Kheng May's reflection 3

I really enjoyed the learning journey on Monday; perhaps it was because it was a long time since I had one and an even longer time since I went out as a class of 20. It was really an experience walking around the CBD area and looking at how the buildings and places have changed, and also how people viewed us. I’m sure a bunch of kids walking around reading poetry isn’t a common sight in that district. As I made the transition from secondary school to JC, the learning journeys took place in smaller groups and although I remember lots of fun times with my classmates, I don’t remember if I actually did ay learning from it. This learning journey helped me to see that it is very possible to do both (the fun and the learning) and it is very encouraging to see that Literature provides us that opportunity.

I thought that what really worked for the learning journey was that it was very well catered to the places that we visited. Unlike other learning journeys, I always felt that the task assigned could be completed elsewhere and the answers could probably be found off the net. In other words, there was no connection or significance to physically being in the particular place. The poems chosen and the tasks assigned for our learning journey were very appropriate for each part of the learning journey and I felt that we were moving toward something purposeful. Reading a poem about the Singapore River in front of the Singapore River was definitely a refreshing experience and it made the poem a lot more relatable, especially since I am a Singaporean. For our students, their memory of Singapore is probably no different from the Singapore that they see today so the poems shed some light into the past. Being in the place and allowing the poem to bring you back 50 years ago certainly allows us to feel empathy and sympathy for Singapore’s history.

I also realized that importance of having an essential question of the learning journey and that we should always go back to it along the way. It is a good reminder to students of what to look out for when they are going from place to place and it is also a good question for discussion and reflection. The questions in the handout also called for a more reflective kind of answer rather than a factual one. This ensures that students are thinking critically and they have sufficient stimuli for their creative task later on. The choral reading that we did in Change Alley was very significant to the poem as we no longer see the things that the poet used to see in Change Alley. In fact, it felt like we were having a mini protest to the change that has occurred in Change Alley, and this was further dramatized by the fact that the security guards kept chasing us away. I feel that this can be a teaching moment to point out the change in Singapore; that stopping to read a poem is now seen as a threat and that the people walking around didn’t stop for a minute to watch what was going on. Are we really that busy?

The learning journey gave me an enjoyable opportunity to learn (from a teacher’s and a student’s perspective) and it expands my Literature teaching horizon. I will definitely implement this in my teaching in the future.