Newsletter No. 479

W hen she was reading English as an undergraduate student at CUHK, Evelyn Chan did not feel she needed to study something highly relevant to a specific career path. It was while doing her PhD project at Cambridge that she began to have questions of the meaning and value of her work. For many students of literature, however, the question ‘What are you going to do with a degree in literature?’ would have come nagging much earlier. Prof. Evelyn Chan has now returned to serve at her alma mater as a faculty member of the Department of English. But in addition to literary research which has resulted in a book on Virginia Woolf, she has also published on education, the humanities and the professions. In an empirical and methodologically argued paper published in 2015 in Studies in Higher Education , she has tried to understand how students of literature view themselves within their major and the meaning of their own education. Professor Chan explained why she had crossed from dead authors to live subjects. ‘I wanted to know for the purposes of improving my own teaching and making it more relevant to the students how English majors perceive and construct their own identities and whether we can learn from this to improve humanities education. Getting to the answers required social research methodology and data from real interviews with students.’ Methodology and Findings From her elective course ‘Literature and Education’ offered to undergraduate students of English, she conducted 15–20 minute interviews with eight students. The students were invited to talk about the meaning of being a student in literary studies to them in an open-ended narrative format. After collecting such narratives Professor Chan conducted systematic analyses of the contents to identify emergent ideas and observe the identity creation and the progression of conflicts in the narratives. In their responses, all the students emphasized personal values and development gained from their literary studies, citing, for example, the ability to ‘think out of the box’ and to make ‘keen observations’ because of the habit of ‘close reading’ in their studies. Professor Chan had expected but was still pleased to see that the first global theme that emerged from this study is that literary studies lead to wider and deeper understanding and thinking. Half of the students were more or less at home and at peace with their subject, that is, they have attained fairly stable subject identity and most of the problems or conflicts were overcome or resolved (‘literary studies are more fun and have practical use’). But the other half still exhibited anxiety and undecidability and were more concerned with others’ negative views of English majors. 人文教育的喜與憂 The Joys and Anxieties of a Humanities Education 洞明集 In Plain View Photo by ISO staff 陳 紫茵 在中大唸英文時，不覺得她需要選一門較實用的主修 科目，直至她到了劍橋唸博士學位，她才開始感受到一般 文科生早已感受到的壓力：「一個文學學位有甚麼用？」 陳紫茵教授現已回歸母校，任教英文系。但她除了文學研究，出版 了一部關於吳爾芙夫人的專書外，還就教育、人文學科和專業等議 題進行研究。去年便在期刊 Studies in Higher Education 發表了 一篇實證研究報告，企圖了解文科生如何看待自己的主修以及文 科教育的意義。 為甚麼研究對象從文學大師移到莘莘學子？陳教授說：「為了提升 教學質素，我希望了解主修英文的學生如何看待及建構他們的科 目身分，進而看看可以怎樣改進人文教育。要解答這些問題，需要 以社會研究的方法來分析從訪問學生得來的數據。」 研究方法及發現 陳教授從她的選修課「文學與教育」的學生中選出八人，都是英文 系的本科生，然後分別訪問他們，聽他們自由表述對身為文科生的 看法，之後進行有系統的內容分析，找出重點，並觀察學生身分的 建立及可能出現的矛盾。 所有受訪學生都肯定文學訓練最大的好處是個人的發展，有人說： 「思想跳出框框。」也有人說：「細讀文本令觀察更敏銳。」陳教授 對此並不感到意外，但她還是高興見到學生肯定唸文學可以擴闊 思想經驗。受訪的半數學生接受文科生身分，矛盾相對不大（「唸 文科更有趣，而且也有實際作用」）。但餘下的一半仍對自身的科 目身分存有疑惑，也更介意別人對文科生的看法。 迷失方向 研究另一個重點是學生如何從現在或未來的社會角色來看主修 的科目。陳教授認為這相當重要：「因為對學生甚至對老師來說， 這有助找出結合興趣與事業的方法。和任何其他科目一樣，唸英 文不應該被視為閉門造車的一項作業，但要找到有意義的聯繫不 易，我相信要鼓勵同學不斷探索，同時，同學也要不時自省。」 半數受訪同學看不清主修與將來的社會角色之間的關係是正常的 嗎？陳教授這樣說：「同學入大學時未必清楚自己是甚麼人，以後 會做甚麼事。這是成長的一部分，跟主修甚麼沒有關係。不斷反省 主修科的意義與價值，不是一件壞事，而是一個值得肯定、正面及 必須持之以恆的經驗。」 通往現實的橋樑 陳教授的論文建議，一個總結科目可以為文科生提供跟現實接 軌的指引。中大英文系的畢業規定之一便是完成一項總結科目， 陳教授解釋：「不少學生對畢業後的去向沒有具體計劃，這項總 結科目的意義其實不在於為學生指出就業的路向，而更在於使  其開始一個自省過程，使他們往後不斷探索興趣與事業的關係。 這樣子，不論以後在甚麼崗位做甚麼事，大學的教育將會繼續影 響他們。」 心安理得 回到一個文學學位有甚麼用的老問題，陳教授說：「同學先要問自 己：有甚麼東西激發你，令你感興趣？你的專長是甚麼？有甚麼賦 予你意義和滿足感？接着我會問：這又如何與你唸的科目有關？如 果有一門課令你印象深刻，你可以按對自己興趣及理想的理解， 來具體解釋為甚麼特別受感動嗎？」 最後，陳教授對文科教育下了一個肯定的結語：「為甚麼受個別作 者或作品感動，可以從學生的性格、興趣及才能理解。明乎此，便 可以勾畫出一個未來事業的輪廓。唸文學是一場個人成長及發現 之旅，前途及終站由自己書寫。」 4 479 • 4.6.2016