Read on Twitter
WHY SINGAPOREANS DON'T TAKE LIT: A THREAD.
first, two premises:
1) literature is the study of how texts construct meaning and affect (emotional and psychological impact).
2) sec school and jc lit are, structure and aims-wise, different from the lit that's taught at uni level.
first, two premises:
1) literature is the study of how texts construct meaning and affect (emotional and psychological impact).
2) sec school and jc lit are, structure and aims-wise, different from the lit that's taught at uni level.
to understand why there are few lit students at the higher ed level, you need to get why there are so few lit students at the lower-mid ed levels to progress upwards, which really begs the question, "why does lit hold lower social/cultural/economic prestige from a young age?"
like all other subjects, sec sch lit is part of a skill-based curriculum; it aims to teach you critical thinking. it's kind of the same way that you don't teach math because knowing how log functions work is inherently impt, but bc it develops your logic & reasoning skills.
yet, math and science are 'economically viable' subjects, because they can lead to definably profitable career paths (doctor/engineer). humanz leads to law at best, so in the eyes of the pragmatic sgean (parent), it is 'safer' to take sciences because you leave your options open.
so economic privilege is definitely an element of lit uptake, whether we like it or not. i have a fair few friends who wanted to do lit at jc, but were prevented by economic circumstance and the idea of it (and related further studies) as a less-than-viable future career path.
but it's more than that, bc lit has a lower uptake rate in general, as a contrasting subject or in doubles. trip science folks tend to favour geog, and then econs, rather than lit, bc on the sliding scale of humanz, it is a well known fact that geog is easier to min-max than-
-hist or lit, let alone more niche subjects like art of music. at jc, geog is replaced by econs for its 'pragmatism' and potential for min-maxing and so on. to boil it down a little, it's because science subjects/econs look more FACTS AND LOGIC, and therefore are easier to score-
while subjects like hist, and then lit, do not rely on FACTS AND LOGIC, and instead rely on MAGIC VOODOO TO MAKE SHIT UP. this is obviously junk reasoning, since all subjects are equal, and things can be as subjective in chemistry as they are objective in lit.
the skill that lit relies on is actually sensitivity, both to emotions and to craft. close reading is about picking up on structure and symbols, little clues left by the author (conscious and subconsciously) to signal their intent to the reader, and drawing links between those-
-symbols and the feelings and meaning you experience from a text. with enough practice and experience, you can grind this skill to read these symbols quickly, and then it becomes as mechanical and routine as drawing a graph. what does the text suggest? who is the audience? what-
-does the author assume in writing the text? how does the author carry those assumptions across to the reader, how are they CONSTRUCTING that meaning? when taken to a higher ed level, these suggestions become bigger— the author is not just talking about the theme of family, they-
-are implicitly talking about race, about gender, about class, about colonialism. we joke about how 'the curtain is blue' because to someone operating on a primarily FACTS AND LOGIC academic OS, sensitivity and critical reading become foreign skills. because of the-
-profit-pursuing min-maxing academic industrial complex, learning those skills then becomes a zero sum game. the priorities of the sg education system are more on 'getting a job' than 'teaching critical thinking', and the latter is only relevant in its support of the former.
as for why people don't get that lit is an interdisciplinary subject, that's just because they're not exposed to it. the vast majority of critical literary theory is stuck in the upper echelons of literary education: part of why i was so frustrated with rg lit was that only-
-the raffles academy (the raffles equivalent of AP classes) kids got to access that critical theory at age 15-16 because the lit dept decided that the rest of us were too dumb to understand it on top of our basic curriculum. uni lit is radically different in its approach to-
- teaching the subject from sec sch/jc lit, and the first time i got anywhere close to accessing it was doing my H3, by which point there are so many barriers to entry that a handful of students each year get to do it. i'm a lit undergrad now, but i wouldn't be if not for-
-my experience doing the H3 lit paper. and in the end i got a distinction for H3 lit and a B for H2 lit so like. evidently they train such different skillsets that it's possible to be outstanding at one and mediocre at the other.
TL;DR capitalism succ, sg lit edu structure bad
TL;DR capitalism succ, sg lit edu structure bad
