Cooperation as an educational philosophy

As many members of the group have mentioned, we teachers as well as our students are resources --- human resources. As we are products of our historical reinforcement, we are bound to be limited. Hence, we need to expand our mind ---- ‘talk to other people’.

Collaborating with fellow teachers from other fields (with different epistemologies) can be very challenging. However, it’s an effective way to check our construct validity, whether what we do is valid or not. Another source of GE, if I may say so, should come from the community. It is also our task to make the students see the relationship between local and global issues. It may be too soon for me to suggest that we need to ‘localize’ English.

There are also resources produced by humans, e.g. objects and texts, including symbols --- visual stimuli. Texts are also available on the Internet. Creating knowledge-building communities online may help, in the case where ICT is available. However, information per se is just the first step. After all information properly understood and utilized is ‘power’.

The question is: How should we approach those texts, bearing in mind that there are contesting groups of interests (each claims to have the truth ---that it is right and the other is simply wrong, out of either malice or ignorance)?

How can we deal with texts related to global issues philosophically, rather than polemically?

Two big problems may arise:

1. Some people, or I would say the majority of EFL/EFL teachers, might hesitate to enter this new territory --- the human right movement, for instance. Are there such things as universal standards? Some teachers may feel that they are ill qualified to address big issues like human rights. English teachers like us, some may argue, may run the risk of becoming another Western crusade against the practice of the rest of the world. Can we claim that such values are universal, or they are essentially our own standards? In short, is freedom simply a luxury of the West?

2. I have tried green topics (the environment), which I have found to be quite ‘safe’. I have not tried anything related to human rights. Some foreign students and migrants (in Australia) may not feel very comfortable to talk about certain topics concerning their lives in the past. In language testing context, from my experience, tapping on some aspects of their history could trigger their wounds, which may be quite depressing for them and us. Are we prepared and ready to take on this psychological challenge?

I have raised the two issues. I’m well aware that they are not new. All of us here have encountered them in one form or another. Would anyone like to comment on them?

Janpha

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