatively to the question of my second niece, whether I could teach literature, she looked taken aback. Only when I wondered why she should have labored under the delusion that I was quite capable in teaching literature, it dawned on me: mine is not a modest library at all, it has cost me an arm and a limb during the decade I was living overseas. It is replete with finest hardback editions of classics, history, literary novels, biographies, reference books and encyclopedias on English language and literature and most of all, acclaimed editions of works of literature that is generally studied in literature and Greek and Roman Civilization on postgraduate as well as undergraduate levels. (With the subsequent passage of time, my library, even then a grand one, in the backdrop of my then academic insignificance, was to be supplemented with volumes of critical books on western literary cannon and truly academic editions of works of literature in English, for example those of Norton critical editions with first printed text and articles of background and contexts and literary criticism written since the first publication.)

Having realized that it could be possible for me to begin teaching literature in English, since I was of the belief that I was naturally enriched with a flair in teaching, I joined a local diploma study course in literature, to find, to my amazement, that the lecturer conducted the class, very much to my liking. He would come in stand tall and begin to discuss on the work of literature in question, or rather in discussion, taking every opportunity to link same to other works of literature, then non-literary comics, now popular songs, then again to real-life situations. Watching at him, I told myself, “I can do that”. I got into the discussion as a duck into the water: I was in my element, my literary bent and sense of language was significant and noticeable. And the lecturer remarked that although I had not studied literature in OL or AL, I was doing well in this diploma level. I took the cue: discussion oriented Q and A open sessions laced with the acts of linking the subject material in hand to other works of literature; real-life personal experiences of struggles and suffering; real-life situations of dilemmas and predicaments; the national as well as world events and encounters unfolding all round in the world without a pause. After all, in humanities, we are in a human quest of meaning. We are in search of heart of the matter.

Therein is the fourth personal experience of mine outside of teaching that upheld my philosophy of teaching: I was only studying. 

I have already read, learned and experienced the fundamental truth of life: suffering. Furthermore, I have been convinced, once, one takes the life of a human, he is at the point of no return.  And my schema, the cognitive framework or concept that helps organize and interpret information  had already begun to run far and wide. Since then I have been doing precisely same as my mentor: link, connect, compare and contrast the work of literature with everything that moves and then again everything that does not move. Well that is an extreme exaggeration, a hyperbole. But then, in essence that is what I do, that is the way I teach. After all, we are in pursuit of explanation of human condition. We are in search of heart of the matter.

What for myself, constitutes evidence of students learning?
In my eyes, the evidence of students’ learning is basically constituted in the argumentative power, the competence in reasoning in their essay types answers to questions to which assistance on the part of teacher is in gradual minimization.
In the beginning, the students would be provided with assistance in the form of some of the points, some pieces of evidence in the form of quotations. Students are instructed to present their arguments in the format of point, explanation, evidence and link [PEEL] format for the purposes of accuracy [validity of the argument] brevity and clarity [ABC].

For example in the following set of 5 questions set against Act 1 Scene 4 of Romeo and Juliet, once question 1 is completed in written form and followed up with discussion, assistance for questions 2 and 3 assistance on the part of teacher is reduced in stages while question 4 and 5 is left completely to the students. Together, we are in search of heart of the matter.
[Question1] With his famous “Queen Mab” speech, Mercutio takes the audience across the various levels of mankind deceived by dreams and fantasy. Comment.
[Question 2] Mercuio’s “Queen Mab” speech brings about that dark flipside which offers an alternative view of reality in contrast to the ideal love between Romeo and Juliet, hopes and expectations of Friar Lawrence of a peaceful Verona. Discuss
[Question 3] What do you think is the purpose of Mercutio’s “Queen Mab” speech? Discuss
[Question 4] “We are such stuff as dreams are made on…” (Mid-Summer Night dream: Shakespeare) Comment on above quotation in the light of Mercutio’s “Queen Mab” Speech

In my eyes, it is the well reasoned out argumentative answers well supported with evidence on the part of students ending by linking the explanation to the point or the thesis statement that constitute evidence of students learning.

Herein is not merely the teaching philosophy of mine. Herein is also the story of once a non-academic historian now in his search for his place in the humanity and humanities, in search of making the students think critically and arrive at the heart of the matter at all times.

Works Cited

Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. (2017, May 22). The Human Quest for Meaning. Retrieved March 19, 2021, from Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group: https://www.routledge.com/The-Human-Quest-for-Meaning-Theories-Research-and-Applications/Wong/p/book/9781138110823