Was reading the newspapers ytd,
and found this article of interest to me (:

Today - Monday - June 2o, 2oo5
NEWScomment :

By Constance Singam
(social activist, writer & teacher, former president of Aware and SCWO ; holds a master's degree in literature)

Searching for that truth in fiction
Bring literature back into core curriculum

Let's bring back literature into the curriculum and make it a core subject like it was before the fear of failure in the subject took hold of students and teachers alike.

Reading and then literature came to my rescue at a time when I knew very little of the language and eons before the "Speak Good English" movement began, exhorting Singaporeans to speak good English.

I was lucky in one other way. I had good teachers - self-confident, dedicated and free from central controls and a school environment which insisted that everybody, teachers and students, spoke good English.

No other distractions, no other politics with regard to language teaching and learning and no other strains of English distracted us from the acquisition of standard English.

I was 13 when I switched from my mother tongue, Malayalam, to English. It was not an easy adjustment to make, but then I had nowhere to turn except to English if I wanted to be part of the mainstream of society.

During my struggles with the language, I discovered the pleasures of reading and literature.

Reading newspapers, magazines and all the self-help and self-improvement books that form the bulk of reading in Singapore do count, certainly in developing one's language skills and an appreciation of its beauty.

But literature offers more than that and nobody extols the role of reading and literature better than Mr Harold Bloom, that great authority on the subject. He said: "There is a prime reason why we should read: Information is endlessly available to us but where shall wisdom be found? ... Reading is one of the most healing of pleasures ... Ultimately we read to strengthen ourselves."

"Searching for truth, I turn to fiction," wrote Mr Joseph Nye, the author of The Power Game: A Washington Novel. He is the former dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and was responsible for the Carter administration' efforts to slow the proliferation of nuclear weapons. As a long-time professor of international politics, he used to suggest that his students supplement their academic readings with films and novels. In a March 11 article in The International Herald Tribune, he explained why.

In fiction, he said, he could elaborate the dreams and nightmares involved, "describe the struggles for power, the effects they have on friendship and the problems of sorting out moral obligations ... "

He wanted "to portray the way policy is influenced by the seductiveness of power, the temptations to prevail and the struggles to maintain one's moral compass".

Academic abstractions could not convey what it is like to wrestle with issues as powerfully and as imaginatively as fiction could.

There are many more reasons for studying literature. It offers immense opportunities in the classroom for developing the power of the imagination, creative thinking, critical and analytical skills as well as writing skills, all of which are major concerns for educationists in Singapore today.

Unfortunately, literature was dropped from the core curriculum in Singapore schools when it became focused on exams - for the achievement of short-term gains rather than long-term gains rather than long-term goals of preparing young people for life and citizenship responsibilities.

A 2002 survey in the United States suggested a correlation between a decline in reading and a decline in participation in the art, levels of historical and political awareness and writing skills.

Fortunately, there are signs of renewed interest in some schools here. Earlier this month, I spoke at the opening of a seminar and debates on literature, organised by an enthusiastic and dedicated group of teachers at the Crescent Girls' School. It was attended by more than 600 secondary school students.

These teachers understand the uphill struggle ahead of them and they need all the help and support they can get.