Abstract:
In today’s global landscape of mass migrations and mass media, what kinds of connections do our students have to their place and environment? In the ever-changing urban landscape of Singapore, how do young people learn to appreciate both the global and the local? How can Literature encourage a critical place-conscious education? This paper draws on pre-service teachers’ experiences of place-based learning journeys in Singapore to understand what a place-based education looks like in the Singapore context and to ask how a critical place-conscious literary education is possible.In Singapore, the inclusion of Singapore texts on the national high-stakes examination, the O-level examinations as part of the National Education movement in 1997 and the institution of Learning Journeys since 2004 are nods towards appreciation of local writing and understanding of place. As part of their education, pre-service Literature teachers engage in literary Learning Journeys to experience and learn how to design learning journeys as part of their training at the National Institute of Education. This paper examines the experiences of three cohorts of pre-service teachers as they participated in and reflected upon their examination of various places in the Singapore through literary lens. I draw on lesson materials, student work, reflections and interviews as well as official articulations of National Education and Learning Journeys to show how place-based learning situated in specific contexts have the power to encourage personal reflection of place and memory, as well as provide resources for thinking about how the literary functions in place. At the same time, it is possible that these learning journeys may encourage a superficial, nostalgic and limited understanding of place rather than encouraging a critically conscious place-based education that is aware of the myriad representations of place, different voices that may speak, and the biasness of one’s own experiences of place. I conclude by discussing the possibilities and challenges of a literary place-based education for more locally and globally aware Singapore teachers.